Justin Monk grew up unaware he had spent time in foster care as an infant. He’d lost his father at a young age and had to navigate the challenges of limited resources throughout his childhood in a single-parent home — “rough times,” as Monk remembers it. But the Central Valley native prioritized school and never lost sight of his desire to help those who didn’t have a voice.
It wasn’t until his second year at UCLA, while planning for law school, that he learned more about the circumstances of his early life. The discovery shifted how he saw his own story; not as a setback, but as a reason to stay focused on helping others with shared experiences.
The discovery was a lot for Monk to process, but it also led him to find community and resources through the Bruin Guardian Scholars program, or BGS.
Founded in 2009 by students advocating for their peers, BGS was created to support current and former foster youth navigating university life. The program provides a range of services, including emergency scholarships, priority enrollment, free textbooks, housing support and career development funding.
“Even if you’ve been in foster care for a day as a child, or any kind of alternative guardianship where your parents lost custody of you, you qualify,” Monk said.
The greatest strength, though, of BGS — according to those who rely on it — is the community it cultivates.
Just ask Monk’s BGS peers, Anna James and Soraya Leonard. Both arrived at UCLA with personal histories shaped by foster care or similar experiences, and each found their own distinct path to accessing support and resources through the program.
“It does make a huge difference,” said Leonard, who joined the others in speaking to Newsroom about their experiences. “Only 3% to 5% of college students nationally who have been in the system graduate with a four-year degree. That extra support is really necessary.”
These students’ stories are reminders of how institutional support, peer mentorship and personal tenacity can intersect to create real impact — not just for individuals, but for the broader UCLA community.
Anna James: The email she almost ignored — and the support it unlocked
James, a fourth-year applied linguistics major, was raised by her grandmother in rural Mississippi after her father died. Before that, she briefly entered foster care — an experience that, while short-lived, left a lasting impact. When she applied to UCLA, she didn’t realize she’d be eligible for the Bruin Guardian Scholars program. “I kept ignoring the emails,” she admitted. “Then, finally, I opened one and thought, ‘Wait — this is for me?’”
James joined BGS as a first-year student at UCLA and quickly found a place of understanding. She was navigating college without the kind of family guidance she says many of her peers took for granted. The BGS program helped her feel less alone and gave her practical tools to succeed. “I didn’t have anyone in my family who’d been through college. Everything felt foreign. BGS really helped me.”
Now a student intern in the BGS program, James connects students with resources and helps plan major events like the program’s annual Thanksgiving dinner and end-of-year celebrations. She also provides one-on-one support to new students, drawing from her own experience navigating UCLA.
James points to the more personal ways the BGS program has supported her, including an emergency scholarship that allowed her to fly home during a family crisis and matching her with a therapist she still sees weekly. The program also connected her with Ready to Succeed L.A., a career-readiness initiative for foster youth in the region.
“Lots of students here have networks they inherit,” she said. “BGS helps build one for the rest of us.”
James, who just took the LSAT, hopes to find a way to bridge law and education after getting her J.D. down the line. She credited BGS for making her undergraduate time at UCLA a little easier.
“I just know my college journey would’ve been so much harder if I wasn’t in the BGS program. Honestly, I owe it all to them.”
Soraya Leonard: School was her ‘ticket out of the system’
For Leonard, a fourth-year sociology student, education has been the one constant through years of instability. Born in Germany and placed in foster care there, Leonard later moved to the U.S. to live with her father, only to reenter the system as a teenager in Colorado. Her path to UCLA began at Long Beach City College, where she found both her academic footing and a new family in her best friend’s household.
Leonard says she chose UCLA in part because of the Bruin Guardian Scholars program. “Not all the UCs have a centralized foster youth program. That’s one thing I really wanted when I was considering different schools to transfer to.”
Now an extern at the UCLA Career Center, meaning BGS coordinates the internship but at an outside center, Leonard is helping others across campus find their purpose and chart career goals. She supports workshops, mentors students and connects peers to internships and basic needs support. Working at the Bruin Resource Center, which also houses the BGS program’s center where James and Monk work, was important to her, especially after BGS helped her with everything from acquiring free dorm supplies to apartment hunting.
Leonard says she’s enjoyed BGS events that help the community feel seen and celebrated, like a Christmas holiday “jam party” in which students wear their pajamas and receive gifts, Thanksgiving potlucks and various dinners throughout the year.
“Being part of BGS means someone always has your back,” she said. “I’ve learned how to advocate for myself, how to ask questions and how to show up for others.”
As she prepares for graduation, Leonard is exploring careers in the entertainment industry, and hopes to stay involved with community event coordination and social advocacy work for system-impacted and culturally estranged youth.
Her advice to future students with similar circumstances is to reach out. “Be inquisitive. Ask for what you need,” she said. “Try to be as involved as possible.”
Justin Monk: It’s a ‘circle-of-life thing’
Monk, a fourth-year political science major, has wanted to be an attorney since grade school. It wasn’t just what he refers to as his “combative” nature that propelled him toward the law, but also an innate calling. The Central Valley-native’s dream became even more clear when he decided at 16 to become a public defender and child advocate.
It came full circle for Monk when he discovered — through a conversation with extended family — that he had been placed in foster care as a baby after being declared a “failure-to-thrive” infant, a classification for children the state believes are showing inadequate growth patterns most likely resulting from factors in their home environments. That discovery set him on a path to find support, direction and community at UCLA, which he found through the Bruin Guardian Scholars program.
“There had to be something on campus for people like me,” he recalled. “I searched UCLA foster youth and found BGS. I applied and never looked back.”
As a student intern with the program, Monk helps others navigate college life and academics. He answers questions about class registration, financial aid and cap and gown pick up. He also organizes events, from formal holiday gatherings for the BGS community to impromptu picnics near Janss Steps on blankets piled high with pastries.
“The BGS community gives you what a lot of us missed growing up — a sense of belonging and people who just get it,” he said.
After receiving his UCLA diploma, Monk will take a gap year to give his undivided attention to his J.D. program application materials and choosing the right school. The BGS program paid for his LSAT prep and testing — a huge barrier for any student, but even more so for a first-generation law student who’s system-impacted.
“This is a community of people who inherently have a weaker support system, so to be that for each other and to uphold that community is really cool,” said Monk.
If you or someone you know may be interested in learning more about the Bruin Guardian Scholars program or getting involved, email bgs@saonet.ucla.edu or visit the program’s website. The program welcomes new participants year-round, providing financial assistance, mentoring and social and other support for students who are or were in foster care.
