Teen foster care crisis continues to spiral out of control. The numbers of children aging out of foster care has jumped to 41 percent.

Between 1998 and 2005 more than 165,000 teens have aged out of the system. Nearly 25,000 in 2005 alone: This shows a devastating increase of more teens falling between the cracks.

They are left to face a harsh adult world as teens struggling with their own issues and demons from past abuse or neglect. We take them out of a world of drugs, abuse, or neglect in the hopes of giving them a chance at life, but we abandon them at the most critical time of their lives.

Foster teens that age out find themselves returning to the lifestyle that they were removed from. Not always by desire, but because that is what they know. They do not know how to not go down that same road. That is what they lived and without help or guidance they do not know how to achieve a better life.

If you talk with different caseworkers, it is not uncommon for teens who age out of foster care to return as parents with their children now in foster care. They make all of the wrong choices due to lack of support and guidance. How to be a parent is something that they did not learn in their lives.

We are losing the battle for the children that we are supposed to be protecting. Maybe the truth is that we have not even started fighting for these children. Do we not owe something to these children?

Virginia has the nation’s highest percent of children aging out of the foster care system. The numbers will continue to climb until foster care reform becomes important to this nation. If we continue looking the other way, then we need to find more foster families, invest in more drug rehabs, increase public welfare assistance and build more jails or prisons.

Related article at adoption.com:

Fostering Teens