Literacyworks Center and Foster Youth
There's an enrollment and a persistence issue that foster youth face in attending community college. Literacyworks has seen a growing need for working with and increasing the numbers of foster youth students aged 18-24.
It's hardly surprising that foster youth struggle in school. Most come from impoverished families and have been removed after being exposed to neglect or abuse. Many spent their childhoods moving from one foster placement to another and bouncing from school to school. In 2018, the high school graduation rate for foster youth in California public schools was just 59 percent, compared with 83 percent for all students.
A California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH) study tracked thousands of former foster youth in California. The study found that a growing number are going to college, but many are not graduating. The study found that just 49.6 percent completed their first two semesters among those who enrolled in post-secondary education. The gains in enrollment are linked to recent initiatives in California to help foster youth transition to adulthood and succeed in college.
These support programs help the roughly 35,000 current and former foster youth attending California colleges. Of those, about 4,000 attend the University of California or the California State University systems, and the remaining 88 percent are enrolled in the state's 115 community colleges. About 9,000 young adults ages 18 to 21 take advantage of extended foster care.
We are working with the Santa Rosa Junior College to provide advising and financial support for these foster students by recruiting them for our Center program. Many of our students are going on to advanced degrees at four-year colleges and advanced job training.
We will work with our referring partners to increase the numbers of our Foster Youth for the 2021-22 school year. Our partners include the Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) Foster Youth Services and Extended Opportunity Programs & Services (EOPS), Sonoma and Marin County library literacy programs, Roseland school district, and Graton Rancheria. Our goal is to enroll at least 20 Foster Youth aged 18-24 in the Fall and Spring Semesters of 2021 and 2022.
LITERACYWORKS BEGINS ESL CLASSES AT GRATON RESORT AND CASINO (GRC)
The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Tribal Council has asked Literacyworks to set up and conduct a class for English for Speakers of Other Languages for GRC team members and Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR) Tribal Citizens.
Literacyworks submitted a proposal and budget. Both were accepted by the Tribal Council. An orientation for the learners was conducted on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Our ESL instructor, Kathy St. John, began assessing the English skills of those who registered for classes (what level are their listening/speaking/reading/writing skills). We began conducting two six-month-long classes for beginning-level learners on Tuesday, May 11, and Thursday, May 13 (one at 10 AM and the other at 2 PM). Classes will be completed on Tuesday, October 12, and Thursday, October 14.
The classes will be conducted live over Zoom by nationally known ESL instructor Kathy St. John. Each learner will have an Internet-connected iPad with a keyboard and earphones. A Literacyworks educational technologist will be in the classroom in-person to assist learners with technology and coursework. Each learner will have the opportunity to meet virtually with the instructor in one-on-one sessions to support in-class learning.
Injustice and unfair circumstances occur every day in so many aspects of our lives and society.
The evolution of Foster Care in America is both a responsible and human response to a difficult situation when families fall apart, but a profoundly incomplete one.
I had an opportunity to attend a conference a number of years ago focused on California Community College’s response to the crisis of Foster Care ‘timing out’. It woke me up to the profound limitations of an attempt to deal with the accident of children not having a secure family structure. A young man presented at this conference.
Well dressed and clearly intelligent, and somewhat shy about speaking in front of a room full of college administrators.
He talked of not trusting his future, not knowing if he would be cared for, but deeply appreciating the foster parents who did care for him. He briefly described the sense of belonging but without a normal family. His relations with the other foster care kids he lived with were often complicated.
This young man graduated from high school, and his foster family was there to celebrate with him. But that is where he discovered the cliff in the Foster Care system. There were no supports after high school. You turn 18, and you are on your own and on the street. Through no fault of his own, he was on his own.
Good people cared about him, and he had done the things young people are supposed to do, but he was still without support to define the next stage of his future. He told the audience that he had spent the last night and many nights sleeping in his car, often having trouble finding food. He was attending classes at a Community College and working when and where he could. His goal was to become a lawyer so that someday he could help other kids like him to have a chance to find their way. This story is sadly not uncommon.
We at Literacyworks Center are proud to be part of a response in addressing this critical challenge. For no fault of your own, you have hope, and you are not alone.
Chris Schultz
Literacyworks Center Director
