An Educational Pipeline for Massachusetts' Most Vulnerable Children

HOLYOKE, Mass., Nov. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During a conference meant to "Re-Envision Foster Care" in Western Massachusetts, leaders described the educational pipeline being built for the state's 8,000 children experiencing foster care.

Of the conference, Senator John Kerry said, "I applaud the parents, advocates, and community leaders for coming together from all across Massachusetts to do the real work of providing for our foster care youth and strengthening the programs and communities that are so critical to their growth and development."

From elementary school through college, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and partners are working with limited resources to ensure a better future for the state's foster children. This puts DCF, long a leader in national foster care policy, at the vanguard of a national movement bent on the particular educational needs of children in foster care.

"Together with our community partners— schools and colleges—we are setting the expectation that our children and youth will achieve their educational potential that is so vital to their stability and future success," said Paul Fitzsimons, Western Regional Director for the Department of Children and Families.

The Educational Coordinator Program, started in 2005, has placed workers in each and every of the Department's 29 area offices and has served hundreds of children, ensuring they can stay in a school if it is in their best interest. If a move is necessary, these workers collaborate with any one of the state's 370 school districts to quickly transfer credits and records, strengthening the historically strained ties of communication between education and child welfare.

In Orange, Superintendant of Public Schools Paul Burnim said that the level of collaboration between DCF and School Districts is on the rise.

"Historically we called DCF in times of severe crisis," Burnim said. "Today we call to communicate about how children are doing generally. That is a real paradigm shift where we are now working together to serve the needs of children."

For youth experiencing foster care from ages 14-21, the holistic approach employed by DCF's statewide Adolescent Outreach Program has attracted the attention of national researchers because of heightened instances of post-secondary success.

Former foster youth Eryn Tobin attributes her ability to earn a degree in social work from Westfield State College to the combination of a strong advocate in her Adolescent Outreach Coordinator and the state's financial assistance.

"My Adolescent Outreach worker helped me apply for college, student loans and find things like renters insurance," Tobin said. "Without the financial assistance, I am not sure that I would have been able to pay for college."

Part of Tobin's success can be attributed to the state's longtime practice of extending foster care to age 22, which was bolstered with a tuition waiver for public universities and colleges in 2002. In 2008, the legislature voted to waive fees as well, ensuring foster youth are afforded with post-secondary educational opportunity when so many foster youth across the nation are turned out at age 18.

In 2008, the Federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act offered matching federal funds for states that extended care past 18. Just last month, the Massachusetts Legislature ratified language sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster), which qualifies the state to draw down millions annually to keep foster youth in care past the age of 18.

"This language is vital to ensure that Massachusetts receives the federal funds it deserves for its continued dedication to serving children who age out of the foster care system," said Flanagan.  "We must help these kids get on their feet and lead productive and healthy lives."

As the practice of child welfare evolves across the country, leaders have started to take a serious look at how to best serve foster children's educational needs. With concerns for safe and stable homes the first priority, such considerations of educational achievement have often had to come second. But states like Massachusetts, which has worked hard to create the infrastructure to support the whole child, are poised to lead the practice of foster care into the important realm of ensuring educational equality for all children.

Contact: Daniel Heimpel, 510.334.8636 [email protected]

SOURCE Fostering Media Connections