Freedom is a tantalizing prospect for most 18-year-olds. For teens in foster care, the idea is even more appealing: freedom from psychiatric assessments and court dates, freedom to chart one's own destiny.

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Mahogany Wheeler, 18, left and Darrell Perry, 20, as they spoke recently at a program about children leaving foster care. Click photo for larger image. About aging out Nationwide 25,000 foster youth age out of the system each year. Foster children who left care at 18 were three times more likely than their peers, nationwide, to be out of work or school. 25 percent of young people aging out of the system reported they have been homeless at some point since leaving care. As many as 3 in 10 homeless adults reported they had been involved in the foster care system. 50 percent of former foster youth did not complete high school. 40 percent of young women who opt out get pregnant within four years of exiting. 50 percent of the young men enter the criminal justice system. At least 21 states allow youth over 18 who have opted out of the system to re-enter. Many Pennsylvania counties, including Allegheny County, do not. Allegheny County 80 percent of foster youth opted to exit the system, or their cases were terminated, when they turned 18. 125 kids aged out last year. 56 of those kids were receiving mental health services at time they aged out. 27 were receiving employment services when they aged out. 16 were receiving drug and alcohol services at the time they aged out. Sources: U.S. Census; Child Welfare League; University of Chicago; Allegheny County Children Youth & Families.

But recent studies show that many teenagers who exit the system at 18 face daunting challenges their contemporaries seldom encounter.

Without adult guidance, they are likelier to stumble into poverty, unemployment, early parenthood and incarceration. Their physical and mental health is more likely to deteriorate. They are less likely to finish school and more likely to become drug addicts or crime victims. They are also more likely to become homeless.

"If I didn't run away, everything would be different now," said Darrell Perry, 20, of the North Side, who has slept on friends' and relatives' couches since he graduated from Peabody High School and left his independent living facility three years ago. But, he recalls, "it was summertime, it was nice outside and you had to be in the house at 9:30 p.m."

What happens to foster children when they turn 18 has a major bearing on the adults they become. Children who withdraw from the system in Allegheny County lose access to foster services and funding. They cannot re-enter if they change their minds.

The national data is so compelling that Marc Cherna, director of the Department of Human Services, is reassessing how Allegheny County handles these transitions.

A Downtown forum yesterday featuring Shay Bilchik, president of the Child Welfare League of America, explored new ways to help teens who are more vulnerable and less grounded establish themselves.

"No kid should come out without a permanent relationship. That's what we really have to strive toward, that they have someone who they can count on. We have to do a better job of helping these kids make it," Mr. Cherna said.

The hurdles they face make that difficult, as interviews with several veterans of foster care show.

Mahogany

Mahogany Wheeler was born 18 years ago in the correctional facility where her mother was an inmate and has been in the system ever since. Ten placements later, she still feels unbalanced.

"The whole experience is hard to adapt to. It's always you against the world. You go into a placement with your eyes closed. You don't know nobody. You don't trust nobody," said Ms. Wheeler, who lives in a group home near State College.

The file that followed her from placement to placement alerted caseworkers that she was a "monster" with a bad temper and a juvenile rap sheet, she said. She could always tell who had read the file and who had not.

Her files now document that she has a 3.7 grade-point average in high school. She is applying to four-year programs at Temple, Penn State, Adelphi and Georgia State universities and rushing to absorb all she can about scholarships and how to make her admissions essays jump off the page.

Thousands of dollars in scholarship money are earmarked for foster children, yet college admissions officers say the grants often go unused.

"Everyone says, 'You've got to go to college,' but nobody sits down and tells you how to get there," Ms. Wheeler said.

If she were in psychiatric treatment or vocational training, she could stay in the system and continue to get services until age 21. As the county's foster care now operates, college-bound 18-year-olds often get cut from the program when they graduate from high school or get a General Educational Development certificate.

To give these young people a place to come to during breaks, Kids Voice, which provides legal services to at-risk children, has filed several motions to get Allegheny County to give children like Ms. Wheeler a per diem and pay their foster homes during holidays.

