Support Children and Youth in Foster Care During the School Year

The back-to-school season can bring excitement for young people as they prepare to see their classmates again, meet new teachers and students, and explore new subjects. For youth in foster care, however, starting a new school year can feel scary and uncertain because the odds are stacked against them when it comes to their educational success.

Children enter foster care not because of any fault of their own, but because their families are in crisis. Once they’re in foster care, they tend to face uncertainty and instability moving from placement to placement, caseworker to caseworker and community to community. Too often, switching placements also means switching schools.

“Having to change schools causes youth in foster care to lose not only academic progress, but also connections with friends and mentors. Couple this with the fact that these youth are grappling with different types of trauma that can influence their learning and behavior, and it’s no wonder that they tend to have worse educational outcomes than their peers,” said Kristi Bauer, executive director of CASA of Bastrop, Fayette & Lee Counties.

How can we help children and youth in foster care beat the odds and succeed? With CASA volunteers, Bauer said.

CASAvolunteers, or Court Appointed Special Advocates, are everyday people from all walks of life who are recruited and specially trained to advocate for children in foster care and provide a consistent, reliable adult presence for them during a difficult time in their lives. A judge appoints them to one child or sibling group to advocate for their best interest in court, in school and in other settings. They get to know the child and everyone involved in their life, such as their parents and other family members, foster parents, therapists, caseworkers and teachers.