“I’m going to be homeless in five days.” The speaker was a young “graduate” of the Oregon Foster Care system that was standing in our office suite speaking with her caseworker. Her words, or very similar, are heard far too often from youth who have “aged out” of foster care near the end of their teen years. The Powerhouse Mentoring Program hopes to decrease the number of former foster teens that find themselves in this predicament by building strength and resiliency in foster youth during their teenage years. Powerhouse provides teens with one-on-one, community-based mentoring from dedicated, caring adult volunteer mentors. The presence of one caring adult mentor can make all the difference in the successful transition to independent living by a foster youth.

Historically, as young adults left the foster care system in Oregon, there were no monies, programs or services to support this difficult transition to independent living. Powerhouse began providing services in October 2000 to help fill this void. Powerhouse is committed to decreasing the levels of homelessness and increasing high school completion and post-secondary education among this group of young adults by providing mentoring during the often difficult teenage years. Mentoring has been shown to be an effective source of support for vulnerable teens.

The mission of Powerhouse is to provide community-based mentoring to youth in foster care to enhance their successful transitions from adolescence to adulthood.