Foster children in Florida remain under the umbrella while they are in college and it makes a huge difference for them, Mr. Bilchik said.

Terry

Over the past 18 years, Terry Michel and her husband have taken 93 foster children into the three-bedroom home in Carrick where they raised their two biological children and are raising a 13-year-old they adopted at birth.

It breaks some children's spirits when adults who aren't relatives make big decisions for them, she said. "In some cases, they don't want to leave us and they have to. In some cases, they want to leave and the court doesn't want them to."

One girl opted out of the system at 18 and Washington County gave her $200 to find an apartment. She got a job, settled in with her boyfriend and got pregnant. The boyfriend took off after the baby was born, but by then she couldn't go back to her caseworker. Another child, who had been shuffled from placement to placement since he was 10, left Ms. Michel's home on his 18th birthday. "He said, 'That's it.' He didn't want an apartment or anything."

At yesterday's forum, Mr. Cherna encouraged child welfare workers to look for ways to prevent children in those situations from disconnecting. "A light bulb went off," he said, when he saw a University of Chicago study that surveyed foster children in three states at 17 and 19. Illinois had significantly better outcomes because most youths stayed in the system longer.

"If you can keep any services going, less kids are going to be homeless, more are going to graduate from high school, go on to higher education and get better jobs," he said. If a judge mandates care, the county has to come up with the money.

Ms. Michel's biological children, who are in their late 20s, still call for advice and guidance. "Mom, I spilled chocolate all over my shirt, what do I do?" or "Mom, are you online? Could you give me directions?" It's that connection foster children often lack.

"Any parent who has seen a child move through adolescence into adulthood knows they need guidance with their successes and failures. Our youth who age out of foster care have the same needs and deserve the same support. We need to step up to that challenge," Mr. Bilchik said.

Shaneka

Shaneka Clark and her older brother were raised by their aunt because her parents were using drugs. When caseworkers removed her from the home as a baby, she was told, she was "starving to death."

At 15, she chose to enter the system with her first child, because she was not getting along with her aunt.

"Now I regret doing that," said Ms. Clark, who is 17 and has run away from more placements than she can count. "It was easy to get in but it's hard to get out."

Two weeks ago, a judge sent her to Bethesda Children's Home in Meadville, Crawford County, because she got into fights in her group home. She wants to regain custody of her two daughters, who are 6 weeks and 2 years old. But they, too, may grow up in the foster-care system.

She wants to graduate, study cosmetology and transfer to an independent living program or "something that's going to teach me to be on my own ... Everything I do in these placements is not helping me. All they teach me to do is talk about my problems."

Darrell

Darrell Perry said he has "always been on track" with his goals because in four foster families, four group homes and one failed adoption, he always spoke up for what he needed.

One of the biggest obstacles for Mr. Perry is getting his paperwork in order. He has no driver's license and no insurance. He has no idea where his medical records are.

Consistency of care is a huge issue for youths making the transition out of the system, said Rob Wittman, a case manager at the Adolescent Advocacy Center at Children's Hospital.

When Mr. Perry applied for a position at the post office, he had to piece together a 10-year history. There wasn't enough room on the sheet for his story. "I don't remember addresses from when I was 4, when I was 8. I don't remember my first few placements."

He never heard back from the post office, but he is on track to complete his training as a medical assistant in July.

A better future

In the past decade, Mr. Bilchik said, Allegheny County has made significant strides in improving the child welfare system: adoptions happen more quickly, early intervention programs help prevent child abuse and neglect. But counties need to pay more attention to children who never get adopted, he said.

"There's a hopelessness about this population," said Scott Hollander, director of Kids Voice, which has pushed for improvements in the system. "Not only do they have a hard time asking for help, they have a hard time getting someone to believe they need something if they ask."

Other jurisdictions have improved their housing programs and educational support and focused on connecting kids to permanent mentors, Mr. Bilchik said.

The sticking point when it comes to extending benefits is finding funding, Mr. Cherna said, "because there's really not money for this."