Chilton County Nonprofit Helps Answer the Question, “What Comes After Foster Care?”

Mike King (center), Executive Director of Raleigh’s Place, cuts the ribbon on new transitional housing units for boys aging out of foster care, surrounded by members of his staff, representatives of United Way of Central Alabama and other supporters of the Chilton County agency.

Raleigh’s Place was founded by Tim and Sharon King in 2004 as a foster home based in Chilton County. Since then, several foster-centric programs have been added to the operation, including Camp 1:27, a free summer camp open to all area foster children, as well as meal support for foster families and a night-out program for foster parents.

While 2023 was the last year children were actually fostered onsite, Raleigh’s Place programming has continued to grow, with one of the latest additions seeking to support youth at the end of their foster care journey.

Begun in 2020, the Workmanship Initiative was developed by Raleigh’s Place to prepare older foster youth for adulthood through life skills training and education, as well as job training and placement services. Now, that program has been expanded to include transitional housing units for boys aging out of foster care.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, one in five youth who aged out of care at 18 are homeless and do not have a high school diploma or equivalent. Within two years of leaving care, one in four fostered youth will be involved with the criminal justice system.

The new housing, specifically for young men aged 19 to 25, will deepen the Workmanship Initiative’s impact by not only keeping young adults off the street but by also pairing them more closely with supportive adults. Then comes the snowball effect of benefits: access to the Workmanship Initiative’s primary offerings, such as GED preparation, driving lessons and college-and-career planning – all the things that were low priorities for kids who didn’t even have a place to live.

Each of the rooms within Raleigh’s Place’s new transitional housing units have their own bathrooms, as well as ample personal storage space.

Mike King, Executive Director of Raleigh’s Place, was himself fostered through the early days of the program and has worked for the organization since 2012. This leap in the Workmanship Initiative, he said, is motivated by a longstanding desire to address the needs of these youth aging out of care.

“We just kept hearing the stories about how they don’t go home,” King said. “They’re bouncing from foster home to foster home, or they’re living in group homes, then they’re aging out of care, and it’s not typically a good thing for them because they just don’t have any kind of support system.”

Raleigh’s Place became a partner agency of UWCA in 2021, and King said that he continually finds new opportunities for his organization through United Way. For instance, an important component of the Workmanship Initiative will be financial literacy, and UWCA can connect Raleigh’s Place and these young people with experts in that field.

“It has been thrilling to see all the different things that United Way alone does,” King said. With a focus on youth, Raleigh’s Place works across a variety of UWCA’s core areas of impact, including Youth Support & After-School Programs, Homeless Prevention & Housing and Financial Stability & Career Development. For more information on the impact of all of United Way’s partners and programs in Central Alabama, click here.