Meet Augustus Shaw, aka Mr. Talented, Shaw is a former foster youth who is attending NYC’s SUNY Fashion institute of Technology with the help of FC2S’ Education Training Voucher program. He’s also an entrepreneur pioneering the art of the bow tie. “I feel at home when I get dressed or decide to create something unique. I create [...]
While preparing for school in September is an exciting time for most students across the U.S., for foster youth it can be downright scary. Casey Family Programs has reported that 65 percent of those who grew up in foster care changed schools seven or more times from kindergarten through their senior year of high school! It’s [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
