Flourishing Futures

On any given day in Palm Beach County, more than 1,200 children – from newborns to young adults of various ethnicities, backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances – are displaced from their homes due to abuse, abandonment and neglect. Speak Up For Kids (SUFK), a Palm Beach County nonprofit, advocates for children and responds to their physical, social, emotional and educational needs during their time in foster care.

“Any day is a bad day for a child to be removed from their home, and sometimes it happens at the very worst time – right before a family vacation, holiday, birthday, first day of school, field trip, prom or graduation,” says Development and Grant Manager at SUFK, Fiona Wade, who joined the nonprofit seeking to break up the cycles of abuse and violence to rewrite children’s futures. “Commonly, the foster home is in a new zip code which can mean a change in social routine, a new community and school, and while childhood is fleeting, each day feels like a lifetime to a child waiting to go home,” she says.

As a vehicle of change since 2008, SUFK equips students, caregivers, ambassadors, social workers and volunteers to speak up and ignite transformative change in the lives of foster care children. “We live for the endless success stories of our kids in care: they are our heart,” says Wade. “Our advocacy programming came full circle when one of our community youth volunteers, a student at Dreyfoos School of the Arts, matched the advocacy efforts of her mother, a Guardian Ad Litem Volunteer Child Advocate. Together they prove we all, youth and adults, can speak up for kids.”

Among the various programs SUFK offers is a peer-to-peer advocacy initiative that furthers a community culture of support for children called STUDENTS SUFK. The program, born in 2020, empowers students with opportunities to serve and speak up for the children involved in Palm Beach County’s dependency court system.

Students from K-12 to college are welcome to participate. They decide whether to pursue an individual or group project or start a campus chapter at their institution. When a student expresses interest, a team member from SUFK reaches out to start a training session where they learn more about the foster care system and are encouraged to use their skills and creativity to their maximum potential to advocate for kids in foster care.

“The youth are so incredibly creative and passionate. They engage their own unique talents, athletics, music, to dream up brilliant ways to advocate for their peers in foster care. And I believe their projects received recognition nationally or in PBC through Philanthropy Tank [a nonprofit that provides an opportunity for local youth to secure mentoring and funding for community betterment projects] because they’re innovative and student-led,” says Wade.

Alexa Bishop, a SUFK student volunteer and Spanish River High School Senior, is the founding Vice-President and current President of STEMinist, a club and organization that introduces elementary and middle school foster girls to female empowerment and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) related topics.

Bishop, 17, explains that each month, she creates science experiments for girls in foster care, buying materials needed for the class (which are sponsored by Philanthropy Tank) and shipping them to their homes. She meets virtually with the kids to perform the experiment together, share thoughts on a science topic and learn about a famous female in the field.

“It’s important for girls to be exposed to STEM-related topics and have the knowledge and confidence to explore their interests,” she says. “Some foster girls may have limited opportunities and exposure to STEM in general and seeing other females in STEM-related roles as mentors and role models can be inspiring.”

Besides the experiments, they discuss their interests and goals. “I loved it when one of the girls recently said that she now wants to be a scientist!” says Bishop.

Through STEMinist, Bishop, who is the 2023 Palm Beach Post Pathfinder Award Nominee for Career & Technical Education, has also found inspiration for herself to continue volunteering and working with foster children in the future. “Thank you to SUFK for coordinating with the families and me so that the girls can participate and to the foster families for their support,” she says.

To learn more about SSUFK student impact, visit studensspeakupforkidspbc.org.

To learn more about Speak Up for Kids, visit speakupforkidspbc.org/.