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Fostering Educational Success Award
Nominations for this year's award will be accepted through October 26, 2009.
CWLA is accepting nominations for a new national leadership award recognizing a college, university, or other accredited post-secondary education or training institution that excels in its efforts to promote educational success for current and former foster youth by providing a learning and living environment that is healthy, safe, nurturing, and supportive. This institution will be selected for its exceptional leadership, as well as its demonstrated understanding of and commitment to a comprehensive array of programmatic, financial, and other resources that help students who have been in placed in foster care successfully complete post-secondary learning.
In 2005, approximately 513,000 children and youth were living in foster care, and an estimated 24,000 of these youth "aged out" of care to begin life "on their own." Despite significant improvements in policies and programs designed to help youth prepare, too many of these young people still do not have the skills and the supports they need to succeed.
Research tells us that many former foster youth experience multiple challenges as they make the transition from foster care to adult life. For young people in foster care, histories of trauma and child maltreatment complicate the normal anxieties and joys of becoming young adults. Without the support of family to help them establish housing, find employment, secure health and mental health services, and address financial concerns, these youth can easily be derailed from an otherwise successful path. While child welfare agencies carry a leadership role in helping young people prepare for and navigate this transition, community-based service providers and educational institutions are integral to this work (CWLA Standards of Excellence for Transition, Independent Living and Self-Sufficiency Services, 2005).
In 2008, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act provided the first national program allowing states to continue to serve foster youth up to age 22. To celebrate this significant advance in public policy, CWLA will honor those exceptional educational institutions that have been in vanguard of the nation's efforts to help former foster youth succeed. In so doing, CWLA seeks to highlight the key components of successful programs, and encourage their replication.
Selection Criteria
The winning institution will understand the challenges that former foster youth face in entering and successfully completing post-secondary education and training programs through a comprehensive, year-round program of services and supports that are responsive to a young person's needs by:
- Embracing a youth development philosophy and recognizing that productive adulthood is not "independent," but interdependent.
- Providing financial aid to assist with tuition, books, and related expenses, as well as additional financial supports to bridge the financial gap that foster youth may have in meeting day-to-day living expenses.
- Ensuring youth have nurturing and supportive relationships with adults who can support their adjustment into the learning environment and the community.
- Offering counseling, tutoring, and educational supports to foster academic success.
- Facilitating access to mental health, substance abuse, and other specialized services when needed.
- Accessing services to aide in meeting daily living needs including housing, jobs, life skills, and other basics.
- Ensuring that youth have housing, food, and supportive services year- round.
- Creating opportunities for youth leadership and engagement.
- Establishing partnerships with child welfare and other community community-based agencies to assist in programs.
- Promoting a philosophy and developing a program that both respects and reflects the diversity of youth enrolled.
- Collecting data and information to determine the effectiveness of their efforts.
All CWLA member agencies are invited to submit nominations for the Fostering Educational Success Award online, by fax, or by mail, using the application form provided, by October 26, 2009.
Two representatives from the institution receiving the Fostering Educational Success Award are invited to attend CWLA's National Conference in Washington, DC, to accept the award in person at an awards dinner to be held on Tuesday, January 26, 2010. These representatives will be recognized before attendees who will learn about their institution, it's commitment to fostering educational success, and its relationship with the CWLA nominating member agency. This opportunity provides excellent visibility and an opportunity for sharing their success with approximately 1,000 attendees from across the United States attend each year---including direct-service staff, board leaders, legislators, child advocates, consumers, CEOs, academic specialists, and representatives of the electronic and print media.
Additionally, CWLA will circulate a press release for the Fostering Educational Success Award and highlight the institution's exceptional commitment to current and former foster youth on the CWLA website. Ideally, receipt of the award will help jumpstart a dialogue between CWLA and the institution about how to best work together to promote programs and partnerships among child welfare agencies and higher education that educate and support current and former foster youth.
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