Today, we’re diving deep into the world of foster care education with the incredible Sharon Dunlevy, an educational advocate who’s truly making waves in this often-overlooked area. Sharon’s mission is crystal clear: she’s all about bringing the needs of children in foster care to the forefront of educational policy and practice. She’s not just a trainer for foster parents; she’s a passionate speaker and influencer who recently snagged the fan favorite title in a speaking competition, proving that her voice is one that resonates. Together, we’ll explore the unique challenges these kids face in the education system, from trauma-induced learning barriers to the importance of building supportive teams around them. So, grab a comfy seat and get ready to be inspired as we uncover how we can all play a part in ensuring these children not only survive but thrive!

A heartwarming and enlightening chat unfolds as we dive into the intricacies of advocating for children in foster care with our remarkable guest, Sharon Dunlevy. With a mission that's as noble as it is necessary, Sharon opens up about her journey from special education teacher to educational advocate dedicated to ensuring that the voices of foster children are heard and their educational rights are upheld. We explore the challenges these kids face, often overlooked by society, especially concerning their schooling. Sharon emphasizes that many foster children deal with a unique set of traumas that affect their ability to learn and thrive in educational environments. She highlights the importance of understanding trauma-informed practices in education and how these can make a monumental difference in a child's learning experience.

Throughout our conversation, Sharon shares her insights into the laws designed to protect these children and how foster parents can be empowered to advocate for their educational needs. From the Every Student Succeeds Act to individualized education plans (IEPs), we discuss the tools available to foster parents and educators to help foster children succeed academically. Sharon's passion shines as she recounts her experiences training foster parents, explaining how their knowledge of these laws can lead to better outcomes for their children. The episode is filled with anecdotes and practical advice for anyone involved in the foster care system, making it clear that we all have a role to play in supporting these vulnerable kids.

As we wrap up, Sharon encourages listeners to develop empathy and understanding towards those around them, especially when it comes to invisible struggles. She leaves us with a powerful reminder that every child deserves a champion, urging us all to take action and advocate for the rights of foster children. This episode is not just a call to awareness; it's a rallying cry for compassion and informed advocacy, making it a must-listen for foster parents, educators, and anyone interested in making a positive impact in their community.

Takeaways:

1. Sharon Dunlevy is an educational advocate dedicated to improving outcomes for children in foster care, focusing on their educational rights and needs.
2. The Every Student Succeeds Act mandates that foster children stay in their school even if they change homes, ensuring stability in their education.
3. Foster children often face unique challenges due to trauma that affect their learning and behavior, requiring trauma-informed practices in schools.
4. Educators and foster parents must work collaboratively to create supportive environments for foster kids, keeping the child's needs at the center of discussions.
5. It’s crucial for foster kids to be aware of their rights and available resources, especially as they transition into adulthood.
6. Anyone can help foster children without becoming a foster parent by mentoring, tutoring, or donating essential supplies to support foster care agencies.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome back to the show. I am your host, Keith Haney.

Today's guest is someone whose work is changing lives in one of the most overlooked areas of education, children in foster care. Sharon Dunleab is an educational advocate whose mission is to bring the needs of those children to the forefront of policy and practice.

She trains foster parents on the laws that protect their children's right to learn and succeed. And she's not just a trainer.

Sharon is also a speaker and influencer, recently winning fan favorite in the speaking competition aimed at raising awareness for this cause. Her passion is rooted in justice, and her voice is helping shape a future where every child in foster care has an educational foundation.

They need to thrive not just in school, but in life. We welcome Sharon to the show.

Thank you, Keith. It's great to be here.

It's good to have you on. So I'm going to ask you my favorite question. Sharon, welcome. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

The best piece of advice is from my mom, and she always said, life is short. Eat dessert first.

And so I love that.

Yeah, you know, we're not going to take it with us when we die, and we don't know how long we have in this world. So we try and do what we can while we're here and make the most of every moment.

