photo by Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph Brownsboro High School senior Nick Wilkerson participates in a drill during basketball practice Thursday Oct. 2, 2014. Wilkerson is aging out of the foster care system and is looking forward to college.

Nick Wilkerson isn’t shy as he walks the halls of Brownsboro High School.

The 17-year-old greets others and engages in some small talk along the way. He then quickly heads to basketball practice, where he hustles and works with his teammates.

It’s indicative of his positive attitude, which is described by his coach. But his life hasn’t always had positive circumstances.

Due to his family situation, he has been in foster care for the past five years. Now, he is trying to navigate transitioning from the system.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services offers transitional services and benefits for older youth in foster care and those who have aged out of the system, according to the DFPS website.

Transitional living services, according to the website, include Circles of Support, Preparation for Adult Living (PAL), Education and Training Vouchers (ETV), College tuition and fee waivers, Extended Foster Care and “other related services and support of young people 16 to 21 or up to 22 years of age who are currently or formerly in foster care, or transitioning out of care.” BCFS Health and Human Services’ Tyler Transition Center, at 200 N. Beckham Ave., serves as a local resource.

Sara Maynard, an attorney who is board certified in juvenile law, has worked with foster care youth.

She said the future is pretty bleak for many youth who have aged out, and statistics show that a high percentage of them either become incarcerated or wind up homeless.

There is assistance available for these youth, but most don’t take advantage of all of it, she said.

But Wilkerson is optimistic about his future.

Wilkerson, who turns 18 on Halloween, was born in Salem, Oregon.

He said his parents were “pretty heavy on drugs and alcohol,” so he began living with his grandmother. He lived there for years before going to live with his aunt and uncle in Texas.

He said he attempted to start a new chapter in Harleton, but things ended up turning for the worse, and there was abuse in the home.

Then one night, he said, he felt like his life was threatened, so he ran away to a friend’s house.

He ended up in the care of Child Protective Services and later lived at a boy’s home in Dallas.

He was then placed in his current foster home in Chandler, where he’s lived for five years.

“It was hard to go through all that — just transitioning to each one of those places — but survival was key so you do what you had to do,” Wilkerson said. “It hurt. It hurt my feelings, I cried sometimes, but other than that I got over it. I said, ‘It’s for the better,’ and I got a home.”

He said he also entered into a relationship with God and has never really had a problem with friends.

As far as moving around to different schools, he said it was hard because some schools are teaching different things in different locations.

But otherwise, he said, things have been relatively normal.

Wilkerson said his foster family helps him out a lot, but he also does things independently.

“The things I choose to do such as my classes, such as my sports, that’s all me. And what I have to do to accomplish those, that’s all me,” he said. “They (his foster parents) just want me to have good grades. … So what I am doing and where my life is going is based on me.”

Wilkerson currently plays basketball at Brownsboro High School.

He said his goal is to go to college, and he would like to try to become a doctor. He plans to attend The University of Texas-Pan American. 

“It’s a nervous, anxious thing. You’ve spent your whole life with parents telling you what to do — telling you how to do it, when to do it. And now I’m supposed to go off (and) have my own agenda,” Wilkerson said. “That’s a scary topic to think about, but I encourage it. I just have to put my education first because that’s the only thing I can do at this point. I’ve come too far to stop now.”

He said his foster mother, Sheri Hall, as well as Mrs. Hall’s biological daughter, Brownsboro ISD teacher Felicia Mosley, are among those who have been a big influence in his life.

“She’s (Ms. Mosley) been a major factor. So has my mom. I probably wouldn’t be in the situation I am if it wasn’t for my mom’s hard work,” Wilkerson said.

Mrs. Hall, who works in Browsboro ISD, recalled her journey to becoming Wilkerson’s foster mother.

She said it started when she learned of an effort to place five siblings in the same home.

At the time, her three biological children were grown and out of the house, and she wanted to take these five children in, she said.

“My husband thought I was crazy,” she quipped.

She said the five siblings already had found a home by the time she went through the process of becoming a foster parent, but Wilkerson ended up living at her two-bedroom home.

