An education fair at the University of Cincinnati aims to make the future brighter for young people in the foster care system, and so far, it’s part of an incentive that’s showing results. The fair gets underway at 9 a.m., Saturday, April 9, in the Annie Laws Conference Room of UC’s Teachers College.

The Higher Education Mentoring Initiative (HEMI) is a partnership that’s preparing foster youth for educational opportunities beyond high school after they age out of the foster care system. Now in its second year, the partnership reports 12 HEMI students began their freshman year at a state university or college this year, including two here at UC. That’s triple the number from 2008, when only three of the 150 Hamilton County foster youth who graduated from high school continued their education.

The fair will include a panel of the HEMI students now in higher education, as they share their experiences with the high school students.

The keynote speaker is Adrian McLemore, a political science major at Wright State University, who grew up in Ohio’s foster-care system. He is a founding member of the state’s Youth Advisory Board and has advocated on the state and national level about improving the futures of children in foster care.

Representatives of the HEMI partnership include UC’s Partner for Achieving School Success (PASS) program in the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH), the UC School of Social Work, Hamilton County Job and Family Services, the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College and Great Oaks Career Campuses.

The HEMI partnership served 25 high school students during the 2009-10 academic year. That number has now grown to 50, with the addition of 25 new high school students during the 2010-2011 academic year.

In addition to programming, HEMI recruits long-term mentors to guide the foster students from high school through higher education. The mentors undergo an extensive screening and training process. The program now has 50 mentors from the Hamilton County community.