In 2023, Educate Tomorrow was awarded a three-year $150,000 grant to support a pilot of its Changemakers project in Kent County. Hear from Project Coordinator Brina Williams as they share their insights into the work.
Name and Role with the organization:
Brina Williams, Project Coordinator
Brief overview of your organization and what you do:
Educate Tomorrow, a nonprofit focused on serving youth with experience in foster care and homelessness, oversees Fostering Success Michigan (FSM), a statewide initiative focused on the postsecondary access and success of youth with lived experience in foster care. FSM acts as a backbone organization, supporting nearly 30 campuses and colleges across the state that have a campus-based support program or an identified champion in supporting these youth. Under FSM, Changemakers, a pilot project, provides mentorship and peer-support services for youth and young adults with experience in foster care, homelessness, housing instability, and refugee status. It is currently being piloted at Kent County campuses, specifically Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Community College, Aquinas College, and Calvin University.
Please provide an overview of the Changemakers project. What are its primary goals?
I have had the privilege of being Project Coordinator of Changemakers through each of its phases and have witnessed firsthand the profound impact this project has had on the students we’ve served. The goal of this project has really been to build out campus support, further our relationship with the campuses in Kent County, and aid students in getting to and through college. I’ve worked closely with Karie Ward, the Director of FSM, to train our Lead Changemakers (or student mentors) to prepare them to support other students who have had adverse childhood experiences and connect them to resources. We did this by using the Fostering Success Coach Institutes’ model of the 7 Life Domains to grow their organizational, communication, and leadership skills to become mentors for other students. The 7-Life Domains include education, housing, finances and employment, life skills, physical and mental health, cultural and personal identity, and supportive relationships and community connections.
Our Lead Changemakers have done amazing work by participating in home visits to Independent Living Programs (ILP), as part of their training in partnership with Bethany Christian Services, to support the state’s refugee youth population through advocacy and strategic sharing, as well as to inform these youth of Changemakers, encourage them to participate in the project, and inform them of other opportunities and resources available to them. One of our Lead Changemakers even used to be a youth at one of the ILP homes we visited. He heard our story and our project’s goal, buckled down on his schoolwork, got good grades, and gave us a call when he had graduated and was applying to college!
How has youth voice shaped this project?
Our Lead Changemakers and the students we serve have been instrumental in shaping the work of this project by driving the content and support we’ve offered. Another key activity of the Changemakers project, in addition to peer-to-peer mentorship, has included virtual trainings in vital life skills and topics that the youth themselves have named as a need or interest, including but not limited to voting, time management, and budgeting. We’ve also been able to offer our students advocacy opportunities by writing blogs to be posted to FSM’s website and social media, and to speak with Legislators on FSM’s annual Advocacy Day and the Michigan College Access Network (MCAN) annual Advocacy Day.
In addition to peer-to-peer mentorship, shaping the project’s work, and providing students with advocacy opportunities, we are also able to support students through direct referrals to resources. Upon enrollment in the project, students are asked to fill out an initial assessment form, which we utilize to provide one-on-one outreach to individuals via email, phone call, or Zoom to identify immediate challenges and needs. Direct referrals are then made accordingly to address and meet the students’ needs in all areas of the 7-Life Domains. This includes things like finding and buying books, campus-based support programs, and resources to meet housing needs. Other notable supports we’ve been able to provide have included identifying a co-signer and aiding an individual in securing housing, and aiding students to register for classes last-minute who otherwise would’ve waited to enroll until the following winter/spring semester.
What are your priorities for the remainder of the grant period?
Steelcase Foundation has been an outstanding leader and champion for students with experience in foster care, homelessness, housing instability, and refugee status in Kent County through their support of this project. Our priorities for the remainder of the grant period include increasing facilitation opportunities for our Lead Changemakers; scheduling an in-person convening in Kent County in May 2026 for National Foster Care Month (NFCM) for students and Lead Changemakers to connect; and scheduling a statewide student panel during May for NFCM. We also plan to do another round of outreach and recruitment for new students for the 2025-26 academic year at all four campuses in Kent County.
What do you hope is the lasting impact of Changemakers for both its participants and Educate Tomorrow as an organization?
The ultimate goal of this project is to empower young people through education so they’re not just able to survive but thrive. What I really hope this project does is aid us (us being society as a whole) in building a better community through education by connecting students who have had adverse childhood experiences to local campuses, programs, and supports to address the barriers they face, creating a chain of positive impact, and aiding them in achieving their goals and dreams.
What have you learned that you might share with other organizations who similarly support youth?
The largest lesson we’ve learned throughout this project is that there are a large number of refugee students at campuses, and there are many misconceptions about the unique needs of these students. What we do know is that providing direct services to students in key areas of the state enhances campus-based development, statewide network development, and robust post-secondary and career pipelines for students, and we aim to increase the knowledge and understanding of resources for this particular population throughout this project.
Changemakers has helped to cultivate stronger connections with campuses, allowing us to fold them into FSM’s Higher Education Consortium (HEC; the 30 campuses with campus-based support programs or champions) to connect them with resources, policy updates, further their coach training, and share best practices between the coaches and campuses. Many students who have lived experience in foster care don’t have traditional family support, sound support systems, or know what their options are post-high school (or that they have any at all). FSM has worked hard to create a robust network of organizations and professionals to support young folks who have lived experience in foster care, and Changemakers is just one part of the ever-changing puzzle to support these youth in achieving their goals and making their dreams come true.