2026 Ohio Outreach to Federal Legislators:

Ohio foster care youth and alumni are excited to be able to talk with federal decision-makers about:

– Supports for current and former foster youth: including Chafee funds, ETV, and how they support pathways to education, employment, and economic self-sufficiency.

– Barriers faced by current and former foster youth, including driver’s license and education barriers, and how they undermine pathways to education, employment and economic self-sufficiency.

We are currently working on one-pagers related to our priority areas listed below:

Chafee Recommendations:

1. States need to have a sense of urgency about making this provision available to foster youth, because it can be used to help current and former foster youth in so many ways. 

2. Extend Chafee eligibility to age 26 to better support successful transitions to adulthood and/or require states to at least extend it to age 23. 

3. Modernize Chafee to reflect today’s costs. Prices and cost of living have increased since this provision was first rolled out in 1999.

ETV Recommendations:

1. Allot the full $60M in ETV funds. Why let them sit there, when they could be helping former foster youth achieve post-secondary degrees/certifications?

2. Allow states to award up to $12,000 per year to youth, to respond to the rising costs of attendance, including housing/food. The current limit of 5K is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of college tuition.

3. Encourage states to open up eligibility; there are currently so many different extra eligibility requirements added by states. 

Foster Youth and Driving Act

• This federal bill would create state and tribal programs providing up to $4,000 per year per youth for driver’s education, training, insurance, licensing fees, and related costs.
• Ohio recently lost our TANF Independent Living Allocation, at the same time when driver’s license requirements increased for young people between 18-21 years old.
• We’ve been researching how other states support foster youth, when it comes to driver’s education, driver’s licenses and car insurance.

ACTION Ohio believes that it is vitally important for decision-makers to hear directly from young people in and from foster care. As former foster youth ourselves, we have been elevating the voices of today’s foster care youth and young adults since 2006.

We are honored to partner in this work with Journey to Success, a multi-state campaign focused on engaging and educating federal policymakers about what’s working and not working to support successful outcomes for youth in foster care.