Project Summary
Only 45% of Colorado students who experience foster care graduate with their high school class. Fostering Opportunities is the only evidence-based program in Colorado proven to improve educational outcomes for middle and high school students who have experienced foster care. Its efficacy was established through a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Jefferson County (Jeffco) Public Schools. The Foster Youth Success Act (House Bill 22-1374) funded the program’s continuation in Jeffco and its expansion to Denver Public Schools (DPS) and Adams 27J Schools (27J), with full implementation across all three districts beginning in academic year (AY) 2024–25 academic year.
The Colorado Lab is providing implementation science support through a 3-year evaluation examining whether Fostering Opportunities can be scaled to new jurisdictions while producing outcomes consistent with those demonstrated in the Jeffco pilot.
Upcoming deliverables include:
- Unlocking Proven Solutions for Colorado’s Child Welfare Involved Youth: The Fostering Opportunities Program, Evidence Brief;
- Scaling Fostering Opportunities: Final Outcome Evaluation Results; and
- A Plan for Ongoing Evaluation of the Program.
Steps to Building Evidence
This project spans all five steps of evidence-building, from program design (Step 1 on the Steps to Building Evidence) through a Randomized Controlled Trial (Step 5). Scaling the program provides the opportunity to return our focus to improving program design and delivering it with fidelity (Step 1 and Step 2).
Actionability
An audit of the State Foster Care Education program revealed the need to accelerate progress on improving educational outcomes for youth in foster care. Learnings from this project provided the best-available research evidence on how to help students reach the goal of earning a high school credential. The Colorado General Assembly resourced scaling Fostering Opportunities through HB22-1374 and required ongoing evaluation and data sharing to monitor progress.
Summary of Findings
The Jeffco RCT findings show:
- Students passed their academic courses at a higher rate within 2 years of having access to the program.
- Statistically significant gains in student attendance rates.
- A statistically significant decrease in the number of student suspensions within 1 year of having access to the program.
More research is needed to determine whether Fostering Opportunities impacts high school graduation as there were not enough students in the study to make a causal attribution. Descriptive results do suggest that within 1 year, there was a 51% increase in the number of high school students who were on track to graduate.
Preliminary findings from scaling the program show:
- Fostering Opportunities can be delivered with fidelity at scale.
- One-year data across all three districts are consistent with the Jeffco evidence base and support the case for continued investment.
- The most notable outcome was a 12 percentage point improvement in proportion of high school students who are on track to graduate within 1 year of entering the program.
Get Involved
For more information about working with the Colorado Lab, see Government Partnerships or Research Partnerships.