Opening a Door Beyond Foster Care: Retaining Former Foster/Homeless Students Ana Ramos, MSW, Program Director, Fostering Panther Pride Tiffani Tallon, M.S., Assistant Director, Student Access and Success Florida International University

Access to Higher Education  Casey Family Programs:  We have more than 500,000 children in foster care.  We have more than 23,000 children aging out from the system with no financial and family support.  About 7 to 13 percent of students from foster care enroll in higher education (national average is 24%).  About 2-9% graduate with a bachelor’s degree. Emerson, John and Bassett Lee. (2010) “Supporting Success: Improving Higher Education Outcomes for Students from Foster Care.” Retrieved September 11, 2014 from

Foster Care in Florida  Circuit  Total DCF Florida: 15,414 students (0.6%)  Total DCF students All Grades: 1329 (0.4%)  DCF Grade 12 students: 47  Earned Standard Diploma: 25 (53%)  Dropouts: 64 students (15%) Florida Department of Children and Families

What is Fostering Panther Pride (FPP)? FPP offers tailored academic and other support services to undergraduate students identified as former foster youth and homeless.

FPP Components  Program Director  Student Success Coordinator  Mentoring Program  Research  Graduation Success Initiative(GSI)

FPP Components

HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCIAL RESOURCES  Financial Aid: Federal : Stafford Loans: Unsubsidized, Plus, and Graduate Plus Loans. Federal Pell Grant, FSEOG- Federal educational Opportunity Grant, Federal work Study. Institutional : FSAG-Florida Student assistance Grant, Leverage Grant, Tuition Differential, Graduate Need Grant, Upper Division Grant.

HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCIAL RESOURCES (Continuation)  The federal Chaffee Education and Training Vouchers Program (EVT) provides all states funds for vouchers to help students fund the cost of attendance for students aging out from foster care.  Homeless Tuition Exemption/McKinney-Vento Act

FPP students: RACE and Gender Prepared by Tekla Nicholas, PhD. September 11, 2015 Office of Retention & Graduation Success

Fostering Panther pride statistics Waiver TypeFall 2014Spring 2015 Fall 2015 Adopted25 35 Road Homeless2527 Grand Total

Fostering Panther pride statistics Academic LevelFTICReadmitTransfer Grand Total Freshman19 Sophomore13114 Junior Senior Grand Total

Advising OUR Students

Building trust  Often difficult to gain  Consistency  Intrusive Advising without intruding  Create a comfortable space  Informal gatherings

Best Practices on Campus  Campus advisors can work together to create campus networks to focus on meeting needs of homeless and foster care youth.  Develop partnerships with local agencies who are committed to serve homeless and foster youth.  Communicate with local homeless liaisons to streamline the transition process to higher education.  Create a single point of contact (SPOC) on campus. –

What is your institution doing to help Former Foster/ Homeless students? Do you know how to identify them? How can you develop a program to serve these populations?