AUSTIN, Texas — November is Adoption Awareness Month and, every week, KVUE has a Forever Families series featuring children who are currently in foster care.
But what about the teens who age out without getting adopted? Every year in Texas, more than 1,200 teens age out of the foster care system without being adopted.
When Alexandria Woods was born, she was one pound and 10 ounces. Her mother left her at a Southern California hospital and was immediately entered into foster care.
Woods was matched with a foster mom as a baby until she was officially adopted by her at age seven. At age 13, Woods moved with her foster mom from California to Texas.
Once in Texas, at the age of 14, Woods found herself back in foster care.
"I think it was more hard because I was away from everything I knew and it was hard for me to understand why it was happening to me. What did I do that was so wrong to be isolated from life, from life itself?" said Woods.
Looking back now at the age of 30, Woods said she was unsure about what the future would hold when she was 17. At the time, she didn't use or know about the resources available to her.
“Definitely use your resources, that was something I did not do and did not care about. I just assumed I was going to have my own place to stay. Once I got out into the real world, I didn’t know what rent was, I didn’t know how to cook," said Woods.
There are a lot of different resources for teens aging out of foster youth to use, including a state college tuition waiver.
Erin Argue works with Partnerships for Children and says sometimes the odds can feel against you when aging out of the system.
"Youth who don’t have those traditional supports, they don’t have the financial means to live independently. They’re literally just trying to survive and their survival skills don’t always include things that are considered legal or above the books, you know," explained Argue.
Woods was able to get linked up with a mentor through the Partnerships Program. Her mentor, Claire Ivy, still checks in on her to this day all these years later.
“Foster youth are without that parent connection, all those dinner-time conversations that you and I had growing up, where you talk about what your future is going to look like, what your college is going to look like, how to use a credit card," said Ivy
Now, at the age of 30, Woods has a good job at a local school district, a roof over her head and her son, Joshua, who she loves and adores.
"Me being with him and showing him that I came from this and it’s just me and him, I think that it makes me happy just to know he’s mine," said Woods.
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