Project Foster Youth Seen and Heard is providing a voice for foster youth in a new way. The Children and Family Research Center at the University, with the support of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, created the project in 2003 to improve the child welfare system in the state of Illinois.

“The project was established originally to bring older foster youth in care into the center as part-time student employees so that we could hear their stories about their experiences in foster care,” said Mary Lynn Fletcher, project director and research specialist at the Children and Family Research Center.

Rebekah Childers, one of the project’s writing specialists and sophomore in LAS, said that as a participant of the project, she writes memoirs about her own experiences as a foster youth before being adopted by a relative in Chicago.

“It gives us a voice,” Childers said. “It allows outsiders to know about who we are and what we are like.”

Mark Testa, director and principal investigator of the Children and Family Research Center, said the purpose is to enlighten the public to what the needs of these children are. We hope that the children can help us understand what they consider to be important issues that we should be looking at as researchers and policy makers.

“When we first began, it was really just an interesting idea that we wanted to try out, but over time it has become a very rich experience for the foster youth who have participated in the project, Testa said. “It moved from being a good idea to a great experience.”

Amy Clay, project coordinator and senior in LAS, said she is a former foster child herself and the project helps her relate to the foster youth on a more personal level.

“Helping develop the project and seeing it get media attention … gives me a sense of success and accomplishment,” Clay said.

“(I enjoy) the people aspect of the project, finding that community of foster youth and seeing that community of young people who are between 17 and 22 come together and support one another,” Clay said. “It brings a sense of community and belonging.”

Fletcher said it is very important to get the stories about a certain issue from someone who actually has lived the life of it since researchers still stand at the outside of the experience.

“We take what we hear from their stories and use it to help guide our own research agenda here at the center,” Fletcher said.

Former foster students can participate in writing workshops once or twice a week at the Children and Family Research Center.

“We focus on trying to work with the participants to get their experiences down on paper,” Clay said.

A common experience is the use of trash bags to move from one place to another. Former foster students would find out minutes or maybe hours before they are going to be taken away from their homes or to be put into a different placement. This is currently the issue the students are writing about in their workshops.

“(The project) has opened people’s eyes to what it means to grow up in foster care including the pain and the difficulties but also the potential for growth and developing change,” Testa said. “Yet, it also gives the public a very optimistic view of how under averse conditions these children can drive and really grow.”

This semester all the hired participants are University students, but in the past we have had students from Parkland College and from vocational schools, Clay said. Students are selected based on their willingness to share and to open up about their experiences.

“We want to encourage young people to get in touch with the project if they have been involved in the foster care system,” Clay said. “We will be hiring again starting next semester and will be holding a writer’s retreat in January.”