By Claudia Mendez on June 3, 2010
by Claudia Mendez, EYAB Member
HEY’s Foster Youth Leadership Award Ceremony 2010 just passed on May 21 and it was a success. Being a recipient of the 2008 Foster Youth Leadership Award and being part of the EYAB team who helped organize the event makes me proud and thrilled to see how the event has grown and become a success. 30 hard working youth were awarded at the ceremony. Thank you to the nominators who allowed us to meet such inspiring leaders. During the ceremony each nominator introduced their honoree and told everyone why they nominated them to receive the Foster Youth Leadership Award 2010. HEY’s goal is to honor the young leaders and at the same time show the honorees that there are others working as hard as they are and that they are not in the battle alone.
[For the list of this year's award Honorees, click on the title of the article]
Posted in Foster Care Updates, Trends To Watch, Upcoming HEY Events
By Claudia Mendez on April 20, 2010
On March 22nd the EYAB team facilitated our Mental Health Alternatives for Foster Youth to a group of MSW students in San Francisco State University. It was the first time we had done this training and we are happy to say it went really well. The audience participated and was very interested in the material we were sharing with them. Personally, I am really happy because I was able to share my curriculum with students who are soon going to become social workers and will be working directly with foster youth.
Posted in Trends To Watch
By Claudia Mendez on April 20, 2010
The fight to protect public education is still alive after March 4th. Many students, teachers and supporters came together on March 22, 2010 to protest in Sacramento and tell our representatives that we are unhappy with the budget cuts that have been and are still being made to our education.
Some of the struggles and issues faced by students because of these cuts are:
- Students cannot get the classes they need to finish their General Requirements, let alone meet the requirements for their selected majors.
- The budget cuts do not only affect the amount of dollars received by students on financial aid, but it also jeopardizes whether they can receive aid at all. A lot of financial aid is tied to how many units a student can enroll in, if classes are not offered students cannot get the units they need to receive credits and ultimately financial aid. In order for a student to receive financial aid they need to be enrolled 12 units, which is a full time student, but how can student fulfill this requirement if there are not enough classes for them to do so?
- The classes which are being offered are often at capacity. It is sad to see classmates sit on the floor or stand during class time because there are not enough seats, since the classes have more students enrolled than they can handle.
- We have mandatory furlough days because the schools can no longer pay teachers as many days as they used to. As a result teachers are forced to take essential materials out of their curriculum.
- The school is offering fewer Majors because it cannot afford them anymore.
- Students are working many jobs just to be able to pay the raise in tuition, books that have raised their prices, then everything else: housing, transportation, and so on.
- Even though services have been reduced, the average SFSU student is now paying $2,370 per semester. This is an increase of more than $400 dollars per semester. WE ARE PAYING MORE AND RECEIVING LESS!
I am disgusted and feel sad at the fact that my friends and I have to go through these struggles when all we want is an education and when we are paying so much money. This is why I got up at 5am to go to be able to leave with buses that San Francisco State University provided at 6:00am. I loved the fact that although we did not know everyone and that I had never heard about some of the schools that were there that we came together as one to tell our governor that we are not happy with the cuts made to our education and that we are not going to stop fighting until he stops making cuts. I hope to see more events like this, so that that we can create more awareness of what is happening with our public education and that our governor sees that he cannot deprive us from the great education we deserve. I know that as long we continue being persistent more students will come together and join the cause because they will see the importance of standing up for their rights and the rights of the younger generations. STUDENTS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!!!
Posted in Local Foster Care Policy Updates, Trends To Watch
By Claudia Mendez on April 20, 2010
Foster youth are in risk of having their identity stolen by friends, family members or well anyone. The exact number of foster youth who have had their identity stolen is not known, but “some think that as many as half of the 84,000 kids in California’s system may have been victimized.” (Pathways1, 2010)
Here are some tips from California Office of Privacy Protection to help foster youth protect themselves from identity theft:
Posted in Trends To Watch
By Claudia Mendez on March 9, 2010
My name is Claudia Mendez and I am one of HEY’s EYAB the reason for my message today is to share in my point of view how March 4th Day of Action and Strike in Defense of Public Education – California turned out. As you may have seen on the news students, parents, faculty and supporters of public education came together on March 4th to speak up against the cuts that have been done to public education in California.
Posted in Trends To Watch, Upcoming Events
By Claudia Mendez on March 9, 2010
[From Claudia Mendez, HEY's EYAB]In our efforts to update the community about the continuous work or our EYAB team after their service here at HEY we are launching our “Where Are They Now” Alumni Page. Our EYAB 2009/2010 has taken it upon themselves to connect with all of our EYAB Alumni and Staff and they [...]
Posted in Trends To Watch
By Claudia Mendez on March 2, 2010
My name is Claudia Mendez and I sit on HEY’s Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board. I am currently a student at San Francisco State University and I am writing this message to urge you to come and support students make a stand in defense of public education.
I have decided to take action because I am disgusted and disappointed witnessing the struggles that many of my fellow students have to go through because of the state cuts in higher education. Some of the struggles and issues faced by students are:
• Many of my friends cannot get the classes they need to finish their General Requirements, let alone meet the requirements for their selected majors.
Posted in Upcoming Events | Tagged advocacy, city college, Education, san francisco, san francisco state university, university
By Claudia Mendez on February 9, 2010
On January 13, 2010 the HEY team facilitated a training for Jewish Vocational Services, called Best Practices for Employers Working with Foster Youth. The goal for this training was to help the participants to see that despite facing complex barriers, foster youth are able to achieve and succeed in the workplace when matched with supervisors who set realistic expectations and provide supports that allow for a learning curve.
In order to accomplish our goal some of the different topics we talked about were: the general overview of the foster care system in SF County, common challenges faced by foster youth and strategies for successfully working with foster youth in the workplace.
Personally I was touched by seeing how many different service providers wanted to learn about foster youth and the challenges they face so, that they can try to give them more support. I was extremely happy to be able to assist Leslie Brown, HEY’s Program Coordinator, with this training because I did not only be able to share my experience as a former foster youth with the participants, but also was able to grow in a professional level. Noticing how Leslie created and facilitated her training gave me ideas of how I can become a better facilitator myself.
The outcome turned out pretty good. The participants were happy with what they learned and were interested in attending more HEY training soon.
Posted in EYAB Projects, Trends To Watch
By Claudia Mendez on February 9, 2010
What I love about being part of HEY’s family is that we do not only work together, but also support one another. The holidays are times when I become really lonely because many of my loved ones leave to go visit their family, but this year I felt that did have a group of friends to look to when times got hard. The EYAB team and friends decided to go ice-skating and have fun. Personally I had never been ice-skating or anything similar to it, so I kept on falling. Being able to accomplish a long time goal with great friends was one of the best experiences of my life. Thanks to experiences like these this winter break I did not feel alone, instead I realized that I am surrounded by wonderful people. I know that after my internship is over with Honoring Emancipated Youth that I still will be able to count on the great friends I have made at HEY.
Posted in EYAB Projects, Trends To Watch | Tagged eyab, fun, HEY
By Claudia Mendez on December 16, 2009
Holidays are days when families and friends come together to be thankful for one another and celebrate the happiness they have of having their loved ones around them, but for many current and former foster youth these are days that bring up traumatic emotions. HEY’s Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board (EYAB), decided to come up with a short list of ways that someone can help a youth during the holidays so that they too can enjoy them.
To download Flyer, Click here
Posted in EYAB Projects
