The STARS at PCC: The push out of the foster care system
Thirteen years old and out of her home, at the time Theresa Reed was not sure why she had been sent into foster care. Her mother had placed her voluntarily, and Reed knew that if that’s what her ill mother wanted, she would comply. From there her navigation through life and school had become arduous.
Reed spends her days training caregivers, holding classes on sex trafficking and more; she is most known for bombarding the estimated 200 to 250 foster youth of Pasadena City College with a string of emails.
Reed is the advisor and coordinator of Scholars Transitioning and Realizing Success (STARS), PCC’s program to support current and former foster care students. Her barrage of emails is vital. They have been what gets students to come and seek her and the STARS counselors, and explore what assistance is available for them. Foster care students transitioning into college are often left with no resources, guidance or motivation.
Now as COVID-19 shifts everyone’s lives into a sea of uncertainty, it goes without saying that youth in foster care and those who aid them, are being hit. At STARS and NextUp, another foster youth program of PCC, the counselors and advisors are working to find a way to connect with students and help make the uncertainty and fear of the pandemic minimal.
“This has brought to light a lot of challenges and issues for our students that were present before COVID-19 and have only been amplified,” said Niki Dixon.
“This has brought to light a lot of challenges and issues for our students that were present before COVID-19 and have only been amplified,” said Niki Dixon, director of Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOP&S), NextUp, STARS and other foster care programs of PCC.
According to the Alliance for Children’s Rights, In Los Angeles County alone there are approximately 30,000 foster care youths. Of those 30,000 only 58% graduate from high school, and only 3% from college. Reed aims to make a difference, her passion sourcing from her own experiences.
“While you’re in foster care you don’t think this is a story you want to share with anybody. The more I do this work, the more I saw how my experiences shaped who I was and the work that I’m doing,” said Reed.
Reed, born in Pasadena, the third of 11 children, experienced two foster families during her youth. Before that she was taking care of her mother who was ill with sickle cell anemia and epilepsy. As her mother’s main caretaker Reed was not sure why she voluntarily placed her in foster care. As an adult Reed realized that her other siblings were sent away at this age too. This was because for her mother it was normal, it was what she had experienced in her own youth.
“Our first placement was in South Central LA,” said Reed. “It was scary and I liked going to school so the idea of going through a metal detector to go to school … yeesh.”
The environment was unfriendly, and as a self-described nerd, she was unhappy and desired a good school. This prompted Reed to call the social worker and plead for them to move her and her sister. Reed was moved back to Pasadena, but as she found out later it was not because of her call, but because of her sister’s actions.
The woman who was fostering them was prostituting out the older girls. Her sister, 16, reached out for help, but no one believed her. Reed’s sister saw no other escape than to threaten to burn the house down. It wasn’t until this threat that the social workers decided to move Reed and her sister.
According to the National Foster Youth Institute, In 2013, the FBI estimated that of the 100,000 children who are victims in sex trafficking in the US, 60% came from foster care. Sex trafficking, which musters over $30 billion worldwide, targets foster care youth.
Foster youth are especially susceptible because they already are likely to come from an abusive home. The Human Trafficking Search states that these children are in search of stability and affection; however, since they often do not grow up experiencing it, are convinced they will find it through people who end up exploiting them.
In Pasadena, with her second foster family, the Brockmans, Reed found some peace. She decided to stay with the Brockmans instead of reunifying with her birth family.
“I knew school was gonna make the difference in me not repeating the poverty cycle,” said Reed.
To Reed, students reunifying with their birth families is a red flag. She explained that when youth return they often find themselves playing the role of the adult because the same factors that caused the separation, such as mental health issues, still exist.
The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health explains that in Los Angeles County, 58.2% of foster youth are reunified with their families after four years of being in foster care. However, 11.6% re-enter after 12 months.
“Most foster kids don’t want to leave their home situation even though it’s not good,” Michele Ilusorio said.
“Most foster kids don’t want to leave their home situation even though it’s not good. I was [reunified] and then I was put back in foster care. I think that reunification is always the number one goal,” said Michele Ilusorio, a student at PCC.
Ilusorio has been a PCC student for years, but last Spring was her first semester with STARS. Ilusorio praises STARS for their tailored assistance. She expressed how as a foster student you feel alone.
