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.

Related posts:

1. Great Training Series: Integration and Professional Development of Consumers
2. Training to a Group of San Francisco State MSW Students
3. HEY’s Developing Empowered Youth Toolkit – Coming Soon!

Related posts:

1. HEY’s EYAB had an excellent training for Jewish Vocational Services
2. A Message from EYAB – San Francisco State’s Press Conference
3. HEY’s Holiday Party

Related posts:

1. HEY’s Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board (EYAB): Youth Development Building Blocks
2. HEY’s Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board (EYAB): Youth Development Building Blocks
3. HEY’s Holiday Party

             The wonderful thing is that these skills have not only helped me at HEY, but also in my personal life.  A great example was the press conference in San Francisco State where I was the MC. My friend is running for student at large in our student government and wanted me to MC and introduces him to the press. At first I was confused why out all of his friends he picked me. After asking him he said because he knew how a great speaker I was. He mentioned that he had seen me be a speaker for HEY and that people had told him how good I have done in the breakfast and in the ILSP graduation. Because of HEY I have been able to not only grow as a person, but also I am seen as a great speaker, which makes me more confident.

 Although I was nervous because I was not expecting my friend to pick me to be his MC, I accepted because I felt that I could do it. I used all the trainings and skills I had learned from HEY to be able to make this another successful story. When I was introducing my friend I got a bit nervous and blackout, but I remembered that one of my team members at HEY told me that people do not mind your nervous, actually is a good thing because then you remind them that you are a human being. I pulled myself back together and told the audience that I was nervous and everyone laughed with me and continued paying attention to me and helped me give a big round applause to my friend. The fact that I have done speeches before and I was successful gave me the security that I could do this event and that it was okay to be nervous once in a while.  Without HEY I probably would have gotten stuck in the speech and would have given up because I was not sure how to react. I am still working in getting better at public speaking, but I know that as long I have friends like HEY by my side I will get better.

Related posts:

1. Training to a Group of San Francisco State MSW Students
2. SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL ALLIANCE – San Francisco Beacon Initiative: Hiring Associate Director
3. San Francisco’s System Improvement Plan 2010 for Child Welfare Services

Some of the issues that I learned about that effect youth in a negative way are:

• Not many youth representing in the local and national boards that decide how the mental health system decides resources and solutions for youth.
• The belief that once a youth is diagnosed with a mental health disorder that everything else in their lives is related to that disorder instead of it just being the natural cycle of life.
• There is not enough education in the community on how youths lives are when they have a mental health condition.
• That many do not believe in Art being a healer of traumas and the stress that they cause.

What Youth in Mind did was create workshops that addressed many of these issues so that we found ways to make a difference and overcome these obstacles.

Some workshops that I went to were:

• How to become a better board member- where I learned about other boards that youth were active in. I also learned of how to deal with boards that do not believe that they should listen to youth and how to get more youth to be involved in these boards. I was able to share what H.E.Y does and how our board works. Which many people liked.
• How to use Art as a healer- where I learned how I could express myself through art and feel understood. It is hard to express yourself in words at times because sometimes you do not know what is wrong you’re just sad. I loved it.
• How to write a memoir- Where I learned how I can write my story and heal through writing. A speaker talked to us about her life and how she used writing to overcome her traumas and heal. She also published two books one was where she talked about how you can write a memoir and the other about how she broke the cycle of abandonment in her family. She gave us and signed both of her books.

I loved being part of this conference because I learned more information about the mental health system that I wills use in my projects, made great connections with other youth that are also striving to make a difference for youth in the mental health system and very important how to take care of myself so that I can continue my work in the community. I will share what I learned with others and definitely recommend the Youth in Mind conference to others.

Related posts:

1. Training to a Group of San Francisco State MSW Students
2. Youth In Mind Leadership Academy 2010
3. California Coalition for Youth hosts Taking Action Conference 2010

One of EYAB’s key components is to work as a team of young advocacy leaders that educate the community about the needs of emancipated youth. EYAB will work to continue the emancipation training and develop new components that speak to the experiences of this team. The trainings are conducted from August through February.

