If you are a foster youth graduating from high school, there are programs out there to help you. Youths who are aging out of the child welfare system CAN get access to university scholarships and housing. Youths who are aging out of the system in Manitoba can contact Futures Forward, which is a program to help those in care or recently from care go to university or college.
Read on to hear some college success stories from The Chronicle of Social Change:
From The Chronicle:
When she was 5, Jacqueline Robles was already dreaming of going to college.
Her father was in jail, her mother was addicted to drugs, and she and her two older brothers were living in separate foster homes.
“But even in kindergarten, I was a school person,” Robles said.
By her early teenage years, that inclination had become a goal.
“The whole mindset of going to college, that was my number one thing.”
That mindset helped steer her through the tumult of Los Angeles County’s foster care system.
It wasn’t about physically where I was at: group homes, shelters, foster homes,” she recalled. “It was about me knowing in my mind where I wanted to be.” Today Robles is a freshman in college, studying business at California State University-Long Beach. She lives in a dorm, has a job on campus as a resident advisor, and plans to earn a doctorate.
As the spectacle of commencements unfurls this spring on college campuses across California, students like Robles are rare. Only a tiny fraction of young people earning degrees have come from foster care.