Casey Family Programs: Supporting Success
Supporting Success is the Casey Family Programs‘ framework for colleges, policymakers, and advocates concerned with improving higher education outcomes for students in foster care. In many ways it overlaps with the findings of the Education Advisory Board‘s report on campus support for students emerging from foster care, a research initiative that was also informed by CFP.
According to the second version of Supporting Success (Dec. 2010), there are more than 500,000 children and youth in foster care in the US on any given day. Each year, about 20,000 of the youth who are 16 or older age out of care. Compared to the national average of 24%, only about 7 to 13% of students from foster care enter college, and only about 2% obtain their bachelor’s degrees. (8) The statistics are especially dismal considering that at least 70% of youth in foster care express a desire to go to college. (7)
Many of the sweeping reforms in the education of youth in or emerging from care were put in place only in the last few years. (more…)