EYAB Members will also work with the Program Coordinator to develop individual projects throughout the year that focus on the specialized need areas of emancipated youth including; Education, Employment, Parenting, Homelessness, Health, Incarceration/Dual Systems and others.  Members will develop individual goals that include conducting agency reviews, developing community partnerships and presenting findings at trainings and conferences.

Claudia M. – Mental Health
Focus: Non-Traditional Mental Health Programs.
Issue(s): Reaching out to emancipated youth to address mental health needs in a non-clinical format.

Aryeetey W. – Employment
Focus: Barriers around Employability and Job Readiness.
Issue(s): Emancipated youth not prepared to enter job market, addressing barriers to finding, getting and keeping a job.

Shavonte’ K. – Housing
Focus: Housing solutions and supports for youth that are college bound vs. youth non-college bound.
Issue(s): Housing priorities not highlighted as often for non college-bound youth.

Related posts:

1. Projects for EYAB 2009-2010
2. EYAB Projects 2008/2009
3. 2009–2010 EYAB Members

This August, I got the amazing opportunity to join HEY’s Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board (EYAB) river rafting for their retreat.  I was absolutely overjoyed to be outside in the summer sun, in a beautiful scene of green trees and huge rocks, and of course to engage my entire body in paddling the raft downstream.  I have to say, advocacy can be so serious!  Many of the interactions I had with the

EYAB members were centered on how we can all improve the emancipation process and the foster care system.  But spending the entire day with these wonderful young people was a window into what really drives their success.

With the exception of me, none of us had ever been white water rafting before; mother nature’s roller coaster ride was largely uncharted territory.  We all stood the chance of falling out of the boat into the ice cold water.  A natural response might be to experience a little anxiety, especially when you consider that not all of us knew how to swim, we wore ridiculously dorky lifejackets, we had a visually impaired passenger join us in the raft, and we had to make due with not dressing appropriately for a potential dunk in the river.  But having spent their last retreat indoors, EYAB was determined to have fun.

Not one person complained or held back one bit of enthusiasm.  Seeing EYAB display such an exemplary positive, fun-loving, inclusive demeanor was remarkable, but not surprising given what they have already accomplished.  In the picture you can see all of us laughing as our raft leader screams threats at the rapid named “Satan’s Cesspool”.  Together we conquered the river triumphantly!

Related posts:

1. HEY’s EYAB Ice-Skating Adventure
2. HEY’s Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board (EYAB): Youth Development Building Blocks
3. Coming Soon – EYAB: Where Are They Now?

[From Aryeetey Welbeck, HEY EYAB Member]

In my current research, I have found that transportation is not a strong deterring factor for foster youth as they look for employment. Like I had originally expected, the need to get to work was at the forefront and transportation cost is universal. However, depending on the mode of transportation – i.e. bus, train, or car that is utilized – foster youth see transportation as another expense and not a main concern or even in determining what job they want.

The mindset of foster youth to not let the fluctuation of transportation cost, routes, and gas prices interests me. With no real sense of why and how, I’m left to wonder is it just in San Francisco, which has a notorious issue with fare evaders (it’s pretty easy to just hop on the back of a Muni bus) that paying for the relatively low price is not that much of a stretch. It could as well be a determination that even without a job or even something to do, at least they’re not going to be stuck anywhere. In closing, while I expected foster youth to report transportation to be the largest barrier to employment, this does not mean that they did not express budgetary concerns with paying for all and any costs associated with finding, getting and keeping a job. Therefore, this trend is not intended to indirectly result in a any halt in transportation funding to and for direct and intermediary organizations.    Foster Youth still need all the assistance they can get – especially in this economy.

Related posts:

1. EYAB Research Updates and Trends
2. The California Green Job Corps
3. A Message from EYAB – San Francisco State’s Press Conference

Though the 2006-2007 employment model gave the youth valuable job skills, HEY wanted to elevate the importance of the youth’s role in making decisions. In 2008-09 the EYAB members were shaped into expert advocates through many trainings, seminars and briefings.  The youth, who are the experts in the experience of foster care and emancipation, used their advocacy education through EYAB to develop a training program for organizations that serve all youth, but may not know the specifics of serving foster youth. Like HEY, the EYAB serves to strengthen systems through promoting awareness and improving cross-sector communication.

