TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Faucets in the home dried up like broken promises when the water bill was neglected. Sometimes the electricity, too, was cut off when his parents' meager funds went for drugs instead of the utility bill.

Foster youth Emerson Stidham remembers thinking that's just the way it was.

"I grew up in that kind of situation," the 17-year-old says. "I thought it was normal."

Later this month the Bakersfield teen will graduate from Ridgeview High School before heading to Cal State Northridge in August.

But tonight he's crossing yet another bridge as he and some 50 other foster care youth celebrate their graduation from the Independent Living Program, a life skills training program operated by the Kern County Department of Human Services.

FOSTERING SUCCESS

Designed to help kids in foster homes and group homes make it on the outside, the ILP begins at age 16 teaching teens the basics of living, from how to get the best bang for their buck when shopping to how to balance a checkbook, said Bethany Christman, assistant director of Human Services.

"Some of these youth have been through horrendous situations," Christman said.

Most young people are not living independently from their parents until age 25 or 26, she said. "Yet we expect kids in the foster care system to be out on their own at 18."

That's why helping foster youth bridge the gap is so important, she added. Without those programs and other safety nets that help with rent, job training and school expenses, more youth will be at risk to become long-term drains on taxpayer dollars.

According to a 2007 report by the public-policy group Pew Charitable Trusts, more than one-quarter of foster-care youth will be incarcerated and more than 20 percent will be homeless before age 25.

FINDING THE WAY

Now 18, Alex Azanza barely remembers the night he was dropped off alone on the corner of Casa Loma Drive and Cottonwood Road.

He was 6 years of age.

That night Alex became a foster child.

"My memory is blurred," he said. "I think I forgot everything before the age of 6 -- on purpose."

His advice for those leaving the foster care system?

"Get a job. Save money. Use the system that's provided for you to prepare for the future," he said. "It's not all fun and games."

Azanza works at Dagny's Coffee House on 18th Street, a job incubator of sorts where former foster kids can get job experience.

Azanza lives in a modest apartment complex as part of the Building Blocks program for foster youth who have been "emancipated."

Only 12 beds are available, but those who qualify pay just 30 percent of their income in rent. But residents have to have a job or be attending school -- and it's a limited-time offer.

Azanza is scheduled to enter the U.S. Navy in November. And despite his difficult background, he considers himself "one of the lucky ones."

BETTER THAN BEFORE

Christman says foster kids often have higher hurdles to get over than young people who benefit from the network of support traditional families offer.

But the system in Kern County is much improved over what it was in years past, she said. More mentoring, more training and safety nets like the Independent Living Program are available to help minimize the numbers who fall.

For grad-to-be Stidham, the program helped him believe in his own abilities.

"ILP, they helped me realize college was the way for me," he said.

Stidham and his younger sister were placed in a foster home in Arizona nearly five years ago. It wasn't easy and as a kid, he had to fight to make sure he and his sister were not separated.

Stidham's grades suffered. Experts say instability does that to children.

Then about three years ago, the siblings moved to Bakersfield to stay with their aunt, though they were still part of the foster system.

Soon he'll be off to university. His parents, he said, have been working hard to get back into his and his sister's lives.

Meanwhile, Stidham knew he was his sister's role model.

"I wanted to show my sister that even though we came from that life," he said, "we can still make something of ourselves."