Central Connecticut hosts a diverse student population from all walks of life. While navigating the university system can be difficult for any student, it is even more so challenging for those coming from the Department of Children and Families system.

But at Central, there is a program that is there to help these students: Central’s Academic Readiness and Engagement Scholarship Program (CARE).

Created by Assistant Director of Admissions Carlos Soler and built along with CCSU graduate and University Assistant Christopher Marinelli, CARE Scholars is a program designed to help students coming from foster and adoption backgrounds to enter CCSU and support them up through graduation.

Led by Marinelli, CARE is staffed almost entirely by students that come from foster families or from adopted families. This structure distinguishes them as the only such program in the nation. And in a society where those in the foster and adoption system are often stigmatized by those outside it, Marinelli said that is important.

“Sometimes foster youth and adopted youth are stigmatized. But understanding that these students have had a really resilient life, [understanding] that there are many aspects to identity [is necessary],” Marinelli stated.

“For example, I’m Chris, I’m a teacher, I’m a musician and I’m also adopted and went through foster care,” he went on; Marinelli himself is a product of the system. “So kind of understanding where the adjective falls is important, really. It’s part of identity, but it’s not the only part of identity.”

CARE Scholars offer many resources for foster and adopted students. To reduce student homelessness, CARE joined with CCSU’s Residence Life to provide full-year housing to students in the CARE program. Hosting workshops is also frequent.

“We do a workshop every month for our students relevant to different topics that are involving things such as financial aid [and] advising. We’ve done movie days,” Marinelli explained. “We’ll bring in experts if I don’t have the answer and making sure that our students are navigating Central as well as keeping in mind some of the other variables that might be in place.  For example, how financial aid works if you also have scholarships through DCF.”

Additionally, CARE offers employment to students in the program and provides mentoring. Upperclassmen from foster and adoption backgrounds teach and tutor lower classmen who are also from a foster or adoption background.

CARE has been growing each semester. In just two years, the program has gone from 50 students to 90 students. Marinelli said that growth means getting more resources to ensure that every single student in the program is fairly cared for.

“We’re definitely going to grow significantly,” he said. “We need to expand our resources so we can give the same equitable approach we give our current students to next semester when we grow [and] make sure each student gets an equitable approach to college.”

Every student has their own circumstances and story to be told.  No one would know that story unless they wished to tell it. To Marinelli, the students in CARE’s program are not defined by their backgrounds and are sure to excel.

“I believe that my students are capable of not just excelling but becoming game changers in this world because they have a perspective that is really unique to society,” he said.