Imagine you just graduated from high school or college and look out into the audience and see the cheers from your family. Imagine you just got engaged and call home to share the news with your parents. Imagine returning to your childhood home to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday surrounded by loved ones. Now imagine all these same events occuring but with no one to call, no one to visit, no one to share these wonderful experiences.

 

The mission of FCAA is to connect the alumni community and to transform foster care policy and practice, ensuring opportunity for people in and from foster care.

 

In Maryland, where there are thousands of children in foster care each year and hundreds of children aging out of the foster care system, it is imperative that all young adults have a family to reach out to in good times and bad for support, encouragement and guidance through all that life has to offer. The Maryland chapter of FCAA brings together local foster care alumni to form a “family” that might not be your traditional “family” but will still offer all the same benefits that many peoiple take for granted in their families. While working to accomplish this goal both on a local and national level, Maryland foster care alumni will not only add to the richness of their own lives but will be instrumental in making significant changes to the lives of current and future children who are part of the foster care system.

Hi. My name is Crystal Skinner. I'm 24 years old. My 4 siblings and I came into foster care in 1990. I was in the Prince Georges County DSS system from the age of 5 until 21. I am currently a student at Prince Georges Community College. I emancipated on Jan 1, 2006. I was scared. I felt like I had nowhere to go. That’s a feeling that probably has gone through the minds of many former foster youth and is running through the minds of foster youth nearing emancipation. That feeling needs to change. I am a member of FCAA for many reasons but the main reason is I want to help make a change in foster care systems around the world.

 

  

 

Questions? Comments? Contact us at: MDChapter@fostercarealumni.org