Remove Driving Barriers for Those in Foster Care
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Do you recall how exciting it was when you turned 16 and could drive? What none of us realized at that age was how our parent’s insurance premium significantly increased when they added their newly licensed 16-year-old to their policy. If you are a parent of older teenagers, you have experienced the same shock.
For Indiana’s teens in foster care, their excitement is no different from their non-foster peers. However, their journey in gaining access to a driver’s license and a car is often more arduous, simply because they are navigating the process themselves.
Older foster youth are challenged in identifying approved drivers and accessing vehicles to complete the state’s 50 required driving hours. Then once they overcome that obstacle, they often pay 40 percent more in annual insurance premiums than their non-foster care peers – simply because they aren’t able to join an existing family plan.
Foster Success is leading the way in creating the new Insuring Foster Youth Fund to help offset these barriers by paying for additional driving hours with a certified instructor and offsetting some of the additional costs for insurance.
The Insuring Foster Youth Fund will be supported with public and private dollars – including funds from the Insuring Foster Youth License Plate to be developed with your demonstrated support later this year.
We need 500 Hoosiers to step up and sign the petition to support the license plate and we are on a tight deadline to get these signatures by March 30. Please indicate your support by completing this petition and then share it with your friends and family and invite them to do the same.
By supporting this effort, you will be helping a young person in foster care access reliable transportation to get to work and school. That will help them drive to a more successful life.