A continuing need for support
Youth leaving government care still require help with education and life skills, advocates say
In a province where the high school graduation rate is better than 80 per cent, foster children are stark exceptions. In the last five years, an average of just 32 per cent of kids in care have graduated from Grade 12 by their 19th birthday, the age at which government support abruptly ends.
There are many reasons why foster children fall behind in school: As a group, kids in permanent care are almost seven times more likely to be in special education programs than all other students. More than 40 per cent have physical disabilities or a chronic health impairment, while nearly 30 per cent have intensive behaviour problems or a serious mental illness.
But more than any other reason, foster kids are behind because they have often been bounced from home to home, causing them to fall behind and making it almost impossible to graduate with their peers. Many are still in high school when their government care ends, and although a public school education is usually free, at age 19 these youth suddenly become responsible for their own costs of living — making graduation less of a priority.
Those who do graduate and want to carry on to post- secondary institutions face even greater challenges because they have no families to help them financially, emotionally, or with things like applications or student loans.
The benefits of graduating from high school and getting a college education or job training are obvious. One American report, Extending Foster Care to Age 21: Weighing the Costs to Government against the Benefits to Youth, found that extending care to age 21 meant more former foster kids got at least some college education, significantly increasing their income throughout their lives.
Robert Davidson, who went into care full- time at age 16, says he would probably be in school working toward his goal of becoming a nurse right now if government care lasted until age 21.
“It would make a huge difference,” said Davidson, 19. “If they could pay for my schooling, it would be a huge load off my back. I could focus on school instead of having to focus on paying my rent and needing money.”
Instead, he has a job doing asbestos removal, trying to save up money to go back to school to become a nurse.
“The work I do is labour, pretty much,” Davidson said. “I wish the pay was more so I could save up for school.”
Davidson’s mother had hepatitis and diabetes, so she was in and out of the hospital while he was growing up.
“Whenever my mom was in the hospital, I was put into another home,” Davidson said. “She had a very struggling time. She was in the hospital for a few years before she passed away.”
Davidson was just 14 years old at the time, and he lived with one of his three older brothers for a while before going into a foster home. He was in and out of foster care as a teenager, but went into care full time at the age of 16.
Pulling the plug
Davidson graduated in June from Trees, an alternative program run by the Surrey school district that his foster mother had encouraged him to try. While he was in school, Davidson was tutored by someone provided by Aunt Leah’s Place, a non- profit organization that works with foster kids and teen mothers, and Frontier College, a non- profit, volunteer- based literacy organization.
Davidson was a good student and didn’t really need help to succeed at school, but he developed a bond with his tutor, something advocates say is absolutely key to success for all young people, particularly former foster kids who don’t have parents to turn to.
Because he was still in Grade 12 when he turned 19, Davidson was able to apply for bridge funding to help with his living expenses until graduation. But that money disappeared as soon as he graduated, so he had to find work right away to pay his portion of the rent for the home he shares with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend.
Vancouver School Board chair Patti Bacchus said extending government support until age 21 would make a “remarkable difference” in foster kids’ lives, in terms of getting launched into adulthood. Children can attend regular school throughout the course of their 19th year. But often, she said, former foster kids simply cannot continue because they lose the government funding for housing, health and mental health care, and other supports.
“Why pull the plug just when a lot of them are getting their act together?” Bacchus questions. “We already invest a lot in these kids, from kindergarten on. It makes sense to give them that little bit of extra support to be successful and independent adults.”
Beyond high school
Paying for post- secondary education is tough enough even for those with full family support, but for youths who are on their own it’s an almost insurmountable hurdle.
Davidson wants to become a nurse, so he plans to move with his brother to Kamloops and register for the four- year bachelor of science in nursing program at Thompson Rivers University.
It’s going to be difficult to achieve that goal without any financial support.
That is one reason why B. C. children’s advocate Mary Ellen Turpel- Lafond has been prodding universities and colleges in the province to offer tuition waivers for former foster children, an idea inspired by the progress she has seen in the United States.
In August, Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo granted free tuition to former youth in government care, and in September, the University of B. C. followed suit. Thirteen students enrolled at VIU under the program last fall, and 16 are registered for this semester, university president and vicechancellor Ralph Nilson said.
There are some government bursaries and scholarships specifically for youths who have lived in government care, but many of them end at age 24, while Nilson said the average age of the students accessing the tuition waivers at VIU is 26 or 27.
The Federation of B. C. Youth in Care Networks, an organization that provides support to youth in and from care, would like to see educational programs for former foster kids be universal, low- barrier and extended to at least age 30.
In January, Turpel- Lafond was part of an announcement that Coast Capital Savings was launching a $ 200,000 fund to pay for living expenses for kids from care who are enrolled in post- secondary education. Turpel- Lafond would like to see other corporations contribute to the fund, and she expects other universities and colleges to join UBC and VIU in waiving tuition fees.
“It’s a vision that’s going to take a while, but I just feel there is real potential in British Columbia because people want this to happen,” she said.