That is really good advice. And dessert is always worthwhile.

Exactly.

So tell us a little bit about what inspired you to become an advocate for children in foster care.

I've had a couple podcasts about foster care, and it's one of those things that most of us don't think about on a daily basis, but it's so critical of what's happening. So I'm just curious what led you into that path?

So I was trained as a special education teacher, so I always had a heart for. For vulnerable children. But I actually was in ministry for about 20 years.

I was a children's minister for about 20 years, and then I jumped around and wanted to get back to my special ed roots. And there was a licensing foster care licensing agency here in Indianapolis that needed an educational advocate. So I applied and got the job.

Kind of like you, Keith. I knew about foster kids, but, like. And I've talked to foster parents. I had foster parents in my church, all of those things.

But I never really knew the depth of what happens in that system until I got into that job. And it was a unique position. They don't have educational advocates around the country like me. Some states have them, some don't.

And A lot of the states or people just don't even know.

Like, when we think about foster kids, we think about trauma and we think about adjusting to their home life, but we forget how hard it is for them to adjust to school as well.

And so I just became very invested in the educational outcomes of what I was seeing from these foster kids that I was working with one on one, and then investigating the larger scope of how this is affecting them over the entire country and just found a passion that I really have been living out now for the last. I think I decided I've been doing this kind of on my own for about seven years now.

So, wow, thank you for that because it's really, really critical. One thing I want to dig a little deeper into. So I've covered this angle from so many different perspectives.

I've covered it from people from a gal who was in the foster care system and just her horrible experience with it and how easy it was for her to get in the system, but how hard it is to get out of it.

I've covered it from the angle of people who work with kids on the older, the end of the spectrum where they're at 18 and about to age out of the system and their family situation has still not been resolved in all of those. You've always covered a little bit about the educational piece, but what's so unique about the educational struggles that we may not be aware of?

Sure. So one of the biggest things that when we hear about foster kids, a lot of us think about behaviors, right?

Like the only time our society really talks about foster kids might be a crime is committed. And then they'll say, oh, and they were in the foster care system or something like that. Right.

And you get this kind of mentality of, oh, foster kids are always in trouble. Well, what we don't talk about is they're in trouble because they have trauma.

They had trauma from whatever situation they were living in that caused them to be removed from their home. They have trauma because they were removed from their home.

You know, that is in a trauma inducing event, they have trauma because they are moving from home to home. Foster parents change and they don't have a lot of a choice. They're not asked, which home do you want to live in? They're not.

They don't interview the foster parents first. They just move and they just go where people tell them.

And then they have trauma because they are either changing schools all the time or they're in school. But their trauma has caused their brain trauma, causes our Brains not to develop at its normal rate.

And so their brains may not be fully developed, and they may not be on par with their peers because they're. Because of that trauma reduction of the brain development.

And then also, when you're in foster care, in order to go out for court appearances and get mental health services, everybody has to know you're a foster kid, so you don't have any privacy. And some of them don't want to be known as foster kids. They just want to be treated like any other kid.

And on the teacher side, because of trauma behaviors and not really understanding trauma, when a teacher hears they have a foster kid in their classroom, a lot of times they automatically assume that that kid's going to be difficult. So, you know, there's all these layers that all relate back to trauma.

The behaviors are all a response to trauma, but trauma behaviors don't respond to medication or discipline the way that other behaviors would. So, for example, in schools, a lot of times, they'll send a kid to the principal's office, or they'll suspend a kid or something like that.

Well, for a kid with trauma who's already been abused or neglected, those are exclusionary practices. And those exclusionary practices reinforce the idea that they don't belong. And so then they never feel comfortable in that environment.

And when they're not comfortable in that environment and they're not feeling safe, they're not learning because all they're concerned about is, am I safe? They're in that flight fight or freeze mode, and they can't shut off that survival brain in order to get into their logical brain.

So it's a lot of layers, right? Yes, definitely. But it all stems back to that trauma.

