Building connections and community

As a young person with experience in the foster care system, University of Delaware graduate student William Woelki understands firsthand how important it is to support youth with foster care experience. The instability that youth often face in the foster care system - from access to food, school, housing and social relationships - can affect every aspect of their development.

"Being a youth with foster care experience has drastically shaped my work in the sense that everything I do is an effort towards leveling the playing field for my peers with systems-based experiences," said Woelki, a doctoral student in the College of Education and Human Development's (CEHD) Ph.D. in human development and family sciences (HDFS) program. "Whether it is writing a research paper, having a casual conversation or working on my dissertation, I strive to make sure the foster community isn't left out of the conversation."

Now in the fourth year of his program, Woelki is actively working toward those goals. Drawing on his personal and UD experiences, he has founded a mutual aid initiative to support those experiencing housing insecurity, advocated for federal policy changes and examined the educational barriers and supports for youth in foster care.

See You Backpacks

Woelki's advocacy work is closely tied to his community-engaged coursework and research at UD. In just his second year of the Ph.D. program, Woelki and his friend, Phun Mualcin, established See You Backpacks, an initiative that provides filled backpacks to those experiencing housing instability.