Fadwa’s Story

To say Fadwa is driven is an understatement. She doesn’t dream of becoming a surgical nurse, she is actively taking steps to make it happen. And to make her mother proud.

Fadwa lost her mother to cancer when she was just 13 years old. Her father expected Fadwa to assume her mother’s responsibilities and moved the family often, keeping them distanced from any extended family. She was not allowed to have friends or participate in extracurricular activities. She attended five different high schools and managed to maintain excellent grades while she cooked, cleaned, and took care of her two brothers and father.

At 17, she was abandoned by her father and placed in SCO’s foster care program. SCO helped stabilize the teen, placed her with a foster family, and eventually was able to locate a maternal aunt who opened her heart and home to her long-lost niece through kinship foster care.

Despite her early challenges, Fadwa stays focused on the opportunities ahead of her. SCO’s foster care staff helped her prepare for college; guiding her through the application process and helping her achieve both a Dream USA Scholarship and a Youth in Foster Care Award.  Currently a student at Borough of Manhattan Community College, SCO helped her secure an internship with a surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Fadwa’s goal is to keep her GPA high enough to get into nursing school. And we have no doubt she will achieve this and so much more.

 

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Family Foster Care – Queens

SCO’s Family Foster Care program provides comprehensive services to the child, birth parent, and foster parent, with the goal of creating positive relationships and achieving positive outcomes of reunification with their families or creating new families through adoption.

We provide medical services; mental health services; educational and vocational services; college readiness and financial aid planning, immigration, youth life skills, and housing assistance for children and youth; as well as assistance with housing, income – including public assistance, and overall support for families. We also provide ongoing training for foster parents.

Therapeutic Family Foster Care provides a higher level of out-of-home family care for children with severe emotional and behavioral challenges in foster care.

For our older youth in care we help prepare them to become independent young adults by connecting them to education and employment opportunities such as work readiness partnerships with area businesses and peer mentoring, a unique program where former foster children guide foster teens.

Interested in becoming a foster parent?

Learn more about foster care, and create an application account here.

This program is associated with...

Foster Care

For over 50 years, SCO's Foster Care practice has been helping children and their families grow, heal and thrive. We find safe, temporary families for children and teens throughout New York City and Long Island. Read More

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85%

of residents in our group homes for adults with developmental disabilities attended Day Habilitation and receive vocational services

99%

of at-risk families throughout Brooklyn & Queens remained together and stable with family support services

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