So working with kids in the education system, how do you help them navigate all this?

Because what you've just described, even if you're an adult and you're constantly going through constant change, upheaval, different environments, it's hard for us. How do we help those kids that are in the system navigate education?

So there is a law called the Every Student Succeeds act that has a specific spot for kids in foster care.

What it's supposed to do is when a kid changes homes, even if that home is out of district, they're supposed to be able to stay in their school that they were in so that they don't have those constant moves and that schools have to work out how they're going to provide transportation so it doesn't fall on the foster parents. So one thing I do is I teach foster parents those laws. That way they can advocate for their kids.

Cause like I said, there are just not a lot of states that have educational advocates. So the foster parents need to know these laws, so they need to know, so they can advocate for them.

The other thing is trying to help schools understand trauma behaviors and using trauma informed practices.

Not using traditional discipline, not using exclusionary practices, but getting the kid an IEP or an individualized education plan so that they have the ability to stay in the classroom even when maybe they seem disruptive.

The IEP can be written in such a way that the kid could be walking in the back of the classroom, pacing while the kids can't see them, but he's still in the classroom listening to the teacher teach.

The other thing I do is I work with the foster parents on how to build a team model around that child so that instead of going into the meetings at the schools as adversaries and being like, you know, the mama bear or the papa bear and very protective, how do we create a relationship early on before trouble happens, so that the parents and the teachers are working together?

So things like telling the teacher what the foster child calls them, because they're not always going to call them mom or dad, but what do they call them?

Working with the teacher on these are triggers we've identified at home, and then saying, you know, we'd love your help in helping us see other triggers. And so then it's a kind of that, again, a collaborative model of seeing what makes a kid go into that flight fight or freeze mode.

The other thing is making sure that if they do have severe trauma behaviors or trauma learning deficits, that they are getting that individualized education plan.

So teaching the foster parents about the Individuals with Disabilities Education act and how do they qualify for an iep and then what should you put in that IEP to make sure that the kids are at least progressing with their peers? Because if they don't progress with their peers, the further they fall behind, the more likely they are to drop out of school and then not graduate.

And so those are all the things that I do now. When I was working in the agency, I would go with the students and go into the schools and all of that.

But now that job was under a grant and that grant ended.

And so now what I do is, like I said, I train the foster parents on how to be those advocates, how to talk to the schools, how to know the laws and then how to work with the kids to think about their future. That's another thing we don't always talk about with foster kids, but I experienced it myself working with kids.

Kids with trauma in foster care don't see a future for themselves. A lot of them will tell you, well, I don't plan to be an adult because everybody in my neighborhood dies at the age of 18 or something.

You know, I mean, and especially if they're coming from a violent neighborhood, that's the mentality they're not going to live. And so helping them understand that, yes, there are possibilities.

And kids in foster care have another law that's called Family First Prevention Services act that actually provides money for training and education vouchers.

So if they want vocational training after the age of 18, all the way up to the age of 23, they can get these vouchers and get educational training, whether it's college or vocational, whatever, so that they can be productive adults. And so again, I make sure the foster parents know about these laws, I make sure the kids know about these laws.

And I encourage the foster parents to talk to the kids early on. Cause they hit 18 and they're like, I'm done with the system. I don't want adults telling me what to do anymore. And they'll just walk away.

And then they don't realize what they're leaving on the table that really could help them. So if we talk about it when they're younger and if you're still in foster care at 18, you're not going to be kicked out of this house.

You can still live here or live on your own with help and all of those types of things.

So really just kind of giving them that sense of, yes, I can have a future and yes, I can be a productive adult and I can have everything that any adult wants. Family, a job, you know, vacation, you know, all of that joy that we want as an adult.

So something you said I want to kind of get back to, you said that part of what you were doing was funded by a grant and that there aren't a lot of educational advocates around in every single system. So if we're not sure, how do we find are sharing in our area?

That's a good question. That is a good question.