“You often feel that you don’t have anyone that understands how you grew up and what you’ve been through,” said Ilusorio.
Ilusorio commended programs like STARS that connect students with resources such as Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) which aims to provide permanent homes for children coming from environments of abuse and neglect. STARS also promotes programs that help with finances and resume help, as well as all the various luncheons organized by the staff to bring foster care students together.
STARS and NextUp have a goal to find ways to connect and aid their students in new ways while everyone is adhering to the Safer at Home order. According to Reed, her team had already started having conversations about going online for counseling services before the pandemic struck. While it was abrupt for them to have to move to remote counseling earlier than anticipated, this may have given them an upper hand.
The foster youth programs formed a Check-in and Chat, a virtual advising session, which takes place four days a week and gives students the opportunity to drop in for an online meeting with no appointment, to talk about anything. While giving their students the opportunity to come to the counselors and advisors for help at any time, the foster care programs advisors realized they needed more.
“We need to alter our thinking when it comes to connecting with students,” said Dixon. “The premise on campus is that the students will come to you and that’s simply not true when you are serving students remotely. So I’ve been challenging all of our programs to not wait for students to come to us, let’s come to them.”
Former and current foster youth have not only had to face the challenges of remote schooling, but the changes within the entire foster care system itself.
“You’re trying to run through the street with all these buildings falling down around you,” said Reed about students navigating personal life, family dynamics and the remote classes.
The fear for foster care students’ health comes in when things that must be held in person — such as social worker visits, home inspections and court hearings with their parents or caretakers — are all placed on hold. This halts the process of connecting these youth with foster parents. It also slows the process of checking up on youths who may be left in a higher-stress home environment and more susceptible to abuse.
“Are you really checking in on young people?” said Reed. “And how do you do a zoom check-in in a dignified way? Because part of the social worker visit is to make sure the child doesn’t have bruises and you want to do that in a way that is still respectful.”
Three of the biggest struggles for the former foster youth students are mental health, finances and housing. Students suffer from mental health issues from the traumas of their home life and the stress of their distorted family dynamics.
These struggles often occur after exiting the foster care system or aging out — known as emancipation. In California the age for emancipation is 21, however in many other states the age is still 18. Approximately 23,000 students age out of the system every year. Once they are emancipated they are left without any assistance.
Aging out often leaves foster youth without a stable housing situation. There are housing programs but much like a dorm they are assigned a roommate. If they do not join a program or have extended family to go to they are left to fend for themselves. It is very common for foster youth to become homeless.
According to the National Foster Youth Institute 20% of those in foster care who age out of the system become homeless immediately.
According to the National Foster Youth Institute 20% of those in foster care who age out of the system become homeless immediately. And with no assistance at all, by the time emancipated foster youth reach the age 26, one third experience homelessness.
With about 200 foster youth aging out each month, the state of California has extended aid for foster youth who age out during the pandemic, providing nearly $2 million for this purpose. Reed and Dixon both praised this action highly, as aging out is what affects PCC’s foster youth the most as they leave high school.
Fortunately, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that $42 million would be put towards aiding foster youth in various aspects of life. $27 million of that will be put towards helping families stay together, $6.8 million to help social worker outreach, $3 million for family resource centers and the rest disperse among various other resources.
“Our foster youth and the families who care for them need our support to get through this difficult time,” said Newsom. “We’re ramping up funding on initiatives that keep families together and support the social workers who provide critical services to help families thrive.”
Finances become difficult for students because they are not taught by their schools or parents how to manage them. They have expenses for school and living and cannot find a stable way to support themselves or do not have the resources to go about filling out financial aid forms.
“[Reed] helped me with my FAFSA, the money never came in, so [STARS] helped me through that whole process,” explained Rebecca Sevajian, a PCC STARS student.
The foster youth programs have not only continued to work to connect students to financial aid, but a multitude of resources that are needed during the pandemic including technology and food. This includes laptops and wifi hotspots, even if students have these Dixon has found that often students do not have a strong bandwidth. And they are working to provide students with them.
They face a multitude of personal struggles, whether it be working on the front lines of the pandemic, or losing their job, they also face not having the mandatory technology or continuing to face food insecurity.
