Sophia Coffey knows foster care in Florida as only a foster kid can — and she is determined to change it.
Growing up in the system, she had no trusted person to whom she could report abuse. Nor did she know she had the right to fight back against mistreatment, to participate in childhood activities such as school sports or to get help paying for housing and tuition after she became an adult.
Now, thanks in part to Coffey’s efforts, foster children have a safe place to report abuse. Case workers are legally required to inform children about their rights and benefits, and foster children who turn 18 can get help paying for crucial things at the start of adulthood. And she doesn’t want to stop there.
“Foster youth,” Coffey said, “should have a bill of rights.”
She’s persuaded state lawmakers to change laws to help foster children
Coffey had been in and out of foster care since age 16, when the Florida Department of Children and Families separated her from her mother, who had a history of instability.
More than 10 times, she recalled, “I was in school, and I would get called out in class and walk out to my mom, our whole entire apartment packed into our car, and we were moving out of the apartment because she broke up with whatever boyfriend she was with.”
Coffey became homeless after she aged out of foster care. She struggled for a while, couch surfing and making money waitressing, but she has since found stable work and housing after learning she was eligible for benefits.
She has helped successfully lobby for laws helping foster children — “fostees” in her world — know their rights and have some stability as they enter adulthood.
Serving as communications and marketing chair of Florida Youth Shine, a Boca Raton-based children’s rights nonprofit, she testified to Florida lawmakers in 2023, helping persuade them to create the state Office of the Children’s Ombudsman to handle complaints of abuse at the hands of foster parents or DCF personnel.
The law also requires case workers to detail children’s rights for them, telling them they can, for example, demand to see a family court judge when they wish to press charges against abusive families.
“When I was in care, I had a family where I was experiencing so much abuse,” Coffey said. “I told my case manager I could not live here. They said they’ll see what they can do, but I never heard back from them.”
She also helped persuade lawmakers this past spring to pass a law allowing the state to provide financial help to those who age out of the foster care system but aren’t reunited with their parents and then find themselves in dire straits.
She wishes more people and agencies provided these young people with housing and said it’s unrealistic to expect “newly minted adult foster children” to know how to find a job, make a resume, apply for medical benefits and more.
“These are kids. Yeah, they’re 18, but the day you turn 18, your brain isn’t wired to be an adult. We don’t have those parents sitting beside us teaching us to cook, teaching us life skills, teaching us to drive. I learned to drive by buying my first car and test driving it. I crashed my car within the first week I got it,” Coffey said with a chuckle.
A nonprofit helped this ‘fostee’ make full transition into adulthood
Coffey found her way after contacting a former case manager, who connected her with Vita Nova, a West Palm Beach-based nonprofit that helps homeless young adults.
It provided her with a life coach who helped her find work, save money, buy a car and more. She now rents an apartment and is an event coordinator for the Palm Beach County chapter of Meals on Wheels, which serves food to the elderly.
Coffey plans to enroll in emergency medical technician courses next year at Palm Beach State College. She will pay for it in part with the $2,500 scholarship she won in January 2024 at the South Florida Fair’s Miss Palm Beach County pageant.
Coffey’s work isn’t done. She wants to push for more changes in the foster system, including better matchmaking between children and prospective parents using criteria such as mutual interests, hobbies and personalities.
Foster care case managers also deserve raises, Coffey says. The stress of the job leads to lots of turnover, she says, leading to those in the system without stable relationships with the staff whose job it is to help guide the youngsters into adulthood.
“I think I had six case managers during my time in care,” Coffey said. “Sometimes your case manager is your only sense of stability. I would get to know and trust them, and they would leave.
“You know that saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child?’ Well, being in foster care is having your village burned down,” Coffee said.
Still, she says, “The person that you are today does not have to be the person that you are tomorrow. Your trauma does not make you at all. So take the steps to improve your life rather than doting on the fact that so many things may have happened to you. Change doesn’t come unless you are willing to allow it to happen.”
Chris PersaudPalm Beach Post ORIGINAL ARTICLE