So part of the Every Student Succeeds act was that every state and every school district must have what's called a point of contact. And so you can google your state's department of Ed and put in ESSA point of contact.

And they will tell you who your point of contact is for that area, whether it's at the state level or the district level.

And that person's job is to know the law and to walk people through those types of things, especially if they're trying to keep them in the same school and they are having issues with transportation.

Also, if a child, a foster child needs to change schools, in the past schools would not enroll them if they didn't have all their paperwork, which any foster parent will tell you. It's really hard to have all the paperwork.

So ESSA has put in a provision that students will be enrolled immediately regardless of whether or not they have all the required paperwork, so that there is no delay in enrollment. And so that ESSA point of contact is also the person who can walk them through that process and make sure that's happening.

I love that you said something else I want to get back to too. A lot of foster kids have no idea all the things they're leaving on the table.

Where would a foster kid go to find out all the post foster care tools, things I have access to, So I don't feel like I've left something on the table.

Yeah, yeah. And that's a great question because there are so many that just don't even know.

Ideally they should be able to go to their case manager and say, what are my options when I turn 18? Because every state should have some type of post education program for foster kids.

But their states can choose how high or what age they want to go to. But they should be able to go to their case manager.

If their case manager doesn't know, other people they can ask is some foster kids have what's called a court appointed special advocate or a casa. And then some have what's called a guardian ad litem. And that would be gal. So you can ask your CASA or your gal. The other one to ask is your judge.

If you are, you know, your judge will know.

And if you're, if you're feeling like your CASA doesn't know, your gal doesn't know, your case manager doesn't know, at the next level court meeting, say, hey, I need to know what are my options after I turn 18, I don't feel like I'm ready to move on. Or I have this aspiration to go to college and do this. What do I need to know?

And so those would be the ones that I would go to to get that information.

You know, I thought it was just a church that had all these different icons and abbreviations, but all the things you just listed, you have to know all those ins and outs of what CASA is and what this is, because otherwise you have no idea what. All those different things you just mentioned.

When I came into the agency that I was working at in Indiana, I don't know if it's still there, but when the Department of Child Services actually had an abbreviation cheat sheet on their website, and I downloaded it because I'd go to these meetings and they would say, CFTM and da, da, da. And I'm like, I don't know what you guys are talking about. Every industry has their own acronyms. Right. And including school.

I talk to my foster parents about that, too. Sometimes I get on these things and I'll forget to define an IEP or things like that because we're just used to talking. But, yes, you're right.

The church is really bad about that, too. But I think every industry is. So, yes, having a cheat sheet helps when you're a foster parent.

Yeah. So if we can go to your website and get your cheat sheet, that would be helpful.

Actually, I'm writing a book right now, and I have a glossary that I'm putting in with all these terms. It's like three pages long.

That would be extremely helpful.

Yeah.

So you stepped into the spotlight recently as an influencer. What motivated you to take your message to the stage, and how has that.

Response been like, so what motivated me was a couple of things. One, the lack of understanding that people had about the education needs.

But two, I had a friend who was running a speech contest, and I was like, you know, that sounds kind of interesting. So I signed up and I did two contests with her and really enjoyed it, but I didn't like the contest part.

I'm a little too competitive, and if I don't win, that really bothers me. So I didn't particularly like the contest part, but when I won Fan favorite at the one, I was like, oh, you know, people do want to hear my stories.

They want to hear my passion. And I hear that a lot. I am very passionate about what I do. You see, my hands are flying, and I get really excited.

But I thought, well, I mean, I have a good story. I have a good message. I just need to do it in a different way.

And so, yeah, so then I moved into the podcast world, where I've been appearing on episodes. And it's not just people who work with foster kids. Right. It's people like you who are willing to open your platform up to other areas.

And so I get A lot of people who come and say, you know, I really enjoyed that podcast.

