The two-year grant to Great Expectations, an initiative of the state’s community colleges, will allow the program to be expanded to four community colleges in Southwest and southern Virginia. Mountain Empire, Patrick Henry, Southwest Virginia and Wytheville community colleges will establish transitional education programs next summer.

Southside, Danville and Virginia Highlands community colleges also offer the programs, which provide access to college education and work-force training for current and former foster-care youths ages 18 to 24.

Virginia has the highest percentage in the nation of teens aging out of the foster-care system without any family support, according to the Virginia Community College System.

The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission awarded the grant. It uses proceeds from the national tobacco settlement to promote economic development in tobacco-dependent communities.

– Karin Kapsidelis

Great Expectations is an initiative of the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education to improve education and employment opportunities for youths in foster care.

First lady Anne Holton also will speak at the forum, which will be held Oct. 23 at 10 a.m. at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

The forum is free, but reservations are required. Register by Oct. 19 at http://www.vccs.edu/Foundation or (804) 819-4961.

College is a trying time, but it’s even more difficult if the people who raised you aren’t your parents. “Of Virginia’s foster youth, only 2 percent get a college education,” Chancellor of the Virginia Community College System Glen DuBois said Wednesday in the Virginia Highlands Community College library. But thanks to an anonymous donation, Virginia Highlands will be looking to change that.

The $150,000 donation received on Wednesday is going to fund a Great Expectations coach. According to DuBois, the Great Expectations program is nearly a year old and still growing and aims at turning that 2 percent of foster youth into a much larger number through counseling, coaching and scholarships. “We’re going to help a lot of students just like me,” said Mandy Lester, a Virginia Highlands student and a foster child.

Lester, also a member of the Virginia Highlands Great Expectations Citizen Advisory Committee, said she believes in the program and hopes that it can help many fellow foster children find the path to higher education and brighter futures. While she isn’t spearheading the program, Lester said she will be able to offer a much more sympathetic ear than most others involved. “I’ll be able to relate with them and understand them more. We’ve been through the same situations,” she said.

While Lester said that “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” she also said everyone has difficulties. According to DuBois, the other 98 percent of Virginia’s foster children often ended up homeless or incarcerated if not eking by at a low-paying job. “The goal line is not getting foster youth in here, but getting them to a college education,” said DuBois.

The man chosen as the college’s coach, Tony Fuller said that he may not have been a foster student himself, but he did know about the struggles of a student in college being a fairly recent graduate himself. Though he had only been on the job for three days, Fuller had already made 15 contacts in an attempt to bring area foster students into the college and help them realize their true potential. “I was raised by a single parent and often had to look to other people for support,” he said. “I always wanted to give back. Now, I can grab those middle and high schoolers and make their dreams possible. We can make graduation possible.”

According to a Virginia Highlands press release, the college is now one of eight in the state that has the Great Expectations program. “Though it’s a new initiative, we are already seeing some great results and we are excited about continuing that success,” said Chair of the Virginia Foundation for Community Colleges Education Laurens Sartoris.

For additional information, contact Virginia Highlands at (276) 739-2449 or the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education at (804) 819-4962.

Justin Harmon can be reached at 628-7101 or jharmon@wythenews.com

ABINGDON, Va. – Foster kids who age out of the Virginia system are twice as likely to wind up homeless or behind bars as to enter a college classroom – but the state’s community colleges are trying to reverse the odds.

With the help of an anonymous $150,000 donation, Virginia Highlands Community College on Wednesday kicked off its Great Expectations program, which is designed to help foster teens transition from high school to college and life on their own.

Virginia Highlands is the ninth of the state’s 23 community colleges to offer the program.

“When you look at the aggregate data of higher education in Virginia … the aggregate data looks very good,” said David Wilkin, president of Virginia Highlands. “But if you pull out of the data the students who have come to us from the foster care system, the data is less rosy.”

Glenn DuBois, chancellor of the state’s community college system, said Virginia leads the nation in the number of foster youth who live in group homes instead of families – and only 2 percent complete a college degree.

Dubois said the idea behind Great Expectations is to recruit young foster care teens and regularly bring them to a college campus to show them around, make them feel welcome and hook them up with resources to help them connect with higher education and future success.

Started about a year ago by the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education, Great Expectations is named for a Charles Dickens novel about an orphan boy who grows up to be a gentleman.
“It’s a very common story to talk to a foster care youth who may or may not have graduated high From Page A5

school who says, ‘I went to seven high schools and lived with nine different families in the last four years.’ The constant upheaval is really a challenge,” said Jeffrey Kraus, spokesman for the Virginia Community College System.

“It’s that lack of permanency … it just makes everything that much harder,” Kraus said. “It makes the American Dream, which you access through higher education, nearly impossible.”

A focus of the program at Virginia Highlands is the Great Expectations coach, an individual who will serve as coordinator and mentor for foster care youth between the ages of 13 and 24.

