PRIMARY CHALLENGES
SOME EDUCATION CHALLENGES INCLUDE: • Placements hundreds of miles away from their home area. •
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Other related legislation such as ESSR (Federal COVID relief) and the Mental Health Implementation Pilot Project (Kansas) will provide additional support services to all Kansas students including youth in foster care.
Children without longterm placements, placement work schedules, daycare issues, etc.
complicated world, and we are here to help assist in the best interest of our children and families.
REFERENCES •
COVID provided opportunities for more flexibility in • schooling. Youth could remotely finish out semesters or continue attending until a long-term placement was Youth discharging facilities found through their school of have no school of origin origin remotely, even if they they can continue to were physically hundreds of attend. miles away. Law and non-regulatory guidance are very vague and often just state that either the school will transport, child welfare agency will transport, or they will work something out together. While both sides have the best intent for the child, they may not have the resources to make it work.
TEAM EFFORT
In the spirit of that cooperation, and thanks to the advocacy work of parents, whether biological, foster, adoptive, or kinship, along with schools and Saint Francis Ministries staff, we are able to keep children in their schools in many cases where distance isn’t a factor. Saint Francis has six education coordinator positions to help with PROGRESS educational issues, concerns, But progress also is being and helping to provide made. Larger school districts information to schools upon with a foster care student population are aware of ESSA: school transitions. Education Ensuring Educational Stability coordinators act as a point of contact and liaison for for Children in Foster Care schools, case teams, parents, and are now much less likely to automatically exit students and other stakeholders for the school age children’s upon hearing they have moved. Several large districts educational needs. They help navigate through the have developed policies intersection of the child around ESSA transportation or have come up with creative welfare system and education system. We know the child solutions to use existing welfare and education system transportation intended for can be a confusing and other purposes. www.SaintFrancisMinistries.Org
National Working Group on Foster Care and Education. (2014.) Fostering success in education: National factsheet on the educational outcomes of children in foster care (2018). Retrieved from: http://www. fostercareandeducation. org/OurWork/ NationalWorkingGroup. aspx.
GET TO KNOW US
To learn more about becoming a foster parent, visit our website.
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