And then I always take these podcasts because part of why I do them is there's social content for me for my social media, and I take these videos and I cut them and I make TikTok videos and reels. And so then I post those all over my social media and get even more likes and looks and really, I mean, would I love to make more money? Absolutely.

Wouldn't we all? But really, for me, it's about people actually paying attention and understanding what happens to foster kids.

And some of the ones that react the most are those former foster kids, the ones who have been through it.

And when I did one about talking about teenagers not too long ago and how a lot of times at 18, they think they just are done, and this one girl was like, yeah, when I. When I aged out, nobody cared. And I'm like, oh, you know, that should be how they feel, right? That nobody cared. It's just. Yeah.

And so really trying to just get that message out there that these are kids we need to be paying attention to.

Yeah. I'm curious. We've talked a lot about some of the problems and some of the challenges.

I like to give my audience things they can do pour into ways to make a difference. What can an audience do to help change a flawed system?

Sure. So you do not have to be a foster parent. Right? That's. That's always.

Everybody's like, well, you know, I don't want to volunteer or something, because I don't want to be a foster parent. But you don't have to be. You could be a mentor. You could be a tutor. You could just provide packages or something for foster agencies.

So licensing agencies always need baby supplies, clothes, suitcases. I say this one a lot. How many of us have suitcases sitting at home that just sits and we don't know what to do with them?

Kids moving from home to home with garbage bags is an actual thing. So donate your suitcases to a licensing agency, and all you have to do is look up foster care licensing agency near me, and it'll pop up.

But other things you can do is spreading messages like this, you know, taking your pod, this podcast, and saying, hey, did you know this happens in the foster care system? And talk to your representatives, your state level and your national level. What are they doing about kids in foster care?

What is their agenda around foster care? I can guarantee you there are quite a few states that you'll never hear foster care on the agenda.

And so asking that question, every state must publish what's called an ESSA report card. It's their Every Student Succeeds act report card.

And in that ESSA report card, they need to compare the graduation rates of foster kids versus other kids in the school system. You can look at that and see what your state graduation rate is.

I'll tell you right now, the average is that for every 2/3 of their, the foster kids graduate at a rate of 2/3 of their peers. So if a state's graduation rate is only 80%, the foster kids graduation rate is going to be around 50%. Yeah, that is really low. Right.

And so knowing that you can look and see the other thing that they're supposed to report is academic achievement. So usually they use the state like whatever your state assessments are for English, math, science, and you can see the difference there.

So you can look at that. If you have foster kids in your school district, talk to your school and they may not want to identify the kids.

But all you need to say is, do you have foster kids in your district? And is there any way I can help? You know, just again, taking sound of that proactive approach. But you have to be proactive.

The other thing I always like to say is churches. How often is a church building empty during the day? And foster parents need help.

They need a church that can provide a location for them to do visitations with bio parents. That's a safe, not in somebody's home location. Foster parent support groups. There's a very small amount of foster parent support groups.

And if the church could even provide babysitting for that support group, that would be even better. Churches helping them with other issues. Foster parents do not make money. I know that they get a stipend, but it does not cover all their expenses.

So food pantry items, clothing, things like that that they can do.

Churches are very well placed to provide a lot of services for foster parents that they don't always take advantage of because they don't realize they're in their community.

I love all of those. I have a lot of educators on my podcast and listeners as well.

What could educators and people on the school front do to support the mission you're talking about in foster care?

Yes. So one of the biggest challenges is understanding trauma.

And there are several school districts around the country that have been doing some trauma informed trainings. Right now in our higher ed, when a teacher trains to be a teacher, their trauma informed training is fairly minimal.

It might be like one class, if at all. So really encouraging the school district to provide Trauma informed trainings. Every school district has to provide professional development.

So request that they provide professional development around trauma informed training, providing training around these laws that I mentioned and how they can support those laws.

Again, teachers don't always know what these laws are and that the foster kids do have very specific laws that protect them and that, you know, they can be in that forefront too, of helping foster kids look to that future and using those family first dollars when they get close to 18 years old. So those are all things they can do. The other thing is partnering.

