Establishment of Resource Centers to Provide or Facilitate Assistance
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The private, nonprofit community is urged to establish a network to provide information, assistance, services and supports to persons from sixteen (16) to twenty-four (24) years of age who were in foster care on the person's eighteenth birthday and persons from sixteen (16) to twenty-four (24) years of age who have been in foster care at any time after the person's fourteenth birthday.
The resource centers shall provide or facilitate the assistance necessary to:
Deal with the challenges and barriers associated with the transition into adulthood and early adult years;
Support post-secondary education, vocational training and job skills development for such person;
Find and retain employment, housing, transportation, parenting and family support, health care and mental health care; and
Navigate systems and procedures that impact the person's education, employment, health and mental welfare and basic needs.
These services shall be available at any time until the person reaches twenty-four (24) years of age regardless of whether the youth elects to remain in a voluntary extension of foster care arrangement with the department or the youth chooses to terminate any relationship with the state.
The resource centers shall be supported in part by the department in the community where the centers are located, subject to the availability of funds specifically appropriated for this purpose. The department is authorized and encouraged to share staff with the resource centers, as well as provide financial support.