“He’s going to meet them at the steps of Virginia Highlands Community College to hold their hand through graduation,” said David Matlock, a vice-president at the college.

Matlock said the coach, Tony Fuller, will help the young people develop career plans, navigate the college application and financial aid systems and ease the transition to college life.

Fuller, a 21-year-old graduate of Holston High School, Virginia Highlands and UVa-Wise, said he’s never been in foster care. But, “I know how it feels to be overwhelmed with everything life can throw at you,” he said.

Another young person who will be helping with the program, Mandy Lester, has been through the foster care system. A full-time student who also works nearly full-time hours as a supervisor at Sam’s Club, Lester said she will help fellow students set goals.

Lester said her difficult life experience, taking her through many foster homes, has pointed her toward a desire to help children – not just foster kids, but other teens who have difficulties as well. She is studying police science, with plans to complete her education at a four-year college and eventually become a juvenile probation officer.

Lester also is in the process of moving out of her final foster family’s home.

“Don’t be ashamed of where you came from,” Lester says to others in foster care, “because it’s where you’re going [that matters], not where you have been.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701

YOU SHOULD KNOW
Great Expectations Coach Tony Fuller
tfuller@vhcc.edu or (276) 739-2558
Mandy Lester
akl28@vhcc.edu

By Flowers Umble
BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE

Germanna program for foster youth finishes first year

Sabrina, a Culpeper County teen, hopes to start a family tradition.

“I will be the first in my family to go to college,” she said. “And I plan on being a pediatrician.”

She’s enrolled at Germanna Community College for the upcoming fall semester, and hopes to transfer to a four-year school from there.

But a year ago, Sabrina simply couldn’t see herself as a college student.

She is one of thousands of foster youth nationwide who want a college education but can’t quite figure out how to attain that goal.

Studies show that more than 80 percent of foster youth hope to go to college.

Those same studies vary as to how many ever enroll–some say as many as 48 percent; others say as little as 7 percent. Less than 3 percent finish college.

A pilot program in five Virginia community colleges hopes to change those numbers.

On Friday, Sabrina and 14 other foster teens received certificates from the first Great Expectations program at Germanna. Only first names are used for foster youth under 18, to protect their privacy.

The program began at Germanna last fall, when teens ages 16-19 toured the college’s Fredericksburg campus; met with teachers, advisors and financial aid counselors; and attended mock college classes.

The program was held in two groups–one in the fall and one in the spring–and each attended two Saturdays.

The goal is to give foster youth a taste of college life, said Amanda Becker, Great Expectations coordinator at Germanna.

The program also matched each foster youth with a Germanna student as a mentor. That part of Great Expectations is unique to Germanna, said Carol Underhill, Great Expectations director for the Virginia’s Community Colleges.

Crystal, a 17-year-old Stafford County high school junior, didn’t know if she wanted to go to college until she talked with her Great Expectations mentor, Ashley Goldstein.

“She was closer to my age, telling me about her experiences,” Crystal said.

The pair e-mail and text regularly, and Goldstein supports Crystal through her bad days.

And she’s another addition to a support system Crystal gained when she entered foster care almost two years ago. Her three foster sisters and her foster parents also encourage college.

Before, Crystal said, she never thought much about it.

“Mostly, I just thought, ‘Am I going to survive until the next day?’” she said. “Now, I have a lot of people pushing me to go to college.”

Crystal said her biological family also wants her to continue her education, but didn’t know how to help her do that.

Now, she plans to attend Germanna after graduating from high school and hopes to be the first from her family to attend college.

The foster youth also said they found support from the Germanna staff.

Audrey Terrell, 18, is enrolled for the fall semester. The Stafford foster youth wanted to attend Germanna but didn’t know how she could afford it or how to apply before coming to Great Expectations.

“I didn’t know how any of that worked at all, until they explained it to me,” Terrell said.

Becker helped Terrell through the financial-aid applications and the enrollment process.

When Terrell took paperwork home, Becker called regularly to make sure the teen was keeping up with everything.

Many child advocates say that’s what most foster youth lack: someone keeping on top of all the applications and forms. But Becker and the other faculty have walked many of the Great Expectations participants through the process.

And, already three students have enrolled at Germanna for the fall semester–all of the program participants who finished high school this year.

Sabrina plans to start in August, and was excited to learn she’ll be able to transfer to a four-year school later. She then hopes to go on to medical school.

“I never thought this was in my future,” she said. “But now I’m here, I’m ready, I’m excited. I’ve got my schedule.”

