Foster Kids Deserve and Need...
WHY HELP
MORE NORMALCY TO JUST BE KIDS
MORE SUPPORT WHEN AGING OUT
MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO PLAY AND GROW
Over 368,000 children are in the U.S. foster care system at any given time and range in age from days old to teens. This year, over 600,000 children will experience foster care. It may be days, months, years, or their entire childhood. For all of them, entering care is scary, filled with uncertainty, a lack of control, and often traumatic.
Foster kids enter the system through no fault of their own. Many enter care with little to no belongings or minutes to pack a bag during a moment of trauma. These kids have suffered the effects of abuse, poverty, neglect, witnessed the effects of drug addiction, or have lost their parent to illness, death, or incarceration.
With a nationwide shortage of foster parents and stipends that don’t cover the essentials of a growing child, many children have never owned a new pair of shoes or clothes or had the opportunity to participate in sports or music. Aging out of care is especially daunting, as they are left on their own to find housing and employment without the funds, education, or guidance that would allow them to succeed.
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Stats We Can Change
2x
foster children suffer PTSD at more than twice the rate of war veterans
50%
of youth in foster care graduate high school
30-50%
foster parents stop fostering each year
1/5
foster children experience homelessness within 2 years of aging out of care
“Ticket to Dream is an amazing organization that provides support for foster children - a population of vulnerable children and youth that so often gets overlooked. They have made it their mission to help these youngsters heal and move forward by providing support in ways great and small. I cannot even imagine how many lives they have touched over the years."
Foster Care Partner, South Carolina Youth Advocate Program
