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FOSTERING SUCCESS: Creating Better Futures for Foster Children in Dallas County
Zach Steinert
Emma Servin
Arindam Bhattacharya
Gina Brannon
Table of Contents
Introduction & Background…...…………....…………………………………………………..…3
Why Us………………………………………………………………………………………....…6
Proposal…………………………………..…………………………....……………………...…..7
Plan…………………………………………………………………………………………....…..8
HPB Seminar Series Schedule………………………………………………………...….8
College Prep Donation Drive………………………………………………………….....11
Staffing…………………………………….………………………………………………...…..12
Marketing/Advertising……………………...………………………………………………...…13
Budget……………………………………….…………………………………...………….......14
Future Plans…………………………………..……………………………………………...….15
Benefits……………………………………....……………………………………………….....16
Benefits to our Community……………………………………………………………....16
Benefits to our Company……………………………………………………………......17
Authorization Request.………………………..…………………………………………….......18
References...…………………………………….…………………………………………….....19
Introduction & Background
The Fostering Success Program is aimed at helping Dallas County foster youth who are
aging out of the foster system realize their full academic and professional potential. “Aging out”
refers to the process of exiting foster care upon reaching eighteen years of age or graduating
from high school. After a student ages out of the system, they are expected to possess the
financial literacy, emotional stability, and professional skills needed be fully independent,
functional adults as well as productive members of society. However, by the age of 24, half of
those who age out become incarcerated, homeless, or unemployed (Lee, 2014; Okpych, 2014).
Earnings prospects for foster youth are also disheartening. The figures below examine three
separate categories of foster youths who all aged out of foster care in three different states, and
illustrates the percentage of youth who earn any sort of income at all in the period ranging from
one year before aging to two years after aging out:
These graphs paint a grim picture for these foster youth; less than 45% of foster youth
who age out of the system had any earnings in any of the three states during any three month
period examined in the study (Goerge, 2002). Those that earn wages often do not earn enough to
avoid poverty; the average wage earned in the two years following foster youths’ eighteenth
birthdays was less than $6,000 in 2002, substantially less than the poverty level at the time
(Goerge, 2002). Our program strives to intervene before these hardships overwhelm foster teens
who have just aged out of the system. By providing additional assistance, our program facilitates
a smoother transition to adulthood for foster youths.
In Dallas County there are approximately 2600 foster youth (“Children in Foster Care
(017)”). In any given year, approximately 250350 foster youth who are juniors and seniors live
in the county. When a foster child is placed in the foster system, they will move households
between 10 and 15 times per school year (A. Moore, personal communication, October 2014.). This
creates a very unstable environment for these youth. However, the few youth who go on to
complete a postsecondary degree (e.g., Associates, Bachelors, Masters Degrees) have a higher
employment rate, and earn a higher salary than their nonfoster care peers (Okpych 2.3). Our
program will open up academic and professional opportunities to a larger portion of foster
students.
Why Us
At Half Price Books, we have a commitment to “be fair to customers and our employees,
promote literacy, be kind to the environment and remain financially viable so we may continue”
(“Press Release,” 2011). We currently have the Million Book Project, which is a campaign to
donate books to those who normally would not be able to afford them (“Million Book Project,”
2013). Fostering Success is another addition in our campaign to promote literacy, wherein it
promotes literacy within these foster homes and develops an educated community. The success
of this program can be measured by the number of students it enables to pursue higher education
and meaningful professional careers, as well as saves from undesirable adulthood outcomes (e.g.,
homelessness, incarceration). We believe Fostering Success is structured to maximize turnout
and achieve these ambitious and high impact goals for these foster youths.
Proposal
Fostering Success consists of two separate programs: the “Half Price Books Seminar
Series” and the “College Prep Donation Drive”.
The seminar series will last nine months, and be located at our flagship store. These
seminars will provide a social environment for foster youth to connect with other foster
students, as well as, cultivate relationships with caring professionals. Equally
importantly, foster students will also learn necessary life skills to make the transition to
adulthood with considerably less difficulty.
The donation drive will run the entire month of April, and be located at each Half Price
Books location in the Dallas area. At each store will be a booth or box, that will accept
SAT and ACT Prepbooks, and college textbooks. The ultimate goal of the donation
drive is to help foster students attend college by assisting them with materials that they
may not otherwise be able to afford, such as textbooks.
Plan
HPB Seminar Series Schedule
The Half Price Books Seminar Series is a program for both foster youths and parents
which promotes the development of relationships and life skills in these young adults aging out
of foster care. The program consists of separate seminars for both foster students and their foster
parents, which take place concurrently over the course of a school year. The seminar series not
only supplements these foster teens’ formal education with valuable information needed to
successfully make the transition to adulthood, it also attends to the foster teens’ emotional needs
by providing a stable environment for them to experience personal growth while also feeling
comfortable and secure.
In May, we will reserve the seminar room at the Half Price Books flagship location,
where our program will be held. Half Price Books corporate speakers will be determined in
June, and registration will be held at that time as well. Since registration is initially limited to a
total of 100 foster youths and adults combined, attendees will be accepted on a first come, first
served basis. The seminar series will align closely with a typical school year by starting in
August and lasting for nine months, with no classes during the summer and winter holiday
breaks. Each session will be held on the first Saturday of the month, from 6:00 PM 9:00 PM,
with a 30 minute break set aside for dinner at 7:15 PM.