“A lot of times we can make blanket assumptions about someone’s age ‘they are connected with technology and have the latest iphone…’ and that’s not true,” said Dixon.
Another resource for students is the E Card provided to them. Before the pandemic hit, these financially unstable students who often don’t have a regular source of food were provided meal cards for the cafeteria. Now with the campus closure they have created E Cards which allow the students to shop for groceries and essential items at a store they request such as Target or Walmart.
Sevajian, 19, who has been greatly helped by STARS, is now out of the foster care system’s glance after transitioning from college to high school. Sevajian shared that she never knew which steps to take when transitioning. She had to navigate applying for college, obtaining MediCal, making doctors appointments for her arthritis and lupus — everything, on her own.
“My mom didn’t really, I guess, do her part as a parent. So I always had to figure things out. By the time I figured out something had to be done it would be too late,” said Sevajian.
In her childhood Sevajian and her 2 sisters had countless meetings with social workers, but her mother volunteered herself to take classes so she wouldn’t be separated from her children. Sevajian had not been placed with a foster family, but for a brief period would go to live with her sister.
Sevajian’s meetings with the social workers scared her. She remembers after incidents of her school thinking her mother, who has a hearing disability, arrived at her school drunk. And when her mother and step-father got into physical arguments prompting police to arrive. However, Sevajian’s worst fear was being separated from her sisters.
“[My mom] was in no position to parent,” said Sevajian. “I know my mom may have not been the best of a parent, but in her way she did try her best and I love her.”
Sevajian, whose goal is to go into the medical field, is making her way successfully through PCC.
“I feel better knowing I’m in control of my own life,” said Sevajian. “Honestly the process of coming into college is [hard]. My mom and nobody is signing me up for school, it’s myself. It was very stressful, but I can say that I did it.”
STARS is pushing for foster care students to beat the alarming statistics which loom over the youth.
“To know that I have a support system, I think that’s the most important thing that STARS provides. I feel like there’s a mama bear in the cave looking out for me and letting me do my thing and if I need anything they’re there,” said Michele Ilusorio.
Ilusorio was born in Los Angeles, but moved with her family to Iowa when she was 14 years old. It was then that she was put into foster care.
She described her 40 minute car ride from her small town Iowa home to her first group home as feeling like going to Jupiter — it was far and lonely. She was surrounded by strangers. She was angry. She was scared. And she was confused.
“Looking back as an adult I was terrified,” said Ilusorio “These kids were different from me in the sense that most of the kids in the group home had come from the city and I wasn’t. I lived in a very sheltered rural community. Even then there was a difference, they were tougher and more street savvy and I was always hiding in books.”
“I was like, ‘oh my god,’ anything is better than this,” said Ilusorio.
Illusorio went through a few group homes and 2 foster families while in Iowa. Once she had turned 18 she was released from the foster care system.
“When I got out of the foster care system there were no resources for me,” said Ilusorio.
She had to reach out to extended family, dropped out of school and hustled at temp jobs to be able to get her own place. She remembered she was constantly eating eggs — she had never been taught how to cook for herself.
Ilusorio now works in corporate sales full time and is slowly working her way through PCC. She will be transferring to a Cal State in fall 2020.
“It’s for me,” said Illusorio about working towards her bachelors. “So you have this goal for yourself. No one else in my family has had a degree and I just want that for myself.”
Ilusorio has attributed STARS and her counselor for helping her focus, get her act together and to transfer.
“Not only do they go the extra mile to help you, they advocate for you. I don’t know who does that for strangers. This program is so special,” said Ilusorio.
STARS offered students opportunities to travel to the East Coast to foster youth conferences, the Disney Leadership Institute, and aided them with the PCC Study Abroad program. Reed explains that many foster care youths don’t get these kinds of experiences in their initial home life and she is happy to be able to provide it to them.
STARS, which was formed in 2007, offers tutoring, financial help, counseling, field trips and much more to foster care students. Since its creation their completion and retention rates, which are, respectively, the number of degrees or certificates received and the rate of students who return to PCC, are improving. Reed reported an 8% increase in graduates in the last few years and she is hopeful even more improvement and success is in their future.
