The Texas Education Agency’s Foster Care and Student Success guide (download at DAmag.me/fcss) offers strategies for supporting students in foster care. Increasing awareness for educators is critical. Here are a few things to know:
Students come into foster care through no fault of their own and have often experienced abusive, neglectful environments.
Students in foster care want to be treated like everyone else. School often provides normalcy and can be a refuge from a chaotic home life.
Maintaining confidentiality and sensitivity is key as students do not want to be stigmatized as “foster children.”
Students often enter foster care with gaps in their education.
LINK TO MAIN ARTICLE: Fostering success in and out of the classroom
Trauma and adversity may impact students’ learning and behavior.
Most students have experienced tremendous loss, often having been separated from siblings, family members and personal belongings.
Students want to be empowered with decision-making and engage in goal setting.
Ray Bendici is deputy editor.
