Our Kids Need Your Support. Although foster care was originally designed to provide temporary emergency guardianship, more and more children enter it as infants or youngsters and remain until they reach adulthood. Thousands of children age out of the foster care system each year at the age of eighteen. A high percentage of young people who age out of the foster care face significant risks of imprisonment, joblessness, welfare dependency, early parenthood, and homelessness. As any parent can attest, the developmental process of growing from adolescence to adulthood is filled with challenges. The children who suffer most in foster care are those who need the most help. Often, the most deeply troubled children are shuttled from one foster home to the next because there are so few foster parents adequately trained to meet their needs. Described in one congressional report as "America's discarded children," these permanent wards of the state are often afflicted with severe behavioral, emotional, or physical problems; Most of these young people face adult lives of despair unless there is some extraordinary intervention. Many end up in prison, in mental health institutions, on welfare, drug and/or alchohol dependant, or dead. Our hearts are their hope...