YORK, Pa. - Each year, more than 1,000 Pennsylvania youths exit foster care without permanency-- putting them at greater risk for homelessness, addiction, teen pregnancy, unemployment, and incarceration. After traveling through the foster care system as a child, Michelle Nauman-Brown decided she wanted to use her harrowing experiences to help local foster kids plan their futures.
Michelle lived most of her life in Lancaster County and left the foster care system at age 18 without a family to call her own. She became a single mother at age 19 and ultimately found herself living out of her car with two young children. She's now an advocate for Family Design Resources. The Harrisburg-based non-profit is a social services organization that helps children in out-of-home care as well as the families who care for them.
Michelle is now happily married and lives with her husband and two young children in Bradford County.
Click here to see more of her story.