“I felt like I already knew him,” Mrs. Hall said. “From that day to this day, he has been a blessing to me.”

She said she’s excited for Wilkerson because he’s preparing for college, and she looks forward to him going to college and getting in the world.

In the meantime, she said, she lets him cook, do laundry, grocery shop and overall “get in the swing of doing things for himself.”

“I will miss him being at home, but need to let him have his life,” Mrs. Hall said.

Brent Smith, head boys’ basketball coach at Brownsboro High School, described Wilkerson as “a great kid” and “very hard worker.”

“He’s always positive (and) upbeat,” Smith said. “He tries to do everything right. He tries to do everything right in the classroom. He tries to do everything right on the (basketball) court. He’s a joy to be around.”

Smith said Wilkerson also is a great teammate and is well liked by his friends and teachers.

“I have a lot of respect for where he’s been and where he’s coming from and the person he is today,” Smith said.

“He’ll be as successful as he wants to be. He can do anything he wants to do.”

Wilkerson said he doesn’t know what to expect with transitioning out of foster care, but “can only hope for the best.”

“Of course when you’re doing this there’s always that thought in the back of your mind, ‘Are you ready?’ so that’s where I’m really trying to test myself to see … if I’m ready, and hopefully I am,” he said. “Odds are that I’ll go, I won’t be able to do it and I’ll drop out. But I always love to play the odds. It’s really a 50/50 shot, but I’m still going to give it 110 percent.”

When he does leave home, he will stay in contact with his foster family.

“My foster family is my family. I can’t give them up. They wouldn’t let me give them up, even if I tried,” Wilkerson said.

“I need all the support I can get.”

Like Wilkerson, Angela Bass has been in foster care. But she is now studying criminal law at Tyler Junior College and hopes to become an attorney.

Ms. Bass, 19, said her father started molesting her when she was 5 years old, and she moved back and forth from different places due to an unstable home life.

When she was in seventh grade, she started living with her father, who had been in and out of prison, and a new stepmother. She said she thought things would be better when her father got out of prison, but that wasn’t the case.

By the time she was a high school freshman, she said she was eight and a half months pregnant with his child and then lost the baby.

She said abuse continued while she was pregnant, and her father is now in prison.

At one point, she went to a shelter in Tyler and then moved to a foster home in Fruitvale.

She said there was a period of time where she lived with her ex-stepmother, whom she considers as her mother, but she now lives in Bullard at her friend’s parents’ home.

Ms. Bass said the transition into adulthood was hard, and as she grew older she didn’t have anyone telling her how to do something or why she should do it or what she should or shouldn’t do.

“I didn’t really know what was really right and wrong for me to do. It was a very, very hard transition, but I learned very fast,” she said.

Today, she realizes that God put her on Earth for a reason and she speaks to various organizations and tries to help abused children, she said.

Aside from speaking and attending school, Ms. Bass works at The House of Sunshine.

Judge Carole Clark, of the 321st District Court, and Lisa Ferguson, board member with Christian-based nonprofit Hope Haven of East Texas, are among those who have influenced her. She said her ex-stepmother also helps her, as well as her best friend.

Ms. Ferguson said she earned Ms. Bass’ trust by constantly being there and doing what she told her she would do.

She said there are great programs in place for youth coming out of foster care, but there is nothing like a mentor to tell them things like a mother would do.

“Angela is one of the few girls who has whatever it is inside of the person to do what it takes and move to the next level. She has this spark in her. She’s going to do OK,” Ms. Ferguson said.

Wilkerson and Ms. Bass had advice for those going through similar transitions.

“Make sure you do have support. Make sure you have somebody that’s going to help you, who’s going to boost you up, who’s going to tell you, ‘You can do it,’ because that’s going to be the biggest thing because you’re going to doubt yourself. You’re going to want to quit, and you need someone there to tell you, ‘No, you can do this.’ It has to come from you. It has to be a unique thing.”

Ms. Bass said, “It’s going to be hard, but take hold of everything that (the) foster care system’s going to give you … and learn what it is that they’re giving you and what it is about because you can do it.”