For Former Foster Care Youths, Help to Make It on Own
Thousands of children end up in foster care each year, and it happens for a variety of reasons. Poverty, addiction, and the incarceration of a parent can often end with families being destroyed and children being bounced around from home to home until they are legally of age to leave the system. Without external supports and little sense of self, what happens to them?
Read the NY Times article here
1 comment:
I aged out of foster care myself, and entered the adult world without a safety net. When I started college, I was 16 years old. I was intellectually ready for college, but emotionally unprepared for the real-world.
I am now married, with two stepchildren. I have a wonderful husband, a graduate degree and a nice house. When I was 17 years old and homeless for two weeks, I did not know that there was hope in my future.
Just this Friday, I attended a youth forum for foster care youth who were preparing to age out of care. It was encouraging that social work professionals were holding the forum -- but discouraging that many of the same issues that I experienced have still not been resolved.
To learn more about the suggestions that young people made during this forum, please see the January 27th entry on my blog: http://sunshinegirlonarainyday.blogspot.com/
Thank you for caring about this issue,
Lisa
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