Fostering hope for foster kids

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This article was published 10/03/2015 (3912 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Knowing fewer than 10 per cent of kids in care later attend post-secondary school, Amanda Gauthier wants to encourage more who grew up in the foster system to go for it.

“I know their fear right now,” said the University of Manitoba student in the inner-city social-work program. Tonight, Gauthier, who was formerly in care, will speak at an information session at the U of M for older foster kids and those who’ve aged out of the system about tuition waivers available to them at eight universities and colleges in Manitoba.

Gauthier said she is able to attend university thanks to a tuition waiver and is sharing her experience with other older kids in and out of care. Her message is they’re not alone.

“That’s a hard concept to grasp coming from the child-welfare system. When you’re in care, you’re feeling so many times that you’re alone.”

Gauthier was just five years old when she was apprehended and taken into care from her home in small-town Manitoba. She lived in 13 different foster placements before getting into an independent living situation at 16. At 18, she aged out of the foster-care system and was on her own. It was hard but taught her resilience, Gauthier said. She took a one-year business course that got her nothing but a job at Tim Hortons and a $10,000 student debt she repaid working at Tim’s and as a data-entry clerk.

In 2009, she got involved with Child and Family Services General Authority’s Voices program that was doing focus-group testing with former kids in care and discovered the U of M’s inner-city social-work program and knew that’s what she wanted to do.

“It’s been an amazing first year,” said Gauthier, 28.

She said she lobbied hard to get the tuition waiver that was intended for “alumni” of the child-welfare system ages 18 to 25. Not everyone is ready for college or university after high school or by the time they’re 25, she said.

“When you know you’re going to make school your priority, that’s when you’re ready,” she said. She knew what she wanted for a career and was committed to doing the work to get it, she said.

“In the end, you have to do the work — you’re the student. Your supports aren’t going to write your exams for you,” said Gauthier, who is studying full-time. “Life throws you all kinds of wondrous challenges — it’s knowing you’ll be able to fight through it.”

With an estimated two-thirds of children raised in care not finishing high school, post-secondary school has seemed out of reach to many, said program specialist Jennifer Fallis with Child and Family Services General Authority. The tuition waiver for children raised in care was pioneered in 2012 by the University of Winnipeg to open doors for kids without family or financial support to attend university.

‘When you’re in care, you’re feeling so many times that you’re alone’ — Amanda Gauthier

More than half of the first group of students who took up the U of W on its offer in 2012 are still in school, said Fallis. “At the very least, this initiative is creating hope.”

Fallis said the province has tripled the number of “extensions of care” available to those who turn 18 and need more time in foster care to finish high school, finish a treatment program, get independent living skills or support while they’re attending post-secondary classes on a tuition waiver.

“A lot of young people encountered trauma and experienced disruptions in their education for a variety of reasons and are not able to graduate on time,” said Fallis. “Extensions of care are providing more time for that to be completed.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca