SPRING 2007 E-NEWSLETTER

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From Foster Care to College

The Home for Little Wanderers has partnered with Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill to offer an innovative college preparatory program for young women, ages 18 - 21, who are leaving the foster care system. The Academic Support for College and Life (ASCL) program, the first of its kind in New England, will provide ten youth with the opportunity to live on the all-female Pine Manor campus while receiving academic instruction, as well as clinical, social, vocational, and daily living supports.

The program was developed in response to national research which indicates that educational outcomes for youth in the child welfare system are troubling:

• Of foster youth who have completed secondary school, only
  about 20% enroll in higher education, compared with 60% in the general population.
• Only 13% of youth raised in foster care graduate from college
  with a four-year degree, compared with 24.4% in the general population.

However, 70% of teens in the foster care system do have a desire to attend college. The problem is, many are ill-prepared to face that challenge.

In addition to developing the academic skills necessary for the rigorous standards of college, students will receive help in forming and maintaining healthy adult and peer relationships, forging connections to the community and accessing available supports. Graduates will emerge as stronger, more prepared young women, able to manage the challenges of college, independence and adulthood.

As one of only a few such programs in the country, ASCL at Pine Manor has attracted enthusiastic response nationwide. Requests for information from former foster girls or their advocates have been received from as far afield as Colorado and Michigan.

For more information about ASCL, please contact Breen Power at bpower@thehome.org or 617-585-7573.

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Early Childhood Care: A New Therapeutic Approach

Most people would be surprised to hear that children are more often expelled from preschool than from high school. Where would parents get help for their two-year-old son who had been expelled from several childcare centers for chronic biting, hitting, and unsafe behavior toward his playmates and teachers?

Even very young children’s behaviors can escalate to extreme levels when special needs are untreated or under conditions that cause toxic levels of stress. Failure to treat the child immediately within their most natural environments (home and school) can have long-lasting detrimental effects. Children who are lacking age-appropriate social and emotional skills as they enter kindergarten and first grade also face greater challenges of acquiring basic reading, writing, and math skills.

Research shows that early intervention and therapeutic services can help overcome even the most severe risk factors of poverty, abuse, and neglect. Proper interventions ensure that children are ready for school - academically, emotionally, behaviorally, and socially. There is a large void in these types of services and The Home is committed to answering this need. An integrated and comprehensive service approach drives our current early childhood programs: Boston Early Intervention, Preschool Outreach Program and the Parents’ Center at Saltonstall.

The Home has created this “Early Childhood Center (ECC) model” as an approach to serving children within any community- based early childhood setting in the Boston area. This model offers a wide range of services, including child development assessments, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, nurse consultation, skill-building groups, parent/child groups, parent support groups, educational workshops, mental health consultations, individual and family therapy, and consultative supports for classroom teachers.

The outdated structure of services that were offered along separate specializations often interfered with families’ access to the right combination of services, or sent them on a trail from one program to another with a great deal of frustration and disappointing results. The ECC model will better accommodate the specific needs of each child and family; connect the child’s cognitive, physical and emotional development; minimize the disruption for families; and promote school-readiness.

For more information, please contact Sharon Goldstein, Early Childhood Center Director, at 617-254-1140, ext. 2064 or sgoldstein@thehome.org.

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