Foster Kids Initiative
Dare to dream. That gets a bit tedious after about a million times, doesn’t it? Let’s face it, most people don’t have the skills to truly follow their dreams. Most of us were dealt a set of cards in which professional quarterback simply doesn’t have a chance. Most of us weren’t born with the talent to be great singers or atheletes or whatever else kids may dream of becoming. Most of us will have to pursue a different kind of life. Instead of chasing our dreams, we’re just going to have to have a plan.
Where do all of those scholastic, career, and life plans come from?
If you’ll take a moment to really think about the answer to that question, you’ll understand why, for some kids, just having a plan is something of a dream.
At any time, there are roughly 400,000 children living in foster care in the United States. Many won’t be reunited with family. Some will spend their entire childhood in foster care until they eventually age out of the system.
To “age out” of the foster care system simply means to turn eighteen without being adopted. Almost all states allow youths to continue, by request, within the foster care system until age twenty-one, but most choose to leave the system instead. One in five are homeless upon leaving the system, half will be able to find work by age twenty-four, seventy percent of girls will be pregnant by age twenty-one, and fewer than three percent will earn a college degree in their lifetime, according to statistics.
This is not an issue we can just “throw money at.” To these young adults, we need to throw opportunities. To those who follow—those who will be turning eighteen in the coming years—we need to show success stories. When there are requirements to receiving benefits and opportunities to succeed, there become personal goals to achieve those requirements. As a teacher, I can tell you that it was heartbreaking to overhear two young girls talking about how they couldn’t wait to graduate and get pregnant so they could start getting their checks, but that’s their definition of success. Well, maybe not success, but certainly security, and that’s comforting, I get it. I just think we need to do better as a society than to set the bar so low that young girls are actually planning on government assistance and teenage pregnancy as a source of income. That’s a terrible waste of potential, but they grew up in that system, with single mothers who made their living off of government assistance. That was what they knew as their best oppotunity to make their way in the world.
Now, imagine not even having a single parent to raise a child. Imagine a child growing up in an abusive household, being removed from the only family they knew, and being moved from home to home, from school to school, as they struggle with depression and trauma from their earlier years. It’s hard enough for kids to wrap their heads around the concept of creating a future, it’s only that much more difficult when they’re still reeling from a troubled past.
As mentioned, one in five kids who age out of the foster care system are immediately homeless, and as mentioned, helping them means creating opportunities. Because we’re dealing with people, we cannot apply a one-size-fits-all solution. In time, we intend to start a scholarship program, however, a kid with no desire to attend college is not going to be motivated by a scholarship. This initiative is broad-based, dynamic, and extremely important. We are always open to fresh ideas and new allies to help with job placement, military recruitment, college preparation, trade schools, GED assistance, mental health and crisis counceling, and financial planning.
Your subscription to the Tunnel, in support of the Aging Out initiative, helps kids make a plan, make connections in the areas they wish to pursue, and get their toes pointed in the right direction along their paths. It helps younger kids see that light at the end of the tunnel, puts them on the track toward pursuing a brighter future, and gives them the confidence to dare to dream… of a stable, average, peaceful life.