Our corporate staff will lead the foster student classes, which focus on the development
of essential life and career skills. The topics for the seminars are split up into three main
subseries: “Higher Education”, “Financial Literacy”, and “Professional Skills”, each with three
lectures. Below is our proposed set of seminar topics and dates:
Date HPB Seminar Series Topic (Children)
8/1/2015 College Application and Admissions Process
9/5/2015 College 101: How to Succeed in College
10/3/2015 Beyond the Bachelor's: PostUndergraduate Education
11/7/2015 Personal Finance I: Paying for College Loans, Grants, Scholarships
1/2/2015 Personal Finance II: Budgeting, Saving, Money Management
2/6/2016 Personal Finance III: All About Credit
3/5/2016 Building and Maintaining Your Professional Identity
4/2/2016 Interview Preparation and Strategies
5/7/2016 Professionalism in the Workplace
We will conclude the program by awarding the foster students a certificate of completion
to acknowledge their significant step forward towards a brighter future for themselves and
celebrate their accomplishment in attending and learning from the seminar series.
At the same time, we will work with the Texas Department of Family and Protective
Services (TDFPS) to find social workers who will lead our adult classes, which are aimed at
helping foster parents develop the parenting skills necessary to help their foster children succeed
after moving out of the foster care system. Since these classes are led by qualified social work
professionals, they count towards yearly mandatory training requirements for inservice foster
parents (K. Saldivar, personal communication, October 2014). As a result, these classes provide a
strong incentive for foster parents to not only bring their teens to the seminars, but to participate
in the learning process themselves. The social workers will determine the topics for each session,
but we will work with them to align several of the class topics with those being taught in the
foster student classes; an example of a set of suggested adult class topics is below.
Date Suggested InService Training Topic (Adults)
08/01/15 CPR and First Aid Training
09/05/15 Pursuing Post High School Education
10/03/15 Behavioral Intervention Effectively Managing Difficult Behaviors
11/07/15 Understanding and Treating Developmental Disorders
01/02/15 Money Management Skills for Adolescents
02/06/16 Easing the Transition to Foster Care
03/05/16 Developing Job Skills and Work Experience
04/02/16 Effective Discipline for Foster Teens
05/07/16 Developing and Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle
College Prep Donation Drive
Our donation drive revolves around supplying SAT/ACT college test prep materials and
college textbooks to our foster youth. It is a fourweek long initiative in which drop boxes will be
placed at the circulations desks of all our Half Price Books locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth
area. Our flagship location will be the headquarters for this project and will therefore have a
booth run by our employees in order to further promote our drive.
First, we will determine each student's book needs by the end of March by providing
questionnaires at the end of the seminars and receiving the foster youths’ feedback on their book
needs. Next, the fourweek long initiative will take place from April 1 to April 30. Finally, after
collecting donation supplies, we will distribute the books in May. Monetary donations will also
be accepted and used for the purchase of additional textbooks if there is a need. There is a
matching feature to our proposal: we plan to match all donations both monetary and
materialwise. If there is a need for additional textbooks, the monetary donations will be used to
purchase more. If there is a surplus or no need for additional textbooks, all the proceeds will be
donated to our partnering nonprofit organization, Change for Today & Tomorrow.
Staffing
The seminar series will require eight total staff to run the events. Below is a detailed
description of tasks, as well as, a breakdown of labor costs:
Two corporate employees to prepare and present on the monthly foster youth seminars
One Assistant Manager to oversee seminar set up, checkin, operation, and tear down of
the event
Three regular booksellers to help the assistant manager with set up, checkin, operation,
and tear down of the event
Two qualified social workers to teach the coinciding adult classes (Note: Social Workers
come at no additional cost to the program)
Quantity Cost /Unit Total
Corporate
Assistant Manager
Regular Bookseller
Qualified Social Workers
2
1
3
2
$384.64 ($24.04 /hr)*
$487.62 /yr ($18.06 /hr)
$262.44 /yr ($9.72 /hr)
**
$ 769.28
$ 487.62
$ 787.32
$ 0.00
Total Cost 8 $2,044.22
*Assuming corporate recieves $50,000 /year. Corporate will be paid given 2 fully paid vacation
days, with acknowledgement of complete commitment to attend the 9 yearly sessions.
**Cost covered from partnership with Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (E.
Dukes, personal communication, October 2014).
Marketing/ Advertising
Our proposal targets a very specific and often difficult to reach demographic. In order to
successfully advertise our events to foster children and their parents in the Dallas area, we have
partnered with Change for Today & Tomorrow (C4T2). C4T2 is a nonprofit organization
comprised of former foster care youths and is headquartered in Dallas, TX. The organization
revolves around offering present day foster care youths social events in hopes of offering the
students a sense of social stability. Change for Today & Tomorrow will assist us with marketing,
and will do so at no cost (K. Saldivar, personal communication, October 2014).
