Co-production of Care Leavers’ Transition Planning as Young Adults: An Analysis of Young People in CaliforniaFoster Care
The co-production of transition planning (i.e. care leavers having opportunities to influence decisions about their lives) is recognized as an important process internationally. However, little is known about factors influencing care leavers’ involvement in transition planning. This study uses a sample of care leavers in California (n=423) and measured mechanisms care leavers experienced during their TILP process, including worker driven production (i.e. not aware of or not involved), youth-driven co-production (i.e. involved in and led) and youth–worker co-production (i.e. involved in but did not lead) to investigate predictors of transitional independent living plan (TILP) involvement. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine relationships between predictors measured at age 17 and TILP involvement mechanisms at age 19. Our analyses found that most care leavers co-produced their TILP at age 19 either through a youth-driven mode (44 percent) or youth–worker collaborative mode (43 percent); an additional 14 percent of youth were either not aware of or uninvolved in their TILP development at age 19. The findings of this study point to some important future directions for practice that may help to more meaningfully engage care leavers in their transition planning.