For most teenagers, their 18th birthday is a welcome milestone. Adulthood beckons, with college and employment hanging before them like ripe fruit.

That's not the case for many of the state's foster children.

Despite good intentions by social workers and foster parents, the road to independence is tough going. Child welfare advocates say these youth are more likely to become homeless, suffer mental illness and face unwanted pregnancies. And they often have no idea who can help.

But Saturday, at a special daylong conference of current and former foster children 14 to 24 years old, the youth will share experiences and suggestions on how to take control of their lives. About 40 participants are expected, a fraction of the roughly 2,700 children under state foster care on any given day.

"It is going to get kids talking to kids," said 19-year-old Vanessa Melendez-Makimoto, who had been a foster child for five years.

"They can give advice and help with questions and fears," she said. "It is a way for kids to see what has happened from older kids."

Melendez-Makimoto is vice president of the Hawaii Foster Youth Coalition, which is helping to sponsor the conference along with the Hawaii Foster Parent Association.

A sophomore at the University of Hawai'i, she works two part-time jobs — one at Longs and the other as a tutor for elementary students — and receives $529 a month for living expenses from the state that helps former foster children attend school, Melendez-Makimoto said.

Independence is the biggest fear that foster children face as they prepare to "age out," the term used to describe becoming an adult. Between 100 and 125 foster children become adults each year.

"They are afraid they are going to be homeless," said Keli Lloyd, a 19-year-old former foster child who was homeless herself earlier this year.

"When they turn 18, most foster homes do not let them stay there," said Lloyd, an outreach coordinator for the foster youth coalition. "You end up getting kicked out and could be living on the streets. Fifty percent of the youth end up living on the streets."

Lloyd was in foster care for about two years but wound up reunited with her mother on the Big Island, where she graduated from high school in 2004. A few months after graduation, she left for O'ahu, determined to attend college but lacking family support.

She lived on the street while working at a Subway before the coalition helped her find scholarships, fill out applications and offered her a job. An aunt and uncle offered to help, though, and now she is a freshman at Kapi'olani Community College.

As an outreach coordinator for the coalition, Lloyd tries to help foster youth avoid the problems she faced.

"We are there to listen and understand what they are going through and to just encourage them to look for scholarships," she said. "To go to college and to find people that are going to be their support system and help them throughout life. That is what we try and put out there."

Cynthia White, project director for the foster youth coalition, hopes that the conference participants will become "less passive" about their lives.

"We want them to come away with a sense of self-advocacy," she said. "That they see they have rights and can stand up for them and that they need to be a part of the team saying what they need, saying what they want."

That can be difficult, she said. Foster children are often not ready for college and are not "goal oriented."

"And many do not succeed in that first year that they do go because their transition is so overwhelming," she said. "They don't know how to find a place to live. They don't have a lot of skills managing money. They never had any money. And they don't have anyone to fall back on when things don't work out."

The Youth Strand for Foster and Former Foster Youth will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Sheraton Waikiki hotel as part of the 10th annual Hawaii Foster Parent Association Conference.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.