FORT WORTH, Texas (ABP) — One Baptist congregation in Texas has decided to do something to help an often-overlooked group with special needs: teens who are aging out of the state's foster-care system and heading for the intimidating new world of adulthood.
University Baptist Church in Fort Worth gives 18-to-21-year-old young adults who have aged out of the foster-care system much-needed support as they begin life on their own.
Toby Owen, a member of University Baptist who worked at the All Church Home foster-care facility in Fort Worth more than 14 years, observed an alarming failure rate among teens who grew too old to stay in the foster-care program.
“The odds of them becoming homeless are very, very high,” Owen said.
For years, the home tried to secure funding for a transitional housing program, but never was able to make it happen. While discussing the problem with the church’s minister of missions and administration, Bryans Fitzhugh, Owen learned that a duplex the church owned might be available for that kind of ministry.
Bryans Fitzhugh, minister of missions/administration at University Baptist Church in Fort Worth, stands outside the duplex the church has transformed into transitional housing for teens who have aged out of the foster-care system.
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The federal government’s 2009 stimulus package included funding to help the homeless find housing. Owen and two other workers at All Church, Katie Tilley and Carla Storey, wrote a grant request and received the funding.
The collaborative effort involved not only All Church Home and University Baptist, but also the Fort Worth Independent School District and surrounding school districts that make foster-care referrals.
Owen now is executive director of Presbyterian Night Shelter in Fort Worth, where 700 homeless men, women and children a night find temporary lodging.
Many high-school seniors become homeless each year, he noted. The Fort Worth schools reported that 27 high school seniors became homeless during the 2007-2008 school year due to a myriad of circumstances. Statewide, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services noted more than 2,000 children aged out of the foster-care program in 2008.
In addition to providing young people a place to live, the church also will provide a caring support mechanism, Fitzhugh said.
“We are having some of our people trained as mentors to work with the youth. We’ll have some of our people who will do life-skills training with them, and we’re asking other groups like Sunday school classes and small groups to adopt the duplex for a month at a time to make sure they have the food they need, the personal items, cleaning things and things like that,” he said.
“One of the things that the life-skills training course will be about is: ‘How do you go to the grocery store and shop? How do you keep your house clean and neat and orderly?’”
First residents
While the University Baptist Church transitional living house is set up for four people, two live there now — a male high school senior from nearby Arlington, Texas, and a young woman attending college to become a medical-records technician.
“She is exactly who we are trying to get into this program — people who have some motivation, or who are at least willing to be motivated to continue their education or get a job. Hopefully while she’s in the program, we will help her establish herself so that when she’s able to go out on her own, she’ll be able to be successful,” Fitzhugh said.
Storey concurred. The ideal client is someone who either is going to school or has a job and can say, “This is what I want to do and this is how I’m going to get there,” or “This is what I want to do, but I don’t know how to get there and I need someone to show me,” she said.
Residents of the duplex also have a caseworker, Anne Marie Lamendola, who will help them to achieve their goals and stay on task.
The partnership that enables the church to help these young people to adulthood fits well with the church’s goals as well, Fitzhugh said.
“One of the main things we’re trying to do is to minister to somebody eyeball-to-eyeball, so that you know them well enough to know their name and they know your name. That way you’re able to help them accomplish some of the things they need to accomplish,” Fitzhugh said. “This gives us a great opportunity to invest in another person’s life.”
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George Henson
is a staff writer for the Texas Baptist Standard.