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UCLA foster student works to help youth with similar background

By Samantha Schaefer

Dec. 6, 2009 10:33 p.m.

Adjusting to college and being on her own was not difficult for Ashley Williams.

In fact, she said it was easy after changing schools 26 times from kindergarten to eighth grade.

Williams, a second-year sociology student, is one in a small population of former foster youth within the UC system and has been moving around her whole life.

“I didn’t like home. I didn’t like my foster parents at all, so school was the only thing I loved,” Williams said. “I loved being around my teachers or my friends, people who didn’t really get on my nerves or try to harm me … so school was my outlet. That’s where I was the strongest.”

Despite her smooth adjustment into campus life, she added that she still lacked parental guidance and financial support.

Though she was able to connect with Jonli Tunstall, director of the Vice Provost’s Initiative for Pre-College Scholars at UCLA, a program Williams participated in during high school, she said most foster youth do not necessarily have that kind of guidance.

“(Tunstall) would give me rides to the program, take me places outside of the program, and do all these amazing things that a person normally wouldn’t do. She went above and beyond anything,” Williams said. “I love her to death.”

At the November UC Board of Regents meeting, Williams and UC Vice President of Student Affairs Judy Sakaki spoke about the increased effort to provide resources for this “invisible population of students,” upon the request of former regent and Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass.

A 2006 presentation to the UC Board of Regents noted that only UC Santa Cruz and UC Irvine had programs geared toward former foster youth within the UC system and within the community. However, in the years since the meeting, all 10 UC campuses have developed student support programs.

“It was an issue that we’re like an invisible population on UCLA’s campus,” Williams said. “If somebody doesn’t speak up for it, who will?”

An estimated 150 former foster youth entered the UC system in the 2008-2009 academic year. Foster youth are considered financially independent and are eligible to receive financial assistance through the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan and the Chafee Grant, a grant specifically for foster youth.

Former foster youth are also given priority year-round housing, with AB 1393, signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October.

Williams, along with three other students, recently founded the Bruin Scholars Resource Program, which aims to provide foster youth on campus with the guidance and resources they may lack at home.

“One of the main pillars is first, we want to help students here at UCLA succeed academically and socially, and we want to outreach to youth who are still in the foster care system in the greater Los Angeles community,” said Montae Langston, cofounder and president of the program.

At the group’s first event earlier this fall, students were introduced to campus figures like financial aid representatives, faculty members and even the Chancellor’s wife, Langston said.

“It’s important because foster youth at UCLA go through additional obstacles that need to be addressed that most other students don’t go through. That’s why this program was created as a collaborative effort to make sure those students aren’t left behind,” Langston said.

He added that the group hopes to expand to work more with youth in the community as the program develops.

“Learning to navigate the university is a hidden curriculum,” Tunstall said, adding that programs that give students “allies on campus” are important to their integration and success.

Despite her inconsistent experience in the foster system, Williams said she was always focused and motivated in school, and was encouraged to apply to college by her mentor. She had spent time on the campus at UCLA as she spent an increasing amount of time with Tunstall and through her participation in the VIP scholar’s program.

When the time came to apply, Williams decided there was no better place to apply to school, adding that a lack of diversity on campus was another motivating factor.

“I don’t want to be part of the statistics, I want to be here to prove that this is where I want to be, this is what I want to do. That atmosphere, there weren’t people who looked like me, so it was like, “˜Let’s change that about this campus,'” she said.

Tunstall said she sees Williams’ confidence and said Williams is not only doing well for herself, but also giving back and providing for the campus community.

“You have to go through rough times in order to get through the good times,” Williams said. “You have to go through a struggle in order to be successful.”

For students interested in helping former or current foster youth, e-mail [email protected].

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Samantha Schaefer
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