Related posts:

1. HHS Releases Study of National Child Abuse Registry
2. New Resource: Online Clearinghouse for State Child Welfare Policies
3. San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center (SFCAPC) Hiring Director of Human Resources, Finance & Administration

The Foster Youth Alliance, along with Pivotal Point Youth Services, invites you to a very special training led by Larry Robbin, a nationally recognized expert in youth employment: Helping Foster Youth Build Job Search Skills.

When: Thursday, September 2nd, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Where: CSUEB Oakland Professional Development and Conference Center
1000 Broadway, Suite 109

This training will be for management and staff of employment programs serving foster youth as well as other programs serving foster youth. Mr. Robbin will lead participants in developing tools to help foster youth improve their job search skills. No matter what type of program you work in, if you work with foster youth and want to help them get jobs, don’t miss this training! Free to FYA member agencies; $25 fee for participants from non-FYA agencies.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, and space is limited so rsvp today by clicking here. Registration at the door on a space available basis only. For more information, email mclemmons@fosteryouthalliance.org or call 510-667-7640.

Related posts:

1. Employment for Former Foster Youth in Alameda County!!!
2. New Foster Youth Employment Statistics from HEY!
3. Youth Employment Coalition (YEC) Calendar of Events and Meetings is now Available

Do you love photography? Are you in foster care or have you been in the past? Are you 15 years old or older? Then this program is for you!

When: Every Tuesday, 4:00 – 8:00PM (Beginning October 5th)
Where: A Home Within, 2500 18th St. San Francisco

Fostering Art will provide all equipment, assistance with transportation & dinner during class. All new students are required to have an interview before they are accepted into the program. Interview begin September 1st.

To apply: contact Amanda Herman at 415.652.1434 or email aherman@ahomewithin.org

Related posts:

1. Free SAT Prep Classes for Girls
2. Free Classes from the Foundation Center
3. Health Fair for Current and Former Foster Youth – March 17, 2010

Yesterday afternoon, AB 12 passed in the California State Senate on a vote of 26 to 8, with 5 abstentions. Then last night, AB 12 went back to the Assembly, which approved the final version of AB 12 on a vote of 73 to 2!

Thank you to everyone who called your member of the Assembly and Senate to urge their support of AB 12, together with those who conducted visits and wrote letters. Without these efforts, there would be little chance to improve the lives of California’s youth making the harrowing transition from foster care.

Just yesterday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that youth unemployment hit 51.1%, the highest rate since the government started collecting this data in 1948. The need is so clear and AB 12 can address it with newly available federal funding.

From here, AB 12 enters its final stage: on to Governor Schwarzenegger, who has until the end of September to either sign or veto the bill. This effort will require hard work on the part of every person who cares about children and youth in foster care.

There are a number of ways you can get involved. I will be sending an email out on Friday that outlines these options. In the mean time, please educate your community about the importance of getting involved, including members of your board of directors, your donors, and the young people your organization serves. We have a historic opportunity before us- let’s work together to realize it.

Related posts:

1. AB 12 Passes Senate Appropriations Committee!
2. AB 12 Passes in the Assembly 72 to 0
3. Senate Budget Subcommittee Rejects Governor’s Proposal to Eliminate THP-Plus

download Guide here (PDF)
download Guide Index (PDF)

To learn more about about TAY SF, please visit DCYF’s website (www.taysf.org) or email Rachel Antrobus.

Related posts:

1. NEW! HEY Guide: Youth Empowerment Available for FREE Download
2. Beyond Emancipation: Updated Edition of Resource Guide for Youth in Transition Available
3. Bayview Connect 2010 is a Success!!

Be a part of making meaningful changes for San Francisco’s Transitioning Aged Youth Population!

Transitional Age Youth Initiative is NOW HIRING Young Adults to be apart of our monthly Young Adult Advisory. The Young Adult Advisory is a a group of 18-25 year old youth workers who are working in the community as service providers AND/OR Advocates! This is a space for gathering information, providing trainings and resources and impacting policy and budgetary recommendations.

This group meets monthly and stipends $50/meeting. Based on your availability, there are opportunities for more involvement in specific policy and youth outreach projects within TAY-SF.

In order to apply, you must:

• BE ABLE TO COMMIT to a 2 hour meeting once a month.
• BE A YOUTH WORKER: Work closely with systems such as Foster Care, Juvenile Justice, Young Parents, Young Adults with Disabilities, Alternative Education and Immigrant Young Adults.
• A current of former (recent) San Francisco resident.
• Have experience in your community and committed to building a better city for San Francisco’s most vulnerable transitioning aged youth population.

Applications are due on August 20th! Please see the attached application and flyer for more details. Goodluck!

For further questions, please contact Allison Cohen: Allison@taysf.org.

