May is Foster Care Awareness Month. These kids need our continued support | Opinion

Julie A. Casimiro, a Democrat, represents District 31 in North Kingstown and Exeter. She is the chairwoman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Children and Families.

Since being elected to the General Assembly in 2016, one of my primary focuses has been to support, protect and nurture Rhode Island’s children, particularly the most vulnerable and those who are under state care. We have made some great strides toward bettering our child welfare system, but, as you can see from the news all too frequently, there is still much work to be done to ensure that every child has the opportunity to grow up healthy and succeed as an adult.

The children who are most in danger of losing or missing out on the opportunity of future success are the children in, or who have aged out of, foster care. The month of May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and during this time, I ask you to contemplate how different your life would be if you had been raised in foster care.  I ask that you think of these children who have endured a lifetime’s worth of stress, trauma and tragedy before they ever reach adulthood.  These kids deserve a chance to thrive and they deserve our continued support and help.

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This legislative session, in order to improve the lives of children and families associated with the foster care system, several bills have been introduced to support and nurture these children, such as one bill that exempts any child aging out of foster care from paying fees for driving classes and obtaining a driving license.  The bill is extremely important because without any family or support networks, these children are often left to their own devices, without any money and no one to turn to for help. Transportation is one of the biggest obstacles they need to overcome to get to work and this bill would make it easier for these kids to get around and provide for themselves.

An equally significant piece of legislation would establish a tuition waiver program for children in the foster care program who wish to attend Rhode Island College. We all know that higher education can open up vital opportunities for our children, but for a child in foster care, or who has aged out of the system, the amount of money needed to attend an institute of higher learning is often a non-starter, leading to these kids abandoning their dreams of bettering their lives through continued education.

Bills such as these provide hope and opportunity for children who have had a significant lack of both in their lives.  Foster kids are under the care and protection of the state, so it’s up to the state to ensure that these children succeed as they begin their adult lives. I urge you all to support our foster kids through volunteering, donations and asking your local lawmakers to support legislation that would make a positive and vital difference.

Foster children were given a bad hand in life and it’s up to us to make sure that their luck turns around so they can be the successful adults that they are capable of being.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Honor Foster Care Awareness Month by supporting these bills.