{"id":31011,"date":"2014-06-06T16:13:40","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T20:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=31011"},"modified":"2014-09-12T11:02:17","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T15:02:17","slug":"foster-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/06\/06\/foster-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Foster force"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nursing<\/a>

In and out of foster homes throughout her life, Vicky Lindsey was her high school's class salutatorian and is now bound for the nursing program at Wright State.<\/p><\/div>\n

Born on her mother\u2019s couch, Vicky Lindsey has been in and out of foster homes since she was just a baby. She began living alone when she was 16, scrambling to keep food in the fridge, get herself to work and school, and pursue her dream of becoming a traveling nurse.<\/p>\n

Today, the 19-year-old graduate of Woodward High School in Cincinnati is salutatorian of her class and bound for the nursing program at Wright State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefits I will get from attending Wright State are a family environment, upbeat community and lots of support,\u201d Lindsey said. \u201cIf I do have challenges that I might face during my stay, they would most likely be me becoming lonely when I have nowhere to go and others are out spending time with their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alone. A word Lindsey knows well.<\/p>\n

She was placed in foster care when she was 6 months old. Although she would return home for brief periods, she and her mother constantly clashed and Lindsey would find herself back in a foster home. She felt abandoned.<\/p>\n

But then she found purpose.<\/p>\n

\"Nursing<\/a>

Vicky Lindsey selected Wright State in part because of the university\u2019s Independent Scholars Network, which nurtures, educates and graduates emancipated foster students.<\/p><\/div>\n

When Lindsey was in the eighth grade, her foster mother fell deathly ill and had to spend two weeks in the hospital. It was Lindsey\u2019s first brush with the nursing profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cNurses are the first contact that patients have,\u201d she said. \u201cThey will always remember that face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her interest in nursing was reinforced by the school nurse at Gardendale Academy, the Dayton school Lindsey attended at the time. The nurse would give her clothes and other necessities as well as motherly advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was always there. I never had that growing up,\u201d Lindsey said. \u201cShe would actually force me to tell her what was bothering me when I didn\u2019t want to talk. That inspired me because a lot of people don\u2019t do that. They give up on kids like me, and she didn\u2019t give up. So I wanted to do what she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lindsey was 16, she got her own apartment in Cincinnati through an independent-living program that paid the rent, but nothing else. She made ends meet by working at Kings Island and United Dairy Farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s stressful,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re 16, still in school and have a job. You have to have food in your house, bus fare. And you can\u2019t do all the other things kids can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she wasn\u2019t at home or at work, Lindsey was at school\u2014giving everything she had.<\/p>\n

When she suffered asthma attacks and had to be hospitalized, she had friends bring her schoolwork so she wouldn\u2019t fall behind. She threw herself into her medical-assistance classes, learning how to take vital signs with medical mannequins and getting hands-on clinical experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kept pushing myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Despite her workload, Lindsey found time to play varsity volleyball and join Young Women Writing for (a) Change, a group of about 20 female students who develop their writing skills together and share confidences.<\/p>\n

When the dust cleared on her high school academic career, Lindsey was second in her class of 100, winning a valedictorian\/salutatorian scholarship from Wright State covering tuition.<\/p>\n

But a major reason for Lindsey choosing Wright State\u2014which takes students where they are financially and experientially and gets them to the finish line\u2014is the university\u2019s Independent Scholars Network, an innovative program that nurtures, educates and graduates emancipated foster students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWright State was perfect,\u201d she said. \u201cI know I will really need that help, that extra push. I can push myself, but everybody needs to have somebody else to push them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In and out of foster homes throughout her life, Vicky Lindsey was her high school salutatorian and is now bound for Wright State’s nursing program. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":31013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2048,2017,715,2061],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-enrollment-management","category-nursing-health","category-news","category-undergraduate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31011"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33255,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31011\/revisions\/33255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}