In order to reach as many foster care students as possible, C4T2 will assist us primarily
with the acquisition of contact information. The marketing strategy is broken down as follows:
1. C4T2 is already partnered with social workers in the Dallas area in order to reach foster
care families. Through Change for Today & Tomorrow, the social workers will have our
event information.
2. Social workers will speak to their foster students. Depending on their caseload, they will
provide C4T2 with a list of contact information of interested families.
3. We will be allowed this list of contacts and will reach the families by email, as the social
workers have stated this is the parents’ preferred method of contact.
4. We will answer any questions that arise from the families as well as keep record of
families that have signed up.
In regards to advertising, we also plan to have flyers posted around the circulation desks
of our various Half Price Books locations in order to promote our drive and announce our
seminar series.
Budget
Quantity Cost /Unit Total
Variable Cost
Refreshments Match Book Match Donations Value
9 sessions 50 books
$449.30 /session $16 /book
$4,043.70 $ 800.00 $2,000.00
Subtotal $6,843.70
Fixed Cost
Staff Corporate Assistant Manager Regular Bookseller Qualified Social Worker Donation Booth Marketing/ Advertising Certificates
2 1 3 2
100
$384.64 ($24.04 /hr)* $487.62 /yr ($18.06 /hr) $262.44 /yr ($9.72 /hr) ** *** $8 /person
$ 769.28 $ 487.62 $ 787.32 $ 0.00 $ 30.00 $ 0.00 $ 800.00
Subtotal $2,874.22
Total Chamber of Commerce Backing Amount
$9,717.92 $4,858.96
*Assuming corporate recieves $50,000 /year. Corporate will be paid given 2 fully paid vacation days, with acknowledgement of complete commitment to attend the 9 yearly sessions.
**Cost covered from partnership with Department of Family and Protective Services
***Cost covered from partnership with Change for Today and Tomorrow
Future Plans
Looking towards the future, and based on program observations, we plan on expanding
Fostering Success by increasing the registration limit, and spreading out the program to more
stores across the nation. We feel that the need for this program is felt not just in Dallas, but in all
areas of the country. Depending on the success of our program at our flagship location, we will
branch out to local communities in Dallas, then to other cities in Texas, and finally to
surrounding states.
In addition to expanding the geographic range of the program, we would love to also add
mentorship opportunities to the program. After students exit our program, we would still like for
them to have a connection to turn to for guidance and support. A mentorship program will
further support our efforts to attend to these foster youths’ emotional needs and stability long
after they exit foster care.
Benefits
Benefits to our Community
We at Half Price Books truly believe in offering these foster youths an opportunity for
selffulfillment. Our program will guide students by offering them the opportunity to learn more
about their college options.
In the state of Texas, it is mandated by state law that students who come from a foster
care background will have their tuition covered in full at any public state university. Our
program will emphasize the impact of this opportunity as we know it is one that cannot be taken
lightly; these students have an economic advantage they should leverage to the fullest extent
possible. Aside from the educational perspective, moving between 1015 times within a school
year for a child can be a traumatic experience. Our program will also provide youth the
opportunity to interact with each other and learn from other students who have had similar
experiences. We also believe the interaction between our youths and our Half Price Books staff
paves the way for a mentoring program, which can provide much needed emotional support for
these foster youth during the transition out of foster care and their time in college.
Benefits to Our Company
The Fostering Success program demonstrates our devotion to carrying out our mission
statement as a company. Our proposal falls perfectly in line with our core values of promoting
literacy, further educating the public, as well as synergizing with previous company initiatives
such as our Million Books project.
We will be proactively impacting a disadvantaged segment of the local community in a
positive, meaningful manner, as well as, building a positive business reputation in the eyes of our
customers.
Authorization Request
We ask that the Dallas Chamber of Commerce contribute $4,858.96 to fund half of Half
Price Books’ Fostering Success. By signing the line below, you have read and agreed with our
proposition to help the development of foster youth in Dallas County.
Signature ______________________________________ Date __________________
References
A. Moore, personal communication, October 2014. Children In Foster Care (017). (2014). [Interactive map of foster youth in Texas’ counties from Kids
Count data center 2014]. Kids Count data center. Retreived from http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/Map/3061childreninfostercare017?loc=45&loct=5#5/any/false/36/any/8263/.
E. Dukes, personal communication, October 2014. Goerge, R. M., Bilaver, L., Lee, B. J., Needell, B., Brookhart, A., & Jackman, W. (2002). Employment outcomes for youth aging out of foster care. Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago. Half Price Books. 2011. Press Release 2011. Retrieved from http://www.hpb.com/press/2011/press_release_12012011.html Half Price Books. 2013. Million Book Project. Retrieved from http://www.hpb.com/community/literacy/million/ K. Saldivar, personal communication, October 2014. Lee, C. (2014, August 5). Experiences of youth who transition to adulthood out of care: Developing a
theoretical framework. Child and Youth Services Review, 46, 7884. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.08.005
Okpych, N. (2014). Does education pay for youth formerly in foster care? Comparison of employment
outcomes with a national sample. Children and Youth Services Review, 43, 1828. DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.04.013
