The Home Stretch, a coalition of 163 child welfare organisations, has advocated for states to provide the extended care option saying it should be a universal right for all young people in foster care across Australia.

Cathy Carroll, the manager of the permanency support program for Wagga Anglicare, works with vulnerable children who need to stay with extended relatives or foster carers.

She said it is critical for the leaving age to be extended to 21 to provide more support to foster children.

"There are not many children that leave home at 18 that parents don't support," she said. "It's difficult for them to go out into the world on their own."

Ms Carroll explained that the young adults Anglicare works with know they can come back to support until they 25, but they don't have the funding to manage the cases.

"We can give them direction and guidance, but that's it," she said.

"When a child turns 16, we start working on leaving care plans, but we are asking them to act as adults in a big person's world."

Brad Addison, team leader of the permanency program at Marymead in Wagga, echoed the calls to extend the age.

IN OTHER NEWS:

"For kids in the care system, it's like a cliff they are coming up to, and when they turn 18, all of the support around them is taken away," Mr Addison said. "It's time to extend the age."

Mr Addison said the preferred model would be an "opt-in system" where the young adult could decide if they wanted continued support.

He said while foster parents might want to continue the support, it might not be viable without the backing of funding and networks.

Mr Addison said "devastating" research shows that 35 per cent of young adults who leave care experience homelessness in the first year, and almost half of boys will have contact with the criminal justice system in the first year.

"Decisions like this should not be based on money. They should be based on people," he said.

"But, if you want to look at it that way, Detroit Access Economics did a study that showed for every dollar the government spent on extending care, they get two dollars returned over 10 years."

Member for Murray Helen Dalton is calling on the NSW Government to catch up with other states which offer support to out of home care until the age of 21.

"I know as a mother of four children, the care doesn't stop at 18," she said. Ms Dalton said she is keen to put a bill through on this issue and align NSW with other states.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: