Foster Care to Success

“I’ll Survive”

tinar | August 7th, 2012

Alisha Adkins is a former foster youth survivor. She wrote the poem below while she was in 10th grade struggling to overcome what she described as a “horrible home life”. At the time, the only adult who listened to her and mentored her was her English teacher, who encouraged her to write her feelings down and to keep moving forward. Today, she’s happily attending school in Ohio, earning degrees in criminal justice and social work with the help of FC2S’ ETV and scholarship programs. She’s even in the process of publishing her first book of poetry! Check out Alisha’s poem, “I’ll Survive”:

It is hard every day to survive,
But I do.

I don’t know how long it takes to get by,
But I’ll Survive.

Read More

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Foster Care By The Numbers

tinar | August 6th, 2012

The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) has just released The State of America’s Children® 2012 Handbook. In case you’re not familiar with their work, CDF is an excellent national nonprofit that pays particular attention to the needs of poor and minority children and those with disabilities. And their new handbook has a lot to say about foster youth. Here are some of the most interesting facts we gleaned from a quick read-thru:

- Every two minutes a child enters foster care and remains there on average more than two years. Of the children who exited foster care in 2010:

• 51 percent were reunified with their parents.

• 21 percent were adopted.

• 8 percent went to live with relatives.

• 11 percent (nearly 28,000 youth) were emancipated out of foster care without connecting to a permanent family. Youth who age out of foster care have greater chances of dropping out of school, not attending college, being unemployed, and experiencing financial instability and homelessness.

The CDF report has a helpful chart that breaks up state-by-state foster care numbers. You can see the increase or decrease in foster youth from 2005 to 2010, AND the report lists their racial and ethnic distribution (nationally and by state). According to the federal government (as reported by the Associated Press), the number of U.S. children in foster care dropped for the sixth straight year, falling to about 400,000 compared to more than 520,000 a decade ago.

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From Foster Youth to Doctor

tinar | August 3rd, 2012

Southern Illinois University’s Department of Psychology is reporting on one of our students: “DOCTOR Smith’s work has appeared in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Career Assessment, and Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being.”

This is what we like to see: our students earning prestigious titles, degrees and jobs; our students giving back; our students having a positive impact on the world.

Michael Smith (Ph.D., 2011, Kansas State University) was one of our Casey Family Scholars. He is now an Assistant Professor in the Applied Psychology program at Southern Illinois University. How did he go from foster youth to doctor? Learn more about his journey.

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August 2012 Hero

tinar | August 1st, 2012

This month’s hero is Jenny Vinopal.

We Cannot Fail

tinar | July 27th, 2012

Ever wonder what it feels like to be a young person who has aged out of the foster care system and is struggling to put themselves through college? We received an astounding letter from one of our students, Michael from Ohio, detailing just this. He forwarded it to us after sending it to his county executive asking for continued funding for a program that provides foster youth w/ a limited amount of money for college. This is his plea:

“We, I, desperately need help from someone or something. We have no families to fall back upon for support. I do not want to ever have to be an adult recipient of foodstamps, Medicaid, public housing, or social security income. I not only want to be successful, I have no choice but to be successful. I have watched, during my brief few years of college, many of my friends failing out of school. They cannot fathom how lucky they are that that is an option for them. We, former foster youth, cannot fail or make serious mistakes, otherwise we will end up on the streets and not in the comforting hands of mom and dad in their suburban home. We cannot fail.”

While petitioning the county for more funding, he acknowledged that programs like ours have helped him out immensely, writing:

“Thanks to the generosity of Foster Care to Success, I’ve been receiving $5,000 a year – mostly to pay down student loans so I don’t drown in them upon graduation. They also generously provide scholarships, learning opportunities, and support to former foster youth. They are an amazing organization.”

Powerful stuff.

Interested in learning more about how you can help young people like Michael in their struggle to graduate?

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A Powerful Partnership

tinar | July 26th, 2012

Now that our summer InternAmerica program has wrapped up, we’re hearing more and more from our interns about their day-to-day experiences. One such intern is Nikki Goncalves. Nikki interned with Alliant Credit Union – a close partner in our mission to connect foster youth with the education and training they need to successfully enter adulthood. Nikki blogged about her experience on Alliant’s site, writing that:

“Alliant is one of the organizations that donate money to FC2S. As someone who was once a part of the foster care system and received grants and scholarships from FC2S, I never imagined that this summer I would be interning with the organization that helped to provide me with scholarships and grants for my education.”

Read more about Nikki’s experience working in the marketing and communications department at Alliant on their Stay Connected blog. Or, learn how YOU can become eligible to join Alliant Credit Union by donating to any of our programs to help foster youth.

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It Pays to Be Nice to Everyone

tinar | July 25th, 2012

James Spivey is a junior at West Virginia University, studying management information systems. He recently sent us an email, which we thought was very worth sharing!

“I learned a valuable lesson today.

I was running around campus the entire day to get everything situated for school. Unfortunately, when I got to the financial aid office, they wouldn’t give me my independence status because my court papers were old and difficult to read. While going back and forth with the secretary, a gentleman came in and asked if anyone had change for a $20. I smiled, went into my wallet, and gave it to him. He then asked me what I was doing in the office, and I explained my situation. At that point, he revealed that he was the chairman of financial aid. He changed my status on the spot for me! He also said that he would write up my award letter and have it ready by tomorrow morning.

I guess it pays to be nice to everyone.”

Well done, James!

It certainly does pay to be nice. And thanks for sharing your story with all of us.

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Success in all Areas of Life

tinar | July 19th, 2012

Our students are successful in so many areas of life. Take Condola Williams for example. Condola is a former Education Training Voucher recipient who graduated from a leading Maryland community college in 2010. She’s now a junior at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore Campus.

She’s feeling great about her life, her education and herself. You see, Condola was recently featured in the Huffington Post’s Healthy Living section for taking control of her health and losing a whopping 115 pounds!

She’s an inspiration to all of us – her discipline, positive attitude and hard work has not only helped her overcome a difficult past and excel in school but helped her, as she puts it, “enjoy life more than I ever did before”. Go Condola!

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Always Looking Up

tinar | July 17th, 2012

One of our ETV students, Alex, has traveled to Borneo to participate in a program sponsored by Miami University of Ohio and the Cincinnati Zoo. And guess what? He’s keeping a blog about his adventures. His major is primatology with a minor in global sustainability and conservation. He will be studying several species that are endemic to Borneo including, as he describes it, ‘the elusive Tarsier’. Things for Alex are looking up, and so is he, into the trees where, according to his blog, he’s found an orangutan. Read more below and on his blog.

So I am at the Danu Girang Field Centre in Borneo. You could look it up on a map, but you wouldn’t find it. Just check out the giant forest there on google maps, I’m in there.

Internet access is limited, and I am really shocked we have been able to use it. It has been humid and extremely warm, and I mean WARM. Generally within several minutes of work I am sweaty. We have been extremely busy. I wake up around 5 am or sometimes 6 and typically retire around 10, sometimes earlier. There is no air conditioning at all, and the power goes out around 11 P.M. This means no fans, so ideally you should try to fall asleep before 11. Once you get used to the heat it is actually not that noticeable unless you’re busy doing something and you’re gonna sweat buckets.

Last night I heard of an orang in the area so I went to survey the trees. I found some possibilities for where it might have built its nest. This morning I was outside by 5:30 looking for its nest. The best way to find them is to locate where they sleep at night and then arrive early to track them. After waiting for a while and walking in the general area, LOW AND BEHOLD THERE WAS AN ORANGUTAN!!

Find out what happened next and read more of Alex’s adventures on his blog, Borneo Research.

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FC2S’ 2012 Summer Celebration

tinar | July 16th, 2012

Last week, with generous sponsorship from international law firm Reed Smith, FC2S held our annual Summer Celebration at the firm’s office in downtown Washington, DC. The celebration wrapped up our 2012 InternAmerica program, which places outstanding students in prestigious internships in Washington, DC and other major cities across the U.S. and provides the assistance they need to participate. The event, held on the penthouse level of Reed Smith’s high-rise building, allowed for magnificent views of the nation’s capital. InternAmerica participants and other FC2S students and graduates were there in full force, mingling with sponsors, partners, volunteers, employers and FC2S staff. Check out the photo of our 2012 interns below (can you believe we were able to wrangle them all up for one big photo?).

BACKGROUND: Since 1994, FC2S has brought hundreds of students to Washington, DC and helped others across the country launch their careers through InternAmerica. FC2S interns have worked at the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and on Capitol Hill. They have also worked at the Siemens Corporation, Burston-Marstellar, Hyatt Hotels, the Washington Hospital Center, Alliant Credit Union, Morgan Stanley, and the American Bar Association. Click here if you’re interested in helping the program become an even bigger success next summer!