Nikki Heaphy, of Pawtucket, 16, who is in foster care, participates in a rally yesterday protesting the governor’s proposed budget cut that would eliminate services for youths in DCYF care at age 18. At left is Kristen Smith, 17, of West Warwick.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — If the General Assembly approves the budget as proposed, 857 young adults will be on their own come July 1.

Those young adults have grown up in state care, in most cases because the state Department of Children, Youth and Families determined that their parents were unfit to care for them. They are over 18, but have been able to continue receiving state services — and living in foster care, group homes or apartments with the state’s help paying the rent — as long as they are enrolled in college, in some cases through age 23. But that could change come July 1, if lawmakers approve ending services to this group at age 18, across the board, as a budget-balancing measure.

The state should be looking at ways it can take in more revenue, including raising taxes, before cutting services to “our most vulnerable citizens, our foster youth,” said Lisa Guillette, executive director of the Rhode Island Foster Parents Association.

Many of the youths who would be affected came to the State House yesterday, packing the marble stairs in the rotunda and blaming Governor Carcieri, who wrote the cut into his budget proposal to save an estimated $12 million in general revenues.

They held signs reading, “Not cool, Carcieri” and “Carcieri: conscience-free since 2002.” They sang an adapted version of the song from the musical Annie: “It’s a hard knock life for us… If no one helps out youth in care, we’ll all end up on welfare.” They chanted: “Don’t worry, governor, we won’t cry. We’ll be warm at the ACI.”

Cut off from state-paid housing, college tuition and health care, the young adults will have trouble finding jobs and making ends meet, and will end up either on welfare or incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions, they claimed.

“Many youths will probably become homeless,” Guillette said.

Karen Jorgenson, executive director of the National Foster Parents Association, did not attend the rally, but was quoted in informational materials distributed yesterday. She posed the following question to Rhode Island lawmakers: “How many of you ceased to provide any support to your own child the day he or she turned 18?”

The state provides housing assistance and state-paid RIte Care health insurance for youths in DCYF care through age 21, and pays for up to eight semesters of college tuition for full-time students, beyond age 21 in some cases. But Guillette emphasized that in order to qualify for these benefits past age 18, young adults “have to be showing active involvement in the transition to adulthood. We don’t keep cases open for kids who are sitting around playing Nintendo.”

The change would place Rhode Island in the minority of states: Eight states, none in New England, end child welfare services at age 18, according to statistics provided by DCYF.

It will be summer before the General Assembly approves a budget and it’s uncertain whether the proposal will come to pass. But DCYF Director Patricia Martinez said her department has already begun working with the youths who would be affected to craft “transition plans” for their exit from state care. She said her department is working to find other state programs that can help pick up the slack. For instance, she said, the state Department of Labor and Training has federally financed job-training and placement services for “at-risk youths,” and the Office of Health and Human Services has a teen pregnancy prevention program.

Martinez said the state has “a moral responsibility” to help those young adults envision and achieve success on their own, and to direct them to other entities that provide services similar to what the young adults now get through DCYF — be it life-skills classes; financial assistance with rent, utilities and health care; student loans; or job-placement services.

But Martinez objected to the demonstrators’ claim that being cut off of DCYF services at age 18 is significantly more harmful than being cut off at age 21. If the change means that someone who turns 18 goes from DCYF custody straight to receiving welfare payments, Martinez said, “they would still be going on welfare at age 21.”

egudrais@projo.com