Every Kid Belongs
NAME | Kyleigh Osborne
GRADE | 9
LOCATION | Radford, Virginia
After having formerly been in foster care herself, Kyleigh Osborne, a 9th grader in Radford, Virginia, is creating “Every Kid Belongs.” Understanding the trauma that can result from lacking a stable and loving home, Kyleigh is developing this initiative to build community and support among young people in foster care. She intends to create clubs in schools, organize community meetings and support groups, and facilitate worldwide interactions among youth in foster care to share experiences and find solidarity. She hopes to collaborate with mental health professionals, organizations, and individuals.
To raise awareness about the challenges faced by youth in foster care and the importance of finding permanent homes, Kyleigh intends to distribute flyers, organize community meetings, and share her personal story to spark action and empathy within her community and beyond.
Every Kid Belongs
NAME | Kyleigh Osborne
GRADE | 9
LOCATION | Radford, Virginia
After having formerly been in foster care herself, Kyleigh Osborne, a 9th grader in Radford, Virginia, is creating “Every Kid Belongs.” Understanding the trauma that can result from lacking a stable and loving home, Kyleigh is developing this initiative to build community and support among young people in foster care. She intends to create clubs in schools, organize community meetings and support groups, and facilitate worldwide interactions among youth in foster care to share experiences and find solidarity. She hopes to collaborate with mental health professionals, organizations, and individuals.
To raise awareness about the challenges faced by youth in foster care and the importance of finding permanent homes, Kyleigh intends to distribute flyers, organize community meetings, and share her personal story to spark action and empathy within her community and beyond.
I want to solve the problem of Foster kids who don’t have homes. Some kids in Foster Care don’t get adopted or get to go back to their own homes, and they have to stay in the system until they are 18. I personally was in foster care for 2 years and 8 months which is a total of 970 days.I was officially adopted on November 6th 2023. I discovered the problem when my case worker said there were insufficient foster homes. So, many kids either stayed in a building or had to wait somewhere else, like a group home. My mom has been a foster parent for a while. I was the first kid she had ever adopted. More about the problem is that kids need homes.
Younger kids are what most households go for because they can watch them grow up, and they are not as troublesome as teenagers. Most teenagers who are in the system don’t make it to adoption before they turn 18. This problem is essential to me because kids in foster care should not have to be there. Kids should grow up in a good home and have a good life. Being put into foster care can be a traumatic experience for some kids/teenagers. I think that kids should be able to enjoy growing up in their own homes. When foster kids go to school, some kids make fun of them for not being able to be in their own homes. I don’t think that it is fair to the foster kids who get made fun of because the kids who make fun of them don’t know what they are going through. It should not happen to kids/teenagers, but unfortunately, it does.
My solution is to get foster kids in the school, around the community, and worldwide to get together and talk about their experiences in foster care. In the school, we could have a little club and get the counselors and the kids in the school who are in foster care to get together and talk about anything, and the counselors will be there to help everyone process their emotions and feelings. Outside in the community, we could put posters or flyers up for a meeting, or somewhere they can get together to engage and interact with each other. And worldwide, we could get organizations to put something together so foster kids can interact with one another.
The first step would be to get the counselors to get together and form a club and get a time and when we can meet. As a worldwide step, it would be to contact America's Kids Belong to see if they can also form a group for foster kids/teenagers to interact. As a community, we could go to the Radford public library to see if we could book the room and hold the club there, and if it does, we can put flyers up around town with a date and time.
A second step we could take is to help foster kids find a forever home or get them back to their parents or guardians. The way we could do that is to help them reach out and talk about their parent or guardian. Sometimes, it is hard, so they must take it slow to get the kids/teenagers to discuss it.
The last step would be to get the parent or guardian help so their kids can return home to them. Helping find kids/teenagers a forever home if they can't bear to their parent/guardian's house. We could hold a meeting for people who can foster/adopt kids. We could tell people that there are a lot of kids in the system who don't have a home to go to. People will try to help the kids, and it is so important that kids have a parent or guardian because it is so essential that they grow up with a parent or guardian. Kids who grow out of the system will most likely not have a good rest of their lives. I hate that for the kids, so we need to convince more adults to consider foster/adoption.
I don’t have a team yet. The person I would ask to join me would be my adoptive mom because we currently have a foster placement, and she has had previous foster placements. I would also ask the school counselors for their help as well. I will also look into some of my mom’s friends to join because we have a lot of friends who are foster/adoptive parents. Most of the people we are friends with also have other friends who are foster/adoptive parents. I would also say that some people who aren’t foster/adoptive parents would be on my team, too, just in case one day, when the time is right, they will be able to foster/adopt a kid. Many people don’t realize how important this is, but if they do join my team, they might know it is so important.