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Foster children who turn 18 and “age out” of the child-welfare system shouldn’t be left to flounder.
Yet many young adults in Luzerne County and elsewhere, faced with making grown-up decisions without the benefit of a parent or guardian to guide them, end up adrift, lacking the gumption and backing to go to college and a clear pathway to escape life’s pitfalls.
A 2011 study in the Midwest found that, by their mid-20s, only 6 percent of foster children had earned a two-year or four-year degree. That dismal trend apparently holds true locally. In Luzerne County, despite an Independent Living Program to prep teens for life on their own, a mere 5 percent of participants leaving the system are enrolled in college, according to one advocate for change.
Lorine Ogurkis, an attorney and co-founder of the nonprofit Brandon’s Forever Home in Hazleton, recently succeeded in bringing attention to the hurdles for foster kids and enlisting the help of an influential ally. Luzerne County Community College President Thomas Leary reportedly met with about 25 area teens in foster care and intends to connect with even more. “An important message I want to get across to them, ” he told a Times Leader reporter, “is that we truly care and want to help.”
That’s a good start. It remains to be seen, of course, how many of those potential students are inspired to enroll and whether, in future years, a more formal arrangement with LCCC materializes.
Regardless, with so much at stake, Ogurkis and others deserve broad community support to improve foster children’s odds of success. While most won’t end up on the streets, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that “there is an over-representation of people with a foster care history in the homeless population.”
Luzerne County deliberately tries to keep children out of foster care, preferring instead to provide in-home programs to help parents and guardians keep their families together.
In cases where that doesn’t work, however, let’s find more ways to give former foster children a clear shot at success, starting with a college diploma.