Related posts:

1. Update: Application Deadline for TAY-SF Young Adult Advisory Now August 20th!
2. TAY-SF Housing Recommendation Update
3. Young Adult Attitudes about Relationships and Marriage: Times May Have Changed, But Expectations Remain High

Last Monday I read the front page headline of the San Francisco Examiner someone had dropped at my desk, and this government statistic stared me in the face: San Francisco places children into foster care at rate of 80 percent above state average. The article’s author was citing the percentage of the entire minor population in San Francisco that enter, or are already in, foster care for a one year period, a statistic that is tracked by the Child Welfare Dynamic Report System run by California Department of Social Services and U.C. at Berkeley.

An official statement is provided  from the deputy of San Francisco Human Services Agency (HSA), who points out that, though staggeringly high, these numbers of entry are of historical consequence and have been declining over the last ten years in San Francisco.  City Supervisor Sophie Maxwell then loosely criticizes HSA at the very last sentence of the article, ostensibly to highlight the article’s underlying answer as to why San Francisco has so many children in foster care: “they [HSA] always go, ‘We’re trying this and that’…But, then you see the numbers and they’re still shocking.”

Following Maxwell’s subtle finger-pointing, implying that the city has tried and failed to keep kids out of foster care in the first place, the article quickly mentions that during the so-called crack epidemic of the late 80’s, which brought many thousands of local children, a large number of them black, into foster custody, the city policy was to automatically place a child in a foster home if the city could trace any amount of drugs in the child’s system. The comments posted to the online article follow the same assumption that the city of San Francisco has hastened children into care at unusually high rate, calling the headline statistic “shocking” and “embarrassing.”

But before we jump from the author’s unearthed statistics to the conclusion that the foster care system is screwing up, and like all statistical assumptions, we should be cautious.

First, the foster care entry and in-care statistics alone, though accurate, do not reveal anything about the physical and mental well-being of San Francisco foster children. The numbers say nothing as to whether a child, though best tended to by a person of biological or kin relation in ideal circumstances, would otherwise be better off served outside the system.

Secondly,  the number of San Francisco foster children who reach permanency, the number one priority of Human Services Agency for the life of each individual foster child, is not even mentioned or compared in the article; though this obviously is a prime indicator of a functioning HSA policy.

Why are so many children taken from the home in the first place? Is it also possible that a high number of children in foster care means that HSA is investigating, substantiating, and preventing abuse and neglect above the state average? This makes just as much sense as the flip-side of the article’s theme.

The idiosyncrasies of the San Franciscan foster care system–its over-representation of black children in the system, the majority of child placements out-of-county, and a high rate of entry above state average–are surprising to many in our community. Are abuse and neglect numerically and racially disproportionate around the Bay? None of us want to entertain this proposition, which is not provable and inevitably judgmental and discriminatory.

And when you hear a mother who lost custody of her child lament on the article’s comment section that “I am out numbered, out matched and can no longer fight this battle alone,” one has to ask: does the arrogance of government streamline children away from families into public custody unjustly? Are we helping or hurting San Francisco families?

Statistics don’t answer the questions that would take years of research to figure out. The article only leaves it up to the reader’s imagination.

Related posts:

1. San Francisco Foster Rates Higher Than State Average
2. Bay Budget Blues
3. Cash flow woes: The numbers behind the state budget crisis

When One Size Doesn’t Fit All:
Practice and Policy Implications for Subgroups of Transitioning Foster Youth

When: August 25, 2010, 2 pm ET / 1 pm CT / 12 pm MT / 11 am PT

Register Online

Identifying distinct subgroups of a vulnerable population, such as foster youth making the transition to adulthood, can help inform efforts to design and target policies, programs, and best practices. Practitioners working with vulnerable populations know that a one-size-fits-all approach seldom meets the needs of a population that exhibits great diversity.

Information on the characteristics and needs of former foster youth making the transition to adulthood is sorely needed to assist states as they decide whether and how to implement the Fostering Connections Act’s older-youth provisions. Recent research conducted by Chapin Hall, stemming from the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, identifies distinct subgroups of young adults making the transition to adulthood based on their experiences across several key transition domains.

Join us in a discussion on the policy implications of this research and how states, communities and service providers can best serve groups whose dissimilar needs clearly call for distinct sets of services and a nuanced approach to policy and practice.

Panelists:

• Mark E. Courtney, Principal Investigator of the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth and Faculty Partner of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
• Patrice Perrault, Youth Services Bureau Chief, New Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Families
• Dianna Walters, Graduate Student, University of Southern Maine-Muskie School
• Moderator: Patrick Boyle, editor, Youth Today

The web conference is free and space is limited. If multiple people in your office want to participate, please have only one person register and view the web conference as a group.

To join the web conference, you need a computer with an Internet connection. You can listen to the conference by telephone or over the Internet. Telephone dial in instructions will be provided shortly before the event. Review the web conference technical requirements.

