Beyond The Foster Care System: The Future for Teens

Introduction

Selina rushed from her last college class of the day to arrive on time. Hurrying down the block, she noticed Gloria, a young woman standing on the sidewalk outside the imposing law school building. Gloria looked uncertainly at the main entrance doorway, unsure if she belonged there. “You here for the graduation?” Selina asked. Gloria didn’t look surprised, but her answer seemed a bit cautious. “Think so.” “Come on, I’ll go in with you,” Selina said with a smile. She knew how imposing the building looked to this girl, how it represented another world, although it was not that far from where either of them had grown up. As incongruous as the situation might have appeared, a supposedly troubled teenager from foster care honored and celebrated at a famous law school, it was happening in just thirty minutes. In the polished marble lobby, Selina asked a uniformed security guard where they should go. Together they found the correct room, which had wood paneling, glass covered bookshelves, and dark oil paintings on the walls. Gloria momentarily hesitated to enter the room, and then she broke into a cautious yet uncontrollable smile of pride. This was her graduation. Soon two dozen teens surrounded Selina and Gloria. Most lived in temporary foster homes and group homes. They had survived the traumas of separation from their families, movement from one placement to another, and countless other painful experiences. One might expect they would be thankix Introduction ful to realize that they were getting too old to be in foster care, but they all knew that the day was soon approaching when they would have to leave their foster homes or group homes; they were scared. The plans for where they would live and who would help them were, at best, shaky. Gloria and her fellow graduates had gathered to celebrate their completion of a self-advocacy seminar we offered them. The purpose of Youth Advocacy Center’s Getting Beyond the System® Self-Advocacy Seminar is to empower teens by teaching them to advocate for themselves and prepare for independent futures. The seminar helps youth between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one understand how to critically analyze information for crucial life skills: making decisions, setting goals, developing achievable plans, negotiating with adults, presenting personal strengths, understanding the other party’s needs, and giving compelling written and oral presentations. During the seminar, these teens learned from a facilitator trained in the Socratic method. They read, studied, and argued about the meaning of case studies, or stories of young adults just like them who were struggling to make it in the world. Each participant identified a career goal for himself or herself, and, as the final project, each conducted an informational interview with a successful professional in their career field of interest. Despite their tough demeanors and challenging pasts, all these teens had successfully completed this seminar with the hope of improving their chances of succeeding at independence and reaching their dreams of success. Naturally, the teens were excited. They usually got attention for all the things that were wrong in their lives, not for their accomplishments. Completing this seminar was an important achievement. Each week of the semester , they had complained about the workload of homework assignments, reading, and the requirement that they attend all twelve classes. Some of this whining attempted to cover their fears that they would not survive the semester ; some was ordinary teenage grousing. Their caseworkers and social workers also fretted that undertaking the seminar work might lead to students facing another devastating failure in their lives. Yet, the teens had assembled here for their graduation. The teens in the audience stopped fidgeting and paid attention when Selina stood up to address them. She was their hero. Selina spent thirteen Beyond the Foster Care System x years of her life in foster care. Now, three years after leaving foster care, she was studying in a prestigious design college and pursuing her dream of becoming a graphic artist. The students had never met her in person, but they felt they knew her. They had learned about her struggle to make a future for herself through watching a video about her in one of their classes. When Selina took part in our seminar she was quiet and thoughtful, yet insecure and unconvinced that she would succeed. Now she represented success , and her success was a compelling reinforcement for...