College of the Canyons student CJ Shepherd, 23, has realigned his educational goals this year with the help of Fostering Youth Independence (FYI).

Previously enrolled in a trade school that he said he had no interest in, Shepherd sought guidance and found help from the FYI community. Immediately after speaking with representatives from FYI, Shepherd found his inspiration to become a teacher and was encouraged to go for it.

“They were there to help me go through the steps to leave the trade school and brought me back to COC,” Shepherd said. “Now, I want to be a high school history teacher and basketball coach.”  

FYI is a Santa Clarita nonprofit organization seeking to improve the chances of success for former foster children who have aged out of the system.

The program works by pairing the young adults — usually between the ages of 18 and 24 — with an “ally” who supports them emotionally as they go through higher education and find a career.

“I am someone who is there (for Shepherd) right now … coaching him through his different phases of life,” said Roland Mancia, a local business owner and FYI ally. “We approach things very much in a sports manner. We talk about quarters, we talk about timeouts, we talk about goals and looking at things one step at a time.”

Shepherd is now majoring in history and attends COC with the intent to graduate by 2020 with a teaching certificate. From there, Shepherd foresees himself attending California State University Northridge to pursue a teaching career.

“This has been a goal that I’ve wanted since high school. And once I graduated I kind of went off-track and pursued other things. But, eventually I came back to this point.” Shepherd said.

“We’re looking for this to be incremental wins (for Shepherd),” Mancia said. “So the way that we’re approaching things with Shepherd is breaking down his larger goals into what we call short-term, medium and long-term goals.”

Along with the pairing of students and allies, the organization also acts as a community, bringing its student members and allies together through FYI community events, encouraging friendships and building one another up, according to officials.  

“I’ve created friendships that I feel like I’m going to have for the rest of my life through the different events that we’ve gone to, like our end-of-school-year event and our back-to-school event,” said Shepherd. “There was an event where we got free haircuts, which was pretty cool — who doesn’t like a free haircut?”

To find out more about FYI, click here.

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