Fostering Community

For many students, weathering the COVID-19 pandemic has meant staying with their parents, sleeping in childhood bedrooms and readjusting to life within a full-time family unit. But for students who come from the foster care system, have been homeless or struggle with other personal difficulties, the pandemic has only magnified their stressors.

Fostering Terp Success, a program introduced last fall by the Division of Student Affairs, aims to bolster—or even create—a support system for these students. Year-round, participating Terps receive funds to buy textbooks, food and toiletries, bedding and linens, and a plethora of school supplies. They’re also paired with mentors and attend workshops on personal and professional growth.

“We wanted to make sure when we created this program that we drew the circle as wide as possible and recognized those overlapping challenges with food and housing insecurity and also that lack of a network of support, and how all of those things together impact students,” said Brian Watkins, director of Parent and Family Affairs and chair of Fostering Terp Success.

Last summer, campus coaches—mentors who commit to nurturing a relationship with a student throughout their time at the university—underwent training to begin to understand how the trauma of the foster care system or homelessness can affect a student’s ability to concentrate on schoolwork. Mentors meet at least monthly with their student and act as a cheerleader.

“It could be as simple as a text to say, ‘Hey, thinking about you, hope you have a great day’—providing some of the interaction that would happen from a family member,” said Watkins.

Fifteen students are taking part in the program; Watkins estimated that 75 current Terps come from foster care, but said the actual number might be higher. The number of students who come from a background of unstable housing is harder to assess, he says.

Students who were known to have been in foster care received a letter from Enrollment Management over the summer alerting them to the new program. Others with unstable housing situations were also informed about the program.

With the COVID pandemic changing life globally, Fostering Terp Success has offered new ways to support students. Eight students stayed in emergency campus housing during the spring semester and over the summer, and all participants were given an extra stipend to help with living expenses; several students also received dining plans. Weekly check-in calls over Zoom have also provided a caring network for students.

Fostering Terp Success has been a critical resource for Jacob Kuba ’20, whose family came to the U.S. from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and who wasn’t eligible for federal and state financial aid because of his parents’ tax filing status. The program’s people made sure he had housing during the pandemic. “They go out of their way to make sure that you succeed,” he says.