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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Donna Van Alst, associate director of
the Rutgers’ Center for Children and
Families, and Mary Davidson, center
director, outside the center’s
Livingston campus offices.
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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Alexandra Finch, a student at Ramapo
College, with Adam Staats, center
project coordinator. Finch made a
successful transition from foster care
to independence and is now a leader for
Project MYSELF, a center program aimed
at improving the lives of youth who are
aging-out of the public child welfare
system in New Jersey.
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Children in the child welfare system face many challenges. Where will they live and go to school? Will they ever be reunited with their birth parents or will they be adopted? As these children grow older, they also confront the prospect of eventually leaving the state’s custody and heading out into the world, often with little in the way of support.
For the past few years, however, young people aging out of New Jersey’s child welfare system haven’t had to go it alone. Transitions for Youth, run by the Center for Children and Families at Rutgers and funded by the state Department of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), was established to help young people who will not return home or be adopted before they turn 18 leave the child welfare system.
“One of the basic problems for young people in the system is support,” such as medical care and housing, said Mary Edna Davidson, director of the center. “Many of these kids become homeless; many end up in the juvenile justice system.” Indeed, studies reveal that youths who age out of the child welfare system are more likely to be homeless, unemployed or without adequate health care than other young people. “Transitions for Youth helps them understand that they have some choices and that the exercise of choice is the path to success,” said Davidson, a professor at the School of Social Work.
Transitions comprises four main components: a support program for teens pursuing post-secondary education; a substance abuse prevention program; a Web site and newsletter with information about youth services; and a project that collects data on services received by aging-out youth.
The impetus for Transitions came with the passage in 1999 of the federal Foster Care Independence Act, also known as the Chafee Act. That act expanded independent living programs by doubling the federal allotment to states for these programs. The act also allowed for more flexibility in providing services to promote independence and extended Medicaid to youth until the age of 21. An estimated 9,000 youths are in foster care in New Jersey, about 1,300 of whom are ages 16 to 18, the age when they need to start thinking about their future outside the system.
Davidson is particularly proud of Project MYSELF, which stands for Mentoring Youth toward Social, Educational and Life Fulfillment. The program helps youths between 14 and 21 explore their options for life after high school and supports them as they pursue post-secondary education.
All young people in New Jersey’s child welfare system are eligible for scholarships that can be used to fund everything from vocational and culinary schools to four-year colleges. Project MYSELF provides an online mentoring program that is now mandatory for anyone receiving one of these scholarships. (Currently about 300 students are taking advantage of the aid.) Older students who have come through the system are paired with younger students to ease their adjustment to the rigors of college. The mentoring is done primarily through e-mails, so it’s not limited geographically, although the program’s leaders try to match up mentors and mentees going to the same schools, when possible. If it’s not possible to match a mentee with a mentor at the same school, a match is made based on major or personal interests.
Online mentoring chats run the gamut from where to grab a good burger to who the best professors are and how to navigate college bureaucracy. Michelle Acosta, a first-year student at Ramapo College, said having a mentor, who is also at Ramapo, has been a lifesaver. “We e-mail each other a lot,” she said. “She helps me with a lot of school stuff and makes me feel like I’m not alone. She’s been very helpful. If not for her, I would be so stressed out.” She said that she’s also been talking to her mentor about becoming a mentor herself next year.
Older students getting the scholarships can also opt to be leaders in Project MYSELF. Their role is to give presentations to youths at group homes and other facilities about going on to higher education. Or they can be bloggers, writing about their higher education experiences on the Web.
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