Related posts:

1. EYAB Projects 2009-2010
2. Projects for EYAB 2009-2010
3. 2008–2009 EYAB Members

My Reaction to the Article: “Teens have tough time finding work in economy where adults flip burgers” at dailybreez.com (Read the article)
By Aryeteey Welbeck

I found this article while doing research for my individual project about employment. With the current economic climate and jobless rate I found it interesting that the wide range of people affected does not just include those who were employed, then lost their job, but it also affects those who have little to no job experience. Young people for a long time have been able to obtain jobs that some deem minimal and low paying, but now are being obtained by degree holding, experienced workers who may be a lot older. And employers salivate at the opportunity to hire the older more experienced workers, sometimes on the basis that the older worker might have a family to support.

Nationwide, teen unemployment hit 23.6% in May, compared to an overall jobless level of 9.4%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the state’s jobless level hit 11.5% in May, teen unemployment levels spiked to 27.8% last month, according to statistics provided by the California Employment Development Department’s Labor Market Information Division. A feeling of bias arises when considering this practice of screening potential employees, based on the assumption that older job seekers have families to support and younger ones do not. This article tell the story of a young woman by the name of Jureka Hicks, “the oldest of three children to a single mother, Hicks needs cash to support her family and pay college tuition.” Hicks’ story shows that older, more experienced workers aren’t the only ones who have people counting on them to find, get, and keep employment. In closing, like Ms. Hicks, thousands of teens across California and the country are continuing to embark on a sometime grueling, often demanding job search armed with more motivation than just a new pair of Nike Air Jordan’s. This is especially important because even though emancipated foster youth may be biased against because they are young, and employers may think they don’t need jobs as much as older people, they are legally independent and need to support themselves. Many emancipated foster youth may have children, but even if they don’t, they must earn an income to support themselves, unlike many other youth who may receive financial support from their parents.

The Emancipation Process: Are Youth Being Emancipated Properly?
By Shavonté Keaton- HEY Emancipated Youth Advocacy Board Member

With my EYAB work exploring housing options for college bound youth, I have come across information that has really been clarifying the emancipation process , as well as what youth are required to receive upon their emancipation from the foster care system. The most pertinent resource that helped me come to conclusions about emancipation was a briefing on HEY’s Emancipation Research Project (ERP) that I attended in July. The conclusion I came to was that many youth, including myself, may not have be given all the information and services available during the emancipation process. Nicole and Dana, the HEY staff who are working on the ERP, presented some of their findings from the two year research project surrounding the emancipation process. There were 5 key groups that they identified as involved in the emancipation process. They interviewed people from the 5 groups: lawyers, social workers, ILP workers, CASA’s (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and the youth themselves.

Now, while I was a youth who experienced the system for 5 years and emancipated in 2004, I realized that all of these groups were not at all involved in my emancipation process, or even really involved in my interaction with the system in general. I actually only had one of these particular group that was involved in my emancipation process and that was my ILP worker. This really begin to make me think that somehow I wasn’t emancipated properly and I begin to wonder how many other youth were not taken through all the proper channels in the emancipation process. In the ERP briefing, I was also introduced to the idea of an emancipation hearing. This is a hearing that youth receive upon exiting the system and that the youth is required to be notified and invited to be present during this hearing. Once again this is a service that I myself, a youth who emancipated out of the foster care system, did not receive. The knowledge that I received from the ERP briefing really inspired me to explore this emancipation process more in depth. Asking questions like: does it vary county to county, what services are uniform across the state, and are there different processes for different types of placements (I.E guardianship vs. traditional foster homes)?

I believe that all youth deserve to get all the resources that are not only entitled to them but required by law. It is my belief that there is severe need to improve the transparency of the emancipation process, especially to the youth who is experiencing it. I will continue to explore the emancipation process and its affect on housing resources presented to former foster youth. I also plan to research more in depth their ability to successfully transition to adulthood and hope that my research and ERP’s research around this topic will raise awareness of this need for improvement around the emancipation process.

Related posts:

1. HEY Emancipation Research Project (ERP)
2. Emancipation Research Project now Available at HEYsf.org
3. What are HEY “Trends to Watch”?