The Road Less Traveled

Happy 2025 from Pivotal!

Happy New Year from all of us at Pivotal! Last year, we celebrated 35 years of helping young people from foster care build the lives they want for themselves. 

In the 2023-24 school year, we served 532 young people from foster care, providing support in high school and college through individualized coaching, trauma-informed support, resources, and scholarships. We also began serving students in middle school, knowing that the earlier we can start to work with...

Read more

Pivotal Celebrates 35 Years of Service

In early October, we invited our donors, partners, alumni, and staff to come together to celebrate Pivotal’s 35 years of service in our community. Starting with building the Santa Clara County Children’s Shelter, Pivotal has dedicated itself to the support and well-being of young people from foster care in our community. We’d like to acknowledge and thank everyone whose support allowed us to serve thousands of children and young adults, at a critical time when they needed...

Read more

From Setbacks to Success: How Pivotal Helped Michelle Find Her Path

When sharing stories about our scholars and their experiences, we often tell you about young people who have been through the system and have found success through their hard work and with Pivotal’s support. It’s important to remember that their journey to that success is often filled with struggles and uncertainty for many of our scholars and it can be difficult for students to open up about the difficulties they may be experiencing in the moment. 

When post-secondary...

Read more

Instilling Hope: Full Circle from Scholar to Coach

A big part of a Pivotal coach's role is to understand the challenges their scholars face as they move through their educational journey. Often, before a student can focus on academics, they have to overcome significant obstacles such as housing, mental health issues, or financial concerns. In addition, nearly every young person from foster care is managing trauma at some level, which can impact their lives in many ways. Students sometimes have trouble focusing and withdraw from social or...

Read more

EDUCATION NONPROFIT LEADERS URGE STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS TO SUPPORT FOSTER YOUTH HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION SUCCESS

The Foster Youth Pre-College Collective Releases “Destination Graduation” Report; Underscores Foster Youth Challenges and Promising Practices That Successfully Impact Academic Progression

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (June 4, 2024) - Deeper investment in highly relational one-on-one services will close the persistent gap between the high school completion rates of youth in the foster care system and other K-12 students, according to a new report, Destination Graduation: Investing in the...

Read more

Thank you for supporting us this National Foster Care Month!

National Foster Care month is over and what a month it was! Here at Pivotal, we packed a whole lot into a short time.  

The incredible Delrisha White hosted three live podcast events where Pivotal alumni, scholars, and staff shared their experiences. Here are just a few quotes: 

I not only had someone that could be there for me academically, but I also had someone that was close to my age and was able to understand me, help me make decisions, personal or academic, because I...

Read more

Celebrating 35 Years of Impact: Vanessa's Journey

Vanessa Payne was in our very first cohort of 11 scholarship recipients, more than 20 years ago. Like so many Pivotal scholars, her path was not always clear. While she was in foster care, she had close to 17 different placements and the constant upheaval meant she struggled to complete high school. When she finally got her GED, she applied for and received a Pivotal scholarship. Although she had hoped to go to college, she wasn’t in a place where she could focus on academics and ended...

Read more

Making the Most of a Second Chance - Catching Up with Diana

Diana Urias loved school when she was young, but when she was placed in foster care, she felt that love waning as she struggled with her mental health and began engaging in more and more risky behavior. After a drug overdose, several moves, and some time in juvenile detention, Diana realized she had to make a change. She began to focus on school again, eventually graduating and starting at community college where she found Pivotal. “I expected the program to be temporary, like every...

Read more

Catalysts for Change - Thanking our Social Work Interns

March is Social Work Month, and we want to celebrate the current and future social workers who support our students. Social workers play a critical role in the child welfare system and are often an important part of our scholars’ lives.  

In 2010, Pivotal created an internship program to help new social workers-in-training learn about the nuances of working with foster youth. We train undergraduate and graduate students in social work programs to be Pivotal coaches, working...

Read more

The Sisterhood of Resilience: From Separation to Support

Losing their parents to drug and alcohol addiction motivated sisters Mary and Ruby to build healthy and fulfilling lives to help themselves and others.   

For Mary, the path to healing began with strengthening her own body and mind. Her father had been a track and field runner, but she didn’t see him in that light, as a strong athlete, because his addiction had stripped that away. It inspired her to become a runner herself, breaking track and field records in middle...

Read more

Anjru's Story - In His Own Words

I went into foster care partly because of physical and emotional abuse, but mostly, because of poverty. My dad was in and out of jail. My mother was a single mother raising me and my three sisters. We lived in the car, slept on couches, and on people’s floors for a long time, until the day we entered foster care. Whenever something bad happened to my family, my parents would blame me. I felt that I was a burden, and I was always anxious. But I can’t say that I was a victim of my...

Read more