Like I said, I always talk to the foster parents about this as a part of a team partnering with those foster parents, always keeping the kid at the center of the conversations.

We tend as adults, the meetings get a little contentious, we start to take things personally, and we just constantly have to redirect ourselves to remembering that the child is the center of who, what we're talking about. And every decision is about the child, not about our own egos. So working on that.

And then if a foster kid is not able to get an iep, still being open to making some adjustments. So I had to do this with my own biological child. I'm positive she is on the autism spectrum, but she never tested to be on the spectrum.

But I was able to work with the teachers on specific assignments and specific areas that I knew were stressful for my kid. And you don't have to have an IEP to get accommodations. So ask the questions, don't be afraid to ask.

And for the teacher's perspective, if you see a kid struggling, making sure you contact the parents. And usually the teachers are really good about that.

But contacting the foster parents or the case manager and saying, you know, I've really struggle, I really noticed so and so is struggling with this area. Maybe we need to do some testing or maybe we need to do some help in that area.

What kind of asking, what kind of services is a kid already getting and are there services that they could qualify for within the school? So some districts will have maybe a special program. I know in my area we had a special program for kids who were on that edge of becoming bullies.

And they kind of pulled out that group aside and created a leadership program so that they channeled that natural ability to lead into a positive way instead of a negative way. And so just, you know, we have to be creative, right, and work around things.

If we try and stay completely within the laws, sometimes it doesn't work.

And so but that's where, again, it really comes down to that team model Working the schools, working with the parents and the parents working with the school. That's for the best of the child.

Those are all very, very helpful as we wrap up this amazing conversation. Sharon, I would like to ask you my other favorite question. What do you want your legacy to be?

You know, I think I thought about this because you told, you asked me ahead of time what this was going to, what I would say here. And I've thought about this and I think my kid is 23 now, and I think she's my legacy.

She grew up side by side with me working in the church, working with my husband when he was volunteering at an equine therapy stable. And now as a 23 year old, she's got her own mission and her own vision. And that's what I think kids should be, right? They should be.

We should be able to teach them our values and then let them have, you know, do their own thing with it. And I feel like that's what she's doing. So I really, I mean, I feel like she's my legacy and that I feel pretty good.

I was not the perfect parent, but I think I did pretty good.

Yeah. Yes. Few of us are the perfect parent.

No, none of us are perfect parents.

So in season six, we also have a surprise question. So pick a number between 1 and 6 for your surprise question.

5.

So your surprise question is what is the cheesiest movie moment or line you can think of?

Oh, cheesiest movie moment or line. Okay. Has to be the Jerry Maguire. You complete me. Either that or show me the money. That one has two really good cheesy lines.

There you go. See, now people who love those two lines are going to be really hurt by that. But.

And those who've used that line, other places will also be hurt by that.

That's too funny.

So, Sharon, as we wrap this up, is there some key takeaways you'd like the audience to leave from our conversation today?

Just be aware of who's around you. Even if you don't have foster kids around you, there are people around you who have needs that we don't know they have. Hurts we can't see.

And we don't live in a compassionate time right now. And we need to so really build that empathy. Looking at people and not thinking what's wrong with them, but what's happened to them.

And that goes for everybody, not just foster kids.

Well, Sharon, thank you much for your tireless advocacy and for sharing your insights with us today. Your work is a reminder that every child deserves a champion, especially those navigating the foster care system to our listeners.

If you're a foster parent, educator, or policymaker, take a moment to learn more about the educational rights of children in foster care. Sharon's work shows that knowledge is power and advocacy can change lives.

You can follow Sharon's journey and learn more about her teachings and speaking engagements by visiting her social media handles, which will be included in this episode. If this episode has inspired you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Subscribe, leave a review, and help us amplify the voices that matter. Until next time, keep learning, keep advocating, and keep showing up for those who need it most. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Keith.