Vision & Goals
Our Model's Approach
The Fostering Success Coach Model can be applied as a full program of support or adapted as a core skill set for educational advisors, educational mentors, and other professionals providing support to young people. A set of sequential trainings provide instruction, practice, and expert feedback to professionals interested in incorporating coaching techniques into their work with students.
Our Vision
The Fostering Success Coaching Institute trains professionals with the Fostering Success Coach Model in order to increase national rates of post-secondary education access, success, and graduation among students who have experienced foster care.
Program History
​The Fostering Success Coach Model was developed within the Seita Scholars Program, a campus support program for students from foster care at Western Michigan University. Development of the model began in 2008 and evolved over time by partnering with students who shared their experiences of attending college after time spent in foster care. The model developers sought to ground their understanding of these student experiences in the most recent theory and research available, refined it by internal program evaluation, and shaped it by clinical-level scrutiny. In 2013 the FS Coach Training, which teaches professionals the Fostering Success Coaching Model, was piloted with over 50 professionals in Michigan; since then over 1,000 professionals across the country have been trained as Fostering Success Coaches.
Program Goals:
1. Increase availability of high quality resources and expert training for professionals who are supporting students from foster care in educational settings.
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2. Increase numbers of trained, skilled professionals providing integrative support to youth and students from foster care or who have had adverse childhood experiences through the implementation of the Fostering Success Coaching Model.
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3. Increase numbers of youth and students from foster care or who have had adverse childhood experiences earning post-secondary degrees and becoming professionally employed.
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4. Create a strong and enduring networks addressing needs of youth and alumni of foster care in relation to higher education and career.