The foster care system is clouded with bad press and cluttered with stories of scarred youth.
But when foster youths age out of the system, there is an entirely new set of challenges they face. The worries about living arrangements, jobs, money, education and food materialize the day they turn 18.
Several organizations help provide former foster children with the opportunity to attend college, but staying in school proves challenging for some.
The ins and outs of college can be hard to navigate for the more than 200 foster youths who attend Ohio University, said Greg Lester, director of the College Adjustment Program and the Athens campus liaison for Ohio Reach, a program geared specifically toward helping former foster children graduate from college.
Signing up for the ACT, applying to colleges, filling out FAFSA forms, getting to orientation, meeting all the deadlines for housing and paying for tuition and books are just some of the obstacles that foster children face without help from parents.
“We want to lower those hurdles,” Lester said.
College graduation rates for emancipated foster youth are a cruel reflection of the challenges these students face. Even though 75 percent of foster kids nationwide want to attend college, only 10 percent do and only two percent graduate.
Until two-and-a-half years ago, no system was in place to help students after they arrived at school. An initiative begun by Eric Fingerhut, then-chancellor of the Board of Regents, produced Ohio Reach.
The majority of work has focused on establishing advocates in departments around campus and training them to help those students, Lester said.
Aside from trying to navigate the various channels, these students often have to recant their stories to get any assistance, said Lisa Dickson, communications chair of the Foster Care Alumni of America Ohio chapter. She said when she was going through school, it was frustrating to repeatedly revisit her past to receive assistance.
“We don’t all have a big scarlet F on our chests,” said Dickson.
Now, when students go into an office to seek assistance, all they need to say is that they are Ohio Reach students or that they were emancipated from the foster care program. They receive assistance, no questions asked.
The help students such as freshman David Muzic receive from the program is vital.
After the state removed Muzic from his home in second grade, he spent years moving in and out of different homes and mental health facilities.
“At one point I was on 14 different medications,” Muzic said. “They thought I was ADHD, schizophrenic, depressed. … But I just wanted to go home.”
He said he thought if he misbehaved enough, the system would just give up and let him go back to his mother.
Muzic did get to live with his mother for a short time, but due to circumstances out of his control, he was reinstated back into the system. After a brief stint in a traditional high school, he was sent to an alternative school.
He did not even think attending college was a possibility until a group of graduates came to speak to his class.
“When they told me about their experience, I knew I had to go,” Muzic said.
Muzic received an Educational Training Voucher from the Orphan Foundation of America and other federal grants to help him pay for school, but he said the help he has received from Ohio Reach helps him reach his goals.
According to Lester, that is exactly what the system is designed to do. He said the program is now working to strengthen communication between social workers in Athens and surrounding counties to garner suggestions about easing the transition.
As far as the success of the program, Lester and Dickson both said hard numbers are not available yet, but the anecdotal evidence of success is strong.
“The best reward is seeing the system work,” said Lester. “We’ve been able to make the road easier for people.”
mh317008@ohiou.edu
@ThePostCulture
