Giving Foster Youth the Keys to Success

Sarah Gentle was 17 and in foster care when she had a meeting with her Individualized Education Plan (IEP) team. The group, which comprised Gentle’s teachers, parents, and other providers, was discussing potential career paths for her. Gentle is legally blind, and the team decided that court reporter would be an ideal career choice for her. Gentle’s Pivotal coach, Savonna Stender-Bondesson, noticed something: nobody in the group was asking Gentle what she wanted, and the young woman did not seem enthused about the potential career path. 

For Gentle, the moment was, well, pivotal. Like many youth in foster care, she had countless service providers working with her – but until then, none had asked her what she wanted. Gentle wanted more. She dreamed of becoming a social worker and she and Stender-Bondesson started working on a plan to accomplish that dream. 

“So many other providers saw my limits,” says Gentle. “But my Pivotal coach saw my aspirations as limitless.” With Pivotal’s support, Gentle completed a degree in Sociology and is now a Pivotal coach herself, recently starting her post-graduate work to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

It’s that focus on what students want – and how they can achieve it – that sets Pivotal apart.

There are 60,000 young people in California’s foster care system and their outcomes are among the lowest in the country, often tied to higher levels of unemployment, homelessness, and incarceration. While 96% of foster youth report that they’d like to attend college, only about 10% earn a bachelor’s degree. Pivotal’s mission is to break that cycle, for good.

Pivotal works to support young people in and from foster care so they can realize their educational and career goals and ensure their equitable access to opportunity. They provide trauma-informed individualized educational coaching, scholarships, resources, professional development, and career readiness support to foster youth as they navigate the critical years from high school to college and into the workforce.

“A lot of our students don’t have adults to talk to about what they want for their future,” says Dazzy Maldonado, Pivotal’s High School Coach Supervisor. “They’re in the trenches and the last thing they can think about is school when they’re worried about where they are sleeping tonight. So, my role is to say, ‘I’m going to hold this future for you. Because I know you’re going to get there, even if you don’t see that right now.’”

Students come to Pivotal as early as the 8th grade, through referrals from social workers, the county, and other foster youth. Pivotal’s help is equal parts trauma-informed life-skills coaching, emotional support, and tactical skills and resources to navigate daily challenges. Each scholar is paired with a coach who helps determine what the student wants to accomplish. A skills assessment helps identify specific areas – like time management or organization – that the student may need to improve upon. Then, the coach and scholar make a plan together.  

Says Gentle, the Pivotal scholar-turned-coach, “My coach’s unwavering support and dedication is what got me into college. At Pivotal, we aren’t just providing educational access and scholarship funds. We’re instilling hope in those who otherwise may have none; I am a living testament to how powerful that can be.”