What Teachers and Educators Can Do to Help Youth In Foster Care
As a teacher, instructor, or educator working with students from foster care, this resource can help…
1. We’re not Freakin’ Saints.
2. WATCH WHAT YOU SAY AROUND THE KIDS!!!!!!
3. Don’t act surprised that they are nice, smart, loving, well-behaved kids.
4. Don’t hate on their parents.
5. The kids aren’t grateful to us, and it is nuts to expect them to be, or to feel lucky that they are with us.
6. No, we’re not making any money on it.
7. When you say “I could never do that” as if we’re heartless or insensitive, because we can/have to give the kids back to their parents or to extended family, it stings.
8. No, they aren’t ours yet.
9. Most kids will go home or to family, rather than being adopted.
10. If we’re struggling – and all of us struggle sometimes – it isn’t helpful to say we should just “give them back” or remind us we brought it on ourselves.
11. Foster kids are not “fake kids,” and we’re not babysitters – they are all my “REAL kids.”
12. Fostering is HARD.
13. You don’t have to be a foster parent to HELP support kids and families in crisis
Click on the link below to read full explainations and additional ways you can become more supportive.
Fostering Success Michigan is a program of Educate Tomorrow that aims to increase access and success in higher education and post-college careers for youth with experience in foster care. Learn how you can contribute to building a holistic network that insulates (i.e., strengthens protective factors and reduces risks) the education to career "pipeline."
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