A Foster Child Comes of Age
After Years in a System Offering Support Networks, A Young Woman Learns Skills to Thrive Independently

By Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8, 2008; B01

Marie Willis was running late. Her biology class had already started, and by the time she slid into a back-row seat, only 25 minutes were left in the lecture. She had worked a double shift at her waitressing job the day before, rushed home for a minor emergency after her early-morning class and by 11 a.m., it already seemed as though it had been a long day. She tried to stifle a yawn.

In many ways, Willis, 21, is like most students working their way through college: juggling two jobs, a full course load, bills and roommate problems. But for the junior at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, the exhausting, fast-paced schedule was part of the preparation for one of the biggest challenges of her young life: discharge from foster care to life on her own.

Willis is one of the approximately 24,000 young people nationwide ages 18 to 21 who leave foster care each year, children who were never adopted or returned to their parents or guardians. For many, it is a time of mixed emotions and uncertainty. Some are relieved to be out of the system, but they also are worried about whether they are ready to negotiate life's challenges alone. Willis appears to be better prepared than most, but she still faces many obstacles.

A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust found that an increasing number of young people are "aging out" of foster care, even as research shows that many are ill-prepared for life after the system. Many have not finished high school or college and have limited employment and job skills. A 2005 study by researchers at the University of Chicago found they have higher rates of homelessness and incarceration than their peers.

Virginia and other states are starting to address these problems, with some allowing children to stay in foster care longer, offering transitional housing and providing financial assistance so that they can pursue higher education.

"This can be a tough time for a lot of our young people," said Gayle Bonner, a Fairfax County caseworker who has been paired with Willis for more than five years. "Marie is tough and responsible; she'll be able to handle things that come her way. But I think sometimes it's harder to adjust to not having some of the extra support they've had for so long."

In many ways, Willis is poised to beat the odds. She graduated from high school and hopes to receive a bachelor's in education next year from Old Dominion. She wants to be a special education teacher, and her foster parents have said they will help her.

Willis's early experience in foster care was a familiar one. At 7, she was removed from her grandmother's Fairfax County home after caseworkers found that she and her sisters were not sent to school regularly and were verbally abused often, according to Willis and local caseworkers. She had been placed with her grandmother eight months earlier because of abandonment by her father and the death of her mother in 1993, according to caseworkers. By the time the siblings were placed in the Shenandoah Valley foster home of Ray and Shirley Caplinger, they had been shuttled from Fairfax to a few group homes in Winchester and finally to Harrisonburg.

But Willis, who stayed with the Caplingers for 13 years, was lucky. Her older sister, Cassandra, moved from home to home before leaving the system voluntarily at 18; her younger sister, who has Down syndrome, was placed with another family. Bonner said the stability of life with the Caplingers helped Willis; most children who are in foster care for that long live with multiple families.

The University of Chicago researchers found that young people coming out of foster care often are more isolated socially than their peers and are more likely to suffer from mental health issues. These are among challenges for which Bonner and others have tried to prepare Willis: overcoming any emotional scars left by the neglect that led her to be in foster care.

"Some of my friends who know what I'm going through, they ask, 'You're doing this on your own, aren't you nervous or scared or whatever?' " she said. "But the way I see it, it's not like the entire world is changing. There are some scary things about it all . . . but all I can do is rely on what I know and what I know I can do."

Steps Toward Independence

Bonner, who has worked with dozens of teens during her career, could tell that Willis was unusually mature when they met in the summer of 2002. But there was still work to be done. She taught Willis how to budget her modest biweekly paychecks and the $644 a month she received in foster-care boarding payments from the state. She helped Willis manage a savings account and monitored her academic progress.

When Willis started college in 2005, the two, along with her foster parents, decided that she would finish her five-year degree program in three years so that when it was time for her to leave the Virginia foster-care system at age 21, she would be well on her way to a career. She doubled up on course work. She went to summer school each year. She studied between jobs and on lunch breaks, getting by on a few hours of sleep each night.

There were setbacks. For nearly two years, Willis shared a tidy two-bedroom apartment in Norfolk with a close friend for $450 a month. But in February, a disagreement between the two led Willis to move out.

Willis moved in with her foster sister and her family, paying $350 in rent, plus utilities, until yesterday, when she moved into a Virginia Beach apartment with two roommates. Rent will be $400, plus utilities. With her car payment, insurance and food, there isn't much left to save from a job that brings in $650 a month. She acknowledged that she'll be "piecing it together."

One Friday morning, Bonner and Willis mulled her options. They discussed budgeting. Willis would save her last foster-care boarding check to add to the savings account she had opened last year. But Bonner was disappointed. They had agreed that Willis would have saved at least $1,000 by the time she turned 21. Ten days before discharge, the account had $300.

"My attempts at budgeting didn't really work all that well, but there were a whole bunch of things that came up," Willis said, including repairs to her seven-year-old black Mazda 626.

Bonner looked at her skeptically. "No frivolous spending?"

"Well, maybe a little bit," Willis said. There was the occasional dinner and movie, and clothes for job interviews.

They decided that Willis would no longer press to finish school early. The $5,000 annual education credit she receives from the state until she turns 23 would give her extra financial assistance. She would apply for Medicaid because her health-care coverage would end after discharge. And she would continue looking for a second job.

Willis lost touch with her younger sister, who was adopted and is living in Florida. She and Cassandra, who is married and lives in West Virginia, rarely talk, but they see each other on major holidays.

The emotional ups and downs worried Bonner as they discussed the future and Willis's ability to develop healthy adult relationships. Willis has been in therapy since November. She said the weekly sessions have helped her deal with her fear of emotional commitment and the reality that she will be handling adult responsibilities on her own.

"I guess that's what I'm scared of most . . . being able to form lasting friendships, relationships and opening up. Getting married," Willis said, taking off her glasses to wipe away tears. "Even after all this time, it's hard when you've been through people in and out of your life. You never know who to trust, who's going to leave next."

Almost Ready to Leave the Nest

In March, Willis sat in the comfort of her foster parents' home. She was there for a Caplinger family tradition: a home-cooked birthday dinner of eggplant parmesan and spinach. The talk was of the adult problems that would soon confront Willis, including whether she should confront the unknown parts of her past.

"Of course I worry about Marie and how she'll make it, but I worried about all my children," Shirley Caplinger said. "She has problems budgeting, yes. I'm not sure how honest she is with herself with that. And I guess I wonder sometimes if she understands."

This tough love, Willis said, helped her feel a part of the Caplinger family, making the adjustment to foster care easier. She and the Caplingers' other foster children went on vacations with the family (Disney World, camping, visits to relatives), celebrated holidays and did all the things families do together.

Willis said she hopes the relationship she has developed with the family will provide her with support as she moves into the next phase of her life. But there are still uncomfortable decisions she'll have to make on her own: Should she look for some members of her birth family? Should she look through the volumes of case files to learn more about her past?

"Part of me doesn't want to know. . . . Part of me wants to move on," she said. "I've had a good family life here. Sometimes, I want to let the past be the past."

Discharge day, March 19, was sunny and warm, but Willis was in a bad mood.

There was a celebration ahead, though. Her girlfriends were taking her out for a birthday dinner in Norfolk. As she sat at the dining room table, her phone kept flashing text messages with birthday wishes.

She tried not to think about all she had to do in the next few days.

"It's not just another day. I know that," she said. "I just want to celebrate it as my birthday and not think about it as anything more than that, you know?"