Think back to your eighteenth birthday. The thrill of being able to vote, getting a drivers license, graduating high school with the whole world in front of you, and with the backing of a supportive network of family and friends as you go off to college or tour around a foreign country.

The thrill of growing up, but not too fast, keeps your energy levels high and your spirits soaring. But for some of the youth in Israel, specifically the youth who come from a troubled home and have spent their formative years in foster care, turning eighteen is many times their biggest nightmare.

Turning eighteen is a day that is dreaded by all but overcome successfully only by a few.

When foster children in Israel turn eighteen, their foster care officially ends and they are sent out into the world on their own. Many enlist in the IDF or join a national service.

But while other soldiers and those in national service programs have families who help support them and provide more than the meager sums that army and government provide, these new young adults do not.

From one day to the next, the “former” foster children’s lives are radically altered. They have no place or family to go home to on weekends, no money in their pockets to hang out with friends or fellow soldiers after hours, no way to support themselves, and many barely get by on the very meager stipends which barely cover their basic needs.

Advocating on behalf of the alumni of Israel’s foster care program, The Summit Institute, an organization that helps thousands of Israel’s children find loving homes and nourishing supportive environments with host families, recently achieved a major milestone.

Summit received approval from the IDF to categorize alumni of the foster program as “Lone Soldiers.” While many of the foster alumni’s biological parents are alive, they have no connection with their children.

Summit’s achievement is a major step forward for foster youth as now, when they turn eighteen and enlist in the army, the foster children are given greater financial help and now qualify for rent subsidies and other social benefits.

While these new directives are a step in the right direction, they only prolong the inevitable. According to Summit, once many of their alumni finish their military or national service, they are sent out into the world alone and have no one to guide them in the next phase of their life.

Summit, who oversees the youth while they are in foster care, is trying to provide a bridge for their alumni. Yoni Bogot, Executive Director of Summit, explained to Breaking Israel News that “kids that grew up in Summit-run foster homes, and in spite of their being from a very broken background, are often very talented and intelligent. They can aspire to greatness and become contributing members of society if they are only given a hand.”

“Too often we have seen that foster children, upon finishing the foster program and turning eighteen, have no handle on how to make proper decisions, financial or otherwise, and enter into huge amounts of debt,” Bogot said. “This causes a negative and often devastating spiral of events in their lives which can take them years to crawl their way out of. They are not aware of the support system that is available to them, or even about their rights as foster children.”

Summit has created a unique educational seminar for foster children who are about to turn eighteen aimed at preparing them to overcome the dramatic shift that is about to occur in their lives. From being in a protected environment to being completely on their own, Summit seeks to arm their foster children with the tools needed to fight any emotional or financial obstacles that are thrown at them by life.

“The seminar empowers our alumni with the information they need to help them make proper life choices, teach them about their rights and how to exercise them, and encourages them to build a social network and their own safety net, should they encounter difficulty along the way,” Bogot told Breaking Israel News. “Some of the programs include therapeutic sessions, where we try to instill the lessons that they will need in life via activities that can be used as metaphors, such as sailing.”

One alumni, “Yonatan”, hopes to be a doctor and is currently making a lot of headway in that field, attending college and maintaining very high grades. He is one of the success stories. Unfortunately, there are many others who are on the other said of the scale, who are now young adults in high risk situations that have been thrown into a downward spiral of debt and poverty.

“What they all really need is financial support, all of them, as they really have nothing,” says Bogot.  “This includes support for studies, living expenses. One donor wanted to help out a specific alumnus and we asked him what he needed. He said, ‘What I really need is an oven and a quilt.’ This is the level that most of the alumni live at.”

“Our alumni need help to get on their feet. With a helping hand, most of them can become upstanding members of society.”

Summit has approached various organizations to help their alumni financially, but often charitable foundations have conditions and prerequisites that are prohibitive and for which the alumni do not qualify.

While sometimes the children do stay in touch with their foster families, the foster families themselves do not have the ability to give these young adults more than an occasional roof and some food. They simply do not have the finances or means to support the foster youth one they step into the world of adulthood.

Additionally, the children themselves want to break away from their past and start a new life and to do that they need to leave their foster families. More times than not, they end up alone.

“Summit is trying to create a database of alumni to be able to help themselves, each other, and even become big brothers helping new foster children who are making their way. Hope is a big part of the story of these youth leaving, and we are doing everything we can to give them that. It is the most important, and sometimes the only thing that they have,” said Bogot to Breaking Israel News.

“Our goal is to create and maintain a network for the alumni so that they have a safety-net for others who are completely alone,” he continued. Summit’s efforts to create a cycle of positive change in the lives of their alumni is greatly expanding the mandate of the organization and stretching their budget to care for its own.

“We have seen, that if given a hand, then these children can excel and enjoy the benefits of their hard work and eventually will succeed at making good lives for themselves. They just need that chance, and we are doing everything we can to provide it for them,” Bogot said.