GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — “I got this baby out the dirt,” 18-year-old Shawn Stein tells me.
“They wanted to sell it for like $1000 dollars.”
Shawn is proud to show me his Grand AM— and rightly so.
“I love the feeling of having something that's my own, especially like something that I bought myself with my own money,” Shawn said.
Shawn has spent most of his life without much to call his own, including a home.
“When I was 13, I got put into foster care,” Shawn said.
“It’s pretty lonely.”
After jumping from family to family, Shawn finally finds himself in a space he finally feels is home.
He gave FOX 17 a tour of the place he’s lived now for about seven months. It’s part of an independent living program run bySamaritas to help foster teens transition into adult life.
Shawn cooks for himself, shops for himself, and has his own job. He even gets his own room. Right now, he’s on track to do something no one else in his family has done; go to college.
It’s a feat he wasn’t sure he’d ever accomplish.
“I was about ready to give up,” Shawn said.
Like Shawn, Grand Valley State University student Elaina also knows first-hand the struggles of just getting through the teen years as a foster student.
“You spend all this time trying to figure out how you eat for the next day, or where you sleep for the next time that the future feels far-fetched,” Elaina told us, helping explain how college can easily become just a dream.
"It becomes, 'I need food for tomorrow, and I need somewhere to live'—" Elaina said. "So college right now is another four years before I can see that again."
With that in mind, it’s no surprise the numbers are grim for those living in the foster care system. Just 10% of kids end up going to college— only three percent ever graduate.
But low graduation rates aren’t the only issue plaguing those in the foster care system.
Women aging out of the system have a 70% chance of becoming pregnant by the time they are 21.
For the men, 60% of them will be incarcerated.
Elaina went through a similar program to the one Shawn is in.
She was given a monthly stipend, focused support on developing life skills, and resources to either find work or continue her education after turning 18. With that support in hand, Elaina is now a senior at Grand Valley University.
But even with all that support, she knows most in the foster care system still face hurdles in getting a degree.
“They almost can't even believe that they could pursue college,” Laura Mitchell, Executive Director of Child Welfare Samaritas tells us.
Mitchell says extreme childhood trauma, mental health struggles, and lack of one-on-one support gets in the way of these teens living out their potential.
“We do work with a lot of teenagers who are pushing back who, who aren't able to take advantage of the support and service that we can offer, because of everything they're going through,” Mitchell said.
Elaina and Shawn are the outliers making that push to continue their education.
“I want to consider going to med school and becoming a doctor, and continuing my education,” Elaina said.
Shawn also wants to enter the medical field.
“I want to get certified to be a technician,” Shawn said.
Both say they felt that fork in the road and decided they wanted more for themselves.
For Shawn, it was fond memories of his childhood that drove him to continue his education.
“That's what keeps me going is wanting to, you know, go back to how my life was and start over and grow from that,” Shawn said.
For Elaina it was all about taking control of her own story, rewriting her past.
“One day, I dream to have a family with this crazy career,” Elaina said. “And I hope that I could supply my family with amazing resources.”
It’s something both of them never experienced as teens.
Elaina was able to get to GVSU using a number of different resources. First, as a foster care student in the state of Michigan, you are eligible to apply for theFoster Future Scholarship. It comes out of the Michigan Trust Fund and pairs you with a success coach at the university.
For more information about resources available to foster care students, click here.