We will post a recording of the web conference and all of the materials on our websites for those who cannot join the live event.

Register Today

Related posts:

1. Web Seminar: Improving Crisis Response: Using the California Youth Crisis Line to Enhance Services (Aug 18th)
2. Web Seminar: 2009-10 THP-Plus Annual Report (Sept 8th)
3. Transitioning Out of Foster Care into Adulthood: Outcomes at Ages 23 and 24

LA VERNE – Victor Alveno has had his share of challenges to overcome in his 19 years.He spent much of his childhood in foster care in La Puente and Pomona. His story sounds all-too-familiar until his junior year at Garey High School in Pomona.

“I went to school but caused trouble. I was rebellious and really didn’t care, and then I realized I could do better. I started making plans,” Alveno said.

He made a lot of plans:

High school graduation – check.

Settle down and channel his energies in a positive direction – check.

Reconnect with a high school girlfriend – check.

And his plans continued, but it wasn’t until he went to live at LeRoy Haynes Center in La Verne that they were able to take root.

The center treats and teaches young people with special needs related to emotional development, autism, Asperger’s disease, learning disabilities, neglect or abandonment.

Boys are allowed to stay in the residential program until they are 18 years old. They then they become part of the transitional living facility on the La Verne campus. The program is open to young men, ages 18 to 24, who have been emancipated from foster care. It offers a wide range of services to prepare them to be self-sufficient.

More than 10 months ago, Alveno moved into this home, and his dreams started taking off. He has spent the last year taking as many classes as he could at Citrus College in Glendora.

With the support of Haynes Center’s transitional living program and its director, Jason Green, he found some stability. With the loving encouragement of his longtime girlfriend, Adriana Avila, herself a foster- care student attending Citrus College with an eye toward becoming a surgeon, he found a kindred spirit.

And with a 3.8 grade-point average during the past school year, he has found success. His goal is to graduate in the spring, register at a police academy and then go back to school – probably Cal State Los Angeles – to complete his studies. He would like to be a police officer or federal agent.

“He has been with me for 10 months and has been on fire with his goals since the day he came. He has attended college beyond full-time. I have witnessed his incredible study habits, skipping social events and pulling all-nighters while working with his girlfriend at achieving their goals together,” Green said.

He said all the credit should go to Alveno.

“He came to me with all of his dreams, plans and goals. All he needed was a home. All this is him. He’s made my job a joy just watching him succeed,” Green said.

Alveno said his motivation comes from his past.

“I didn’t have parents to help out. Jason has been like a father figure to me. He listens. He’s always talking to me. I want a better future, and I can get that by taking advantage of the opportunity I have been given. I hope other foster kids can see if I can make, so can they, and I want people to know that foster kids need their help. Transitional living programs like this one are important,” he said.

Avila agreed.

“Getting an education is important. We study together. We both want better and a good future for us. I really understand where all his motivation comes from,” she said.

Together, Alveno and Avila, who is 18 years old and lives in a Pomona foster home, are seizing the opportunities life is offering.

“I admire them for their unique ability to pull their resources together and make their dreams happen,” Green said.

Dan Maydeck is the president and chief executive officer of LeRoy Haynes Center. He said he couldn’t be prouder of Alveno and his accomplishments.

“To see a young man like Victor, with all the uphill challenges he has had to face, make a commitment and wanting to serve his country, well, we are all extremely proud of him,” Maydeck said.

“This is a testament to Victor and his hard work and to the transitional living program and how it works to change lives.”

Related posts:

1. For Foster Care Teens, Graduation is No Celebration
2. Students Raised in Foster Care to Get Priority Housing at California Universities
3. Bayview Connect 2010 is a Success!!

When: Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 10-11a.m.

The recently completed fiscal year was one of the most challenging yet for THP-Plus, with the program receiving a $5 million budget cut, reducing annual funding from $40.8 million to $35.8 million.

Please join The John Burton Foundation for an informational web seminar on  to learn about the impact of this reduction on counties, THP-Plus providers and youth participants. This information will be drawn from the recently completed 2009-10 THP-Plus Annual Report.

Web seminar participants will include representatives of the California Department of Social Services, who will discuss the impact of the budget reduction and provide the latest information about THP-Plus in the FY 10-11 state budget. Also presenting will be Sara Kimberlin, doctoral candidate at University of California at Berkeley and author of a soon-to-be released policy brief that provides our first-ever statewide outcome data for THP-Plus.

To register, click HERE

If you have any questions or difficulty registering, please contact Olivia at olivia@johnburtonfoundation.org or at 415-348-0099.

Related posts:

1. Senate Budget Subcommittee Rejects Governor’s Proposal to Eliminate THP-Plus
2. Web Seminar: Improving Crisis Response: Using the California Youth Crisis Line to Enhance Services (Aug 18th)
3. Informational Web Seminar