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These recommendations came from three experts -- a college sophomore named James who went through foster care and two high school seniors, Helen and Shannon, who are preparing to make the transition from foster care to college.

The trio spoke as part of a Lumina Foundation project called Breaking the Cycle, a program that focuses on making postsecondary education a priorty for foster children.  Studies show that fewer than half of foster children graduate high school, only 38 percent find a job within 18 months after leaving the system and only one in eight graduates from a four-year college. Lumina Foundation, a member of The Youth Transition Funders Group, has been seeking ideas to improve those statistics.  (Learn more and read Connected by 25: A Plan for Investing in Successful Futures for Foster Youth. -PDF-)

The panelists recommended the following strategies for foster children:

• Offer encouragement to pursue education. Foster parents must consider education vital, and caseworkers must promote higher education. All three students said they experienced some encouragement, but were discouraged by guidance counselors who suggested they seek a G.E.D. instead of a high school diploma and by foster parents who offered tepid support for their education. “Once the student knows the importance of education, they'll go get it,” James said. When he suggested having caseworkers follow each foster child's education – a kind of “educational mentor” – Helen said, “That would be one of the best gifts a foster kid could have.” She added: “To have one person with me would help me 10,000 times more than having a huge group to support me.” (A similar program exists in San Diego, Calif. and will be the subject of the Foundation's next forum on April 30.)
• Provide information about loans, grants and scholarships. As Shannon pointed out, “I can't really go anywhere without money.” All three students said they were never made aware of many potential sources of funding. Sandy Lieber-Hale, major gifts officer for The Villages, Indiana's largest child-welfare agency, found this comment illuminating. “I just assume that information is out there, and kids access it,” Lieber-Hale said. “Well, that information might be sitting on a
  counselor's table or in the counseling office, but unless there's going to be a class or a person designated to get that information to kids, they're not going to get it.”
• Give support while kids are in school. James said while he hears his roommate getting calls from family, “I don't get calls like that.” “If you want to help people,” James added, “you have to do more than just your job.”

The foster kids' comments resonated with their audience. “We haven't thought globally enough about what these young people need as human beings," said Maria Garin Jones of the Child Welfare League of America, who addressed the group after the three young people had finished. “In order to be successful, in order to be happy and fulfilled and a contributing member of society, you have to be connected to people who care about you. That's a basic right, I think, of all people."

“We haven't focused on that for young people in foster care. But I think that's changing. I think people are recognizing that those are the things that are really important, and education is emerging as one of those things we focus on. Without adequate education, without the access to postsecondary education, young people come out of foster care not able to maximize their potential.”

The forum was intended to enable service providers who support the educational success of youth “to take the youth voice into account,” said Lumina Foundation associate program officer Tina Gridiron Smith.

“Lumina Foundation wants to support the postsecondary access and success of youth in foster care and as they're transitioning out of foster care,” she said. “But we also want to make sure we support programs the youth are comfortable with. The only way we can do that is to make sure that young people are sitting at the table. We're not just about creating programs; we're about investing in people, investing in the lives of youth in ways that will make a difference.”

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"You can't help but like me"

James, a 20-year-old college sophomore, looked into the audience at Lumina Foundation's Breaking the Cycle forum and said, “Once you hear my story, you can't help but like me.”

James, a college sophomore and former foster child, lived in 16 different homes.

The audience laughed, but he wasn't kidding. By his count, James has been in and out of 15 or 16 foster and group homes, many where he wasn't exposed to books, reading or writing. For him and other foster students, being in the education system "feels like you against the world.”

By the time he should have been a high school junior, he was already more than a year behind. Two things turned him around. The first was when his guidance counselor suggested he forget getting a diploma and instead pursue a G.E.D.

“When you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to do it,” he said. The second influence was an algebra teacher who told him he was her best student. He'd never been called “the best” before. That made all the difference.

So, through a combination of study groups, night classes and summer school, he earned his high school diploma with a 2.3 grade point average and 990 on the SAT. He went on to Indiana University, where he's studying to be a math teacher.

“I didn't get a lot of information about college,” he said. “All I needed was extra help. By the grace of God I made it, and I haven't looked back since.”

Afterward, he said he was happy to know so many people who want to help.

“I didn't know there was this much support for foster care students,” he said, “that there were this many people who were active and really care about them succeeding in life. I thought they were more about getting you a placement and once you turn 18, you're done. But there
are really people who are coming together to work on ways of getting more foster care students into higher education.”