There can be no keener revelation of society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children
Kids First Alliance will embrace history and believe we have a novel, effective and sustainable approach to helping a specific forgotten sector of today’s foster kids with meaningful direction and life preparation.
Most of all foster children adopted are ages 0-5, but once a foster child reaches 12 years of age the chance falls below 10%, with only 4% of 16–18-year-olds ever being adopted. Under the current system these children often bounce from one foster family to another, leaving very little consistency in their home and school lives, and are too often exposed to extreme cases of mental and physical abuse. Consider that approximately 10% of states foster care population ages out of the system at 18 years old, and 25% experience PTSD, 25% end up in prison or homeless, 70% of female fosters become pregnant and only 53% graduate high school.
These children are being set up for failure and it not only costs them, but it also costs the communities. We can do better as a society. We need to do better as a society. KFA – Inicio Prep Academy will and is specifically designed to fill this certain need and this familial, learning campus they call home will make a meaningful difference in these children’s most formidable years.
INICIO’s purpose will be to build from its six pillar philosophy to instill Family, Home, Faith, Education, Values and Accountability for these kids through a structure of hope, safety, stability and direction with the focused goal of producing 18-year-olds with the life skills that will be the basis for their success after leaving their Inicio Prep Academy home, just like a traditional family prepares their children to leave home.
It all begins with the fundamental concept of creating an environment that embodies the virtues of safety, stability, learning and growing with family and a place to call home. We will show these vulnerable children that family need not be your birth family, or a traditional transient foster family. Family can be the people you choose and the people who choose you, for family, truly means a home and people who can count on each other. Family. Home. Stability. Safety.
This home campus environment will be foundational and accomplished with full-time on campus parents/mentors in each house. Quality mentor staffing is integral to success, and we will draw from several pools, locally and nationally, but for many reasons we will first focus on able bodied former foster kids to be a most significant contributor in filling these roles. The campus itself will be a fully scalable, landscaped and manicured parcel made up of multiple individual 8–10-person housing residences including parents/mentors.
The Inicio Prep Academy campus will also have staff offices and several multi-purpose buildings configured to fill cafeteria, chapel, vocational studies and gymnasium needs, but in the end, for most likely the first time, these kids will have a house, house parents, and a bed to call their own, and from this stable foundation and mentoring environment, productive kids will emerge.
Toward the importance of accountability, we will include local animal shelters to participate in the homing of rescue cats and dogs, and the children will be responsible to care for their animals and have required duties, chores and responsibilities about the home and campus like any child would in a traditional family.
Realizing not only the unconditional love and relatability a rescue pet can provide, but also learning you are fully responsible for the life of another living creature, rescue animals can provide an unmatched learning experience that will give these kids a significant and necessary sense of purpose.
Regarding the importance of educational needs, some may prefer and can handle local school and sports enrollment, which will be an option, but many foster kids lag in their age and grade athletic and scholastic benchmarks, so traditional school environments are often ineffective. INICIO Prep Academies are built for this and will provide teachers on campus for middle school and high school level customized home curriculum which will allow the kids the individual flexibility to learn and grow in an environment conducive to effective learning.
Ours will be a full-bodied faith and educational based curriculum covering all category benchmarks necessary for success and the kids will be exposed to the reality that at age 18, a traditional 4-year college education isn’t necessary for their success in life.
As part of their educational curriculum, Inicio Prep Academy will host consistent annual visits from local and regional faith-based entities, retail and service businesses, job fairs, internship opportunities and career opportunities with all four branches of our armed services.
Upon graduation these kids will have further education opportunities with vo-techs, community colleges or a four-year university if so desired. They can also skip further formal education with their learned ability to interview and successfully obtain a variety of jobs in any marketplace.
Toward the importance of earned rewards, as a rite of passage for their good work and dedication at Inicio Prep Academy, each child will receive a frameable diploma and a graduation ceremony, and every able mind and bodied child will receive a used automobile upon graduation, but most importantly these children graduate with options to become a successful member of society with a family support group, for life!
History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.
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