When Lorna Murphy's daughter headed to college, the mother of two knew there was going to be something missing in her life. The days of senior year activities were gone - that was until Murphy, of Jefferson City, joined the Transitions Program through Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association (CMFCAA).
The program connects mentors, ages 21 and older who've gone through an application process, with high school seniors who are aging out of the foster care system and under care of relatives or an adoptive family. Mentors assist their mentees with life skills, starting in their senior years and throughout their first years of college.
Murphy said she's helped her mentee, Blake Wallis, who is currently in the U.S. Army, repair his car and understand financial aid, while talking with him about his grades, accomplishments and dates with girls.
"We'd talk about just day-to-day things that you could talk to a mother about, things that I would be excited about," Murphy said.
Over the past six years, all of the more than 40 mentees in the Transitions Program have graduated high school, said CMFCAA Program Director Nicole Elliott, adding 90 percent have gone on to post-secondary education and the remaining entered the military. High school seniors who've been in the system, Elliott said, typically don't experience a fear of failure, but rather a fear of success.
"It's going out into the unknown and not having predictability in their lives," Elliott said. "If you lose your biological family, then your friends become your family, your teachers become your family, and so then leaving your only family you've had (for schooling or the military) is like repeating the trauma of when you lost your first family."
About 30,000 youth in America age out of foster care annually, according to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. Within four years of leaving foster care, 1/4 of former foster youth experience homelessness. In Missouri, about 280 children age out of foster care every year, CMFCAA Executive Director Deanna Alonso said.
"I think we need to take a look back and think at 18, we were still calling our parents," she said. "There are things we still need to know, and they don't have anyone to call. So, the supports are not around them. They struggle. The homelessness rates, the substance abuse rates, entering into the Dept. of Corrections - those percentages are quite high when aging out youth don't have supports around them to help them be successful."
For Murphy, her pseudo-parental role goes beyond the two-year term.
"I told Blake he's part of our life forever," she said.
The organization held its seventh annual Forget Me Not Gala, which raised $41,000 last year, Friday at Capitol Plaza Hotel. A portion of the funds raised, Alonso said, goes to support the Transitions Program. The event is always in November, adoption awareness month, to highlight the need of adoptive families, like the Towns Family.
"We also need to support our foster families - these kids are always waiting for forever homes and if we can get a community involved with families who are fostering or who have adopted, because it's not easy, you're working with kids who are going to have unique needs because of their past experiences," Amanda Towns, CMFCAA office manager and adoptive mother of four, said. "And, if you can get a community to be aware of those needs and be willing to step up even in the smallest of ways, then you're taking a whole load off the parents who are already doing everything in their power to make sure these kids know the difference between trauma and love."
The event, which included a dinner and silent and live auctions, was also an opportunity for the organization to celebrate its past year. CMFCAA has moved to a larger location, expanded its foster parent training services to five additional counties (making a total of nine counties served) and became a partner agency to three United Way organizations: Central Missouri, Heart of Missouri and Callaway County. From January to September, 42 children have been adopted in central Missouri.
Tisha Spencer, CMFCAA board member, said these accomplishments warranted the gala's theme - hope is rising.
"Our organization has had a lot of advances in the last few years, especially the last year," she said. "We're really moving the needle at this point for lives of kids in central Missouri. I think (the theme) is reflective of what's happening in central Missouri right now. It's a very hopeful outlook for foster and adoptive families."