Ten years ago, we welcomed a sibling group of seven to the Village. Unfortunately, their mother’s parental rights were terminated leaving the children in foster care. The primary goal in foster care is for children to be reunited with their parents. If this is not possible, the next step is to try to place them with relatives. If relative care is not an option children are placed for adoption. Children who do not meet any of these circumstances age out of care at eighteen. This is Amy’s story of how her relationship with our SOS therapist Krista developed into an everlasting bond of love, support, and family.
A few years ago, Amy’s younger siblings went to live with a family memberin Georgia, her oldest sister was adopted by one of her teachers in 2017, andanother older sister aged out of care at eighteen; leaving sixteen-year-oldAmy at SOS. Over the past three years her relationship with Krista evolvedto a place where Krista has permanent guardianship of Amy, and they livetogether with Krista’s twelve-year-old daughter as a family. Krista describesAmy as “sweet, kind, caring, smart, loving, pretty, and has a good head onher shoulders. She has good insight and thought patterns. She does not takea “woe is me” approach to life, she is very independent, and moves forward.”
DID YOU KNOW?
All young adults with lived experience in the foster care system for at least six-months before their 18th birthday are eligible for a full tuition waiver from State universities and accredited technical schools in Florida. Additionally, they receive a monthly stipend of $1,730 as long as they maintain a 2.0 GPA. The stipend is available until age twenty-three, and the tuition waiver is in place until age twenty-eight, allowing them to continue to graduate school or further.
Amy is a motivated student who entered the 11th grade this year and is taking honors classes. She broke free from a group of negative friends and primarily hangs out with Krista, her daughter, and her sisters. It is wonderful that she has been able to maintain a close bond with her two older sisters who visit her often and recently came to pick her up to get her nails done and for some back-to-school shopping. She will begin looking at colleges soon as she decides what she would like to study.