Amy Flowers Umble: 540/735-1973
Email: aumble@freelancestar.com

Published: April 8, 2009

Foster Children Deserve A Better Chance

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

I am once again left without words after reading that a young person — with his entire future ahead of him — says, “A roof, a pillow, hot water,” when asked what he wants out of life. Sadly, this is an all-too-common response from our foster youth.I appreciate Zachary Reid’s coverage of the Richmond housing summit in the news story, “Young Adults Tell of Foster-Care Hardships,” and the summit’s focus on the challenges of current and former foster-care youth. I wonder though, how many heart-wrenching stories like this have to be told before we stop treating fostercare youth like throw-away children.

By the age of 25, one out of five former foster youth will be homeless. Another quarter will be incarcerated. Less than 2 percent of those children will graduate from college.

A future is a big price to pay for a child whose family is unable to care for him or her.

The stories and statistics have compelled us to act at Virginia’s community colleges. With the help of the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education and Virginia First Lady Anne Holton, we are constructing a program called Greater Expectations. The goals of the program are to work with high school-age foster youth to keep them in school and then to help them attend and complete a community college program.

I am proud of the good people from within our colleges and the larger community who are working hard to make this effort a success. But we can always use more help. Please visit our Web site at http://www.GreatExpectations.vccs.edu to learn how one can join us to make a difference for children who are too often forgotten by our community.

Glenn DuBois, Chancellor,

Community colleges in several states are working to establish stronger support systems for former foster-care children, who are more likely to wind up homeless or in jail than earn a degree as they struggle to overcome unstable lives.

Among them is Virginia, where the Community College System’s Great Expectations program uses grants and donations to provide money for tuition, transportation and living expenses. It also connects more than 120 students with mentors, career counselors and other help at seven of the state’s two-year schools.

Many other states have started their own initiatives to help youths in foster care once they “age out” of the system and venture into adulthood. And it’s needed: More than a quarter of foster-care youth will be incarcerated and more than 20 percent will be homeless before age 25, according to a 2007 report by public-policy group Pew Charitable Trusts.

Only 20 percent of foster-care youth nationally will seek education beyond high school, and fewer than 3 percent are expected to graduate from college.

“I never thought I’d ever get my high school diploma, and never thought I’d start college at 17, too,” said Andrea Hatcher, who dropped out of high school and was shuffled among group homes and foster care in different cities after her mother lost custody of her when she was 14.

Hatcher, now 18, hopes to pursue a nursing degree now that she’s completed her nursing assistant certificate at Southside Virginia Community College through the program, which started this school year. She regularly communicates with her academic adviser, who helped her navigate the education system and kept her on task.

In California, higher-education officials set up a support network for former foster children in the state’s 110 community colleges, and the state’s four-year systems offer similar help for housing, financial aid, academic advising and other needs. A 1996 state law called on state schools to expand services for former foster youth.

The Westmoreland native requested the funds through the omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on Wednesday, granting $155.1 million to 186 projects into Virginia localities, university and nonprofit groups.

That spending amounts to $19.97 per capita for Virginia, less than the national per capita figure of $22.39, according to the government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The GCC money would help pay for a nurse training initiative and state-of-the-art equipment.

The spending bill allocates $287,000 for upgrades to the combined sewer overflow system in Richmond, $400,000 for security upgrades at the Oliver Hill Courts Building and $617,500 for GRTC buses.

While pet projects continue to benefit, Virginia’s congressional delegation varies on the view of earmarks and the method for doling them out.

Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, didn’t put in for any. He favors a freeze on earmarks because he thinks they contribute to the federal deficit.

Sen. Jim Webb, on the other hand, sent out news releases Wednesday about project money he secured.

He helped secure $95,000 for the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education’s Great Expectations Program to improve access to postsecondary education for foster-care youth.

Also through Webb, the state Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services is getting $285,000 to expand a partnership to provide addiction treatment for miners who have lost their mining certification because of substance abuse or dependence.

Rep. James P. Moran, D-8th, brought home the most bacon among the Virginia members of Congress, with 19 projects getting $6.7 million.

Austin Durrer, a spokesman for Moran, said, “The congressman is proud of the money he has been able to bring to Northern Virginia to help with local projects, such as transportation and health care for low-income people.“

Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd, secured $237,500 for a food bank in Newport News that he said needed a refrigerator because of increased demand in tough economic times.

He also got $150,000 for the Richmond-based Virginia Center for Policing Innovation, a nonprofit organization that tailors training for individual law-enforcement agencies across the state, said Lynda O’Connell, executive director of the organization.

Scott defended earmarks, saying they come out of existing funds and don’t constitute new money. If they were not allowed, there might be more pressure to raise government spending to accommodate demands in home districts, he said.

Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-4th, said his office has an extensive vetting process before approving expenditures. They must be requested by local officials or by the military, he said. Forbes obtained $3.8 million for 10 projects.

Virginia Tech’s Horseshoe Crab Research Center will get $400,000 to maintain its work, including an annual abundance survey, said Eric M. Hallerman, department head for fisheries and wildlife sciences.

“Our data set on that is arguably the most unbiased and respected estimate of abundance on the coast,“ he said.