Carmella Macabbabad OFA Scholarship Recipient

Joan McAllister is the independent living coordinator for North Carolina. Her job is to oversee state efforts to help between 400 and 450 young people each year as they "age out" of foster care at the age of 18. "Only a small percentage of these go on to higher education," McAllister said. "but we're starting to see an increase in the high school graduation rate, which is encouraging."

For young people in care who successfully complete their high school educations, there is help available to bring college within reach, through a variety of state and federal programs, along with privately funded efforts.

A New Source of Tuition Help

Demographics of Children in Foster Care [1] Pew Foster Care Commission Ranking of Foster Care Population by State [2]

Every state and the District of Columbia now receive some funds for this purpose through something called the Chafee Education and Training Vouchers Program, or ETV. The voucher program was first funded by Congress in fiscal year 2003 as a supplement to the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, which provides states with federal funds to help young people make the tricky transition from foster care to independent life as young adults.

In the first year of funding, North Carolina received $737,000 in federal ETV funds. It was part of McAllister's job to come up with ways to administer the program.

In total, $42 million was allocated to the 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia for fiscal year 2003 (October 1, 2003—September 30, 2004), the first year for the Chafee ETV program. The program requires each state to come up with a 20 percent match in non-federal funds.

"I went to a conference in late 2002 and heard Eileen McCaffery talk about ways to come with the 20 percent match that had not occurred to me," McAllister said. Eileen McCaffery is the executive director of the Orphan Foundation (OFA). "I immediately tracked her down after that session and talked to her about working with my state to administer the program. I had no staff to help, and I had to ask myself how I would manage this program by myself."

Growing Pains
North Carolina's McAllister is not alone in asking these kinds of questions. "Most states administer the Chafee ETV program through their state departments of family and child services," Eileen McCaffery told me. "This means that social workers now have to get involved with financial aid, an area they're not equipped to handle. And the departments aren't really set up to administer scholarship-type programs, like the Chafee ETV program." As McCaffery pointed out, the amount of Chafee ETV funds allocated to each state works out to be fairly modest, in state budget terms. "The individual state allocation is too small to merit a lot of time and attention."

A Good Fit
Focusing time and attention—along with mentoring, scholarships, and TLC—on foster youth has been part of the Orphan Foundation's mission since it was founded in 1981 by Joseph Rivers, himself a former foster child. North Carolina became the first state to contract with the Orphan Foundation to administer its Chafee ETV program. Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, and Ohio have since followed suit.

For more than twenty years OFA has been working with foster youth, providing scholarships, mentoring and a special touch of tender, loving care. Every year in the fall, OFA sends care packages to foster youth in college. (Connect for Kids looked at the care package program in Small Things That Mean A Lot [3]) The organization understands the importance of connectedness to young people for whom disconnectedness has been a way of life, and brings that sensibility to its Chafee ETV work.

Steven Hart, OFA Scholarship Recipient with OFA volunteers

Tina Raheem is the foundation's scholarship director. "We work to see that each child, regardless of circumstance, has an opportunity to make a better life. That's why we come to work every day," Raheem says. OFA's existing scholarship and mentoring programs rely heavily on the use of technology, and the foundation decided to address the challenges of the Chafee ETV program through technology as well.

"It was a learning process for all of us," McAllister said. "When some of my social workers pointed to case management problems, like checking the status of a particular foster kid's application, OFA addressed them immediately and improved their process."

Using the Web
That improvement emerged as a robust Web site that provides the tools that everyone involved, from state independent living coordinators like Joan McAllister and social workers to foster youth themselves, needs to take maximum advantage of the Chafee ETV program. McAllister can check a secured area of this site for documents with up-to-date information about North Carolina's Chafee ETV expenditures. Social workers have immediate access to up-to-date application information about individual foster youth under their care.

OFA volunteers prepare the care packages.

And, while most applications for voucher funding are made by a social worker, some young people transitioning out of foster care hear about the program independently. If they come to the site, they can fill out an application, and when they do, social workers will know about it right away and can quickly determine eligibility.

Those who are eligible then fill out a "self budget" form that outlines their current expenses and estimates what they will need in order to attend college. That way, funds for tuition and fees can be supplemented with other support, like child care assistance for a young mother. Raheem said that OFA knows from its long experience offering scholarship assistance that these would-be college students have needs not related directly to the costs of a college education, but that must be met for the student to succeed. The form "gives us a much more complete financial picture because it reveals expenses not noted elsewhere."

Chafee ETV Resources Box Orphan Foundation [4] The Orphan Foundation created the State Voucher Support site to provide foster youth state-specific information on how to apply for the Chafee ET vouchers [5]. National Foster Care Coalition [6] Kids Count Data Book Online [7]

North Carolina disbursed 100% of its Chafee ETV funds for fiscal year 2003. "We provided Chafee ETV vouchers to 227 foster youth, averaging $3,000 per award in fiscal year 2003," McAllister said. The Orphan Foundation-administered programs in Alabama, Arkansas and Colorado also disbursed 100% of their Chafee ETV program funds. That's pretty good performance given that this was the first year of funding. It's not known yet how other states fared—funds had to be disbursed by September 30, 2004, and a final tally is not expected to be complete until January or February of 2005.

North Carolina's McAllister is confident in the foundation's ability to continue administering the state's Chafee ETV program. "OFA has a history of working with scholarship programs, it's national in scope, which is good for the North Carolina foster youth," McAllister said. "They have great relations with foster youth, and frankly, they're able to do it for cheap." OFA is demonstrating that a smart and strategic use of technology ensures that the funds for the Chafee ETV program are used in the manner for which they are intended—getting more foster youth the education and training they need to make better lives as adults. Joseph Rivers would be proud.

Talk Back

If you've got comments or questions about this story, we'd like to hear them. Send your response to Susan Phillips (susan@connectforkids.org [8]).