Struggling to Pull Shattered Family Together
Inside his sparse Van Nuys apartment, Trayvon Walker clicks on a MySpace.com photo of a 17-year-old boy with chin raised, cheeks stretched and a full mouth strikingly similar to his.
"That's my brother," says Walker of the teenager he worries about so much lately.
He clicks on a different page and scrolls through photos of his 16-year-old sister, wondering if she has a boyfriend.
At 20, Walker is trying to click together the scattered lives of his brothers and sisters. Raised by the foster care system in California -- in which 42% of children are separated from one or more of their siblings -- Walker knows only pieces of their stories. Five of his seven siblings remain in foster care in Victorville, Hesperia, Pomona and Ontario, and only two live together. One sister is autistic. One brother is about to turn 13. The 17-year-old in the online photo is getting ready to emancipate from foster care. Of his two older brothers, one is in jail and he can't find the other.
Walker wants the court or social workers to provide flexible visitation rights and transportation, so he can give his siblings still in foster care the parental figure that he never had.
He says it is up to him to pass on vital lessons in adulthood to his younger siblings, even though he lives 50 to 100 miles away. They are lessons every young adult should know but which those who grow up in foster care often learn the hard way: Don't buy more groceries than you can carry on the bus. Call potential employers to follow up on job applications, even if they didn't call you. Count school credits to make sure you've earned enough to graduate on time.
Nationwide, 20,000 young people become too old for foster care each year, with an estimated 4,000 in California. Foster children are supported by federal and state funding, and the law allows counties to keep them in care until they are 21.
But most leave foster care and step into adulthood on their 18th birthday, without a safety net.
A study of young adults who left foster care because of their age, conducted by the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center for Children, found that 42% did not graduate from high school. Less than half were employed and 14% had been homeless.
Those who maintained strong ties to family members -- including siblings -- during their childhood in foster care were more likely to be enrolled in school or working, the report found.
