from Dana Mandolesi, HEY Project Manager
In our last newsletter, HEY’s EYAB member Shavonte Keaton wrote an HEY Trend to Watch about her reaction to California’s budget cuts, and to the article, ‘Aged Out Foster Youth at Terrible Risk in the SF Gate on September 2. 
HEY attended a rally in Sacramento on September 11, 2009.
Whilethe rally was unsuccessful in that it resulted in $80 million worth of cuts to the state’s child welfare system, HEY and our partners continue to build champions and advocates in the community and in the media. At the rally, HEY’s Research Assistant Intern, Nicole Hudley, who also was representing California Youth Connection, spoke passionately about how continued funding and support for child welfare workers benefits transitioning youth. Also, see her letter to the editor of the SF Gate article here, or read it below.
Foster care cuts
“In the editorial “Young people at risk” (Sept. 2), editors discuss the real cost of the $124 million in cuts to the cash-strapped foster care system.
When I was a foster youth, I was lucky enough to have a social worker who took the time to make sure I had caring adults in my life. When my journalism teacher and mentor offered to be my guardian, my social worker led the exhausting bureaucratic process that allowed me to live in an eight-member housing cooperative according to state licensing regulations. Because of her, I thrived in that co-op, and years later, I went on to get a master’s degree in public policy.
Today, less than half of emancipated foster youths will graduate high school, and 1 in 4 will become incarcerated within two years. The governor’s cuts to child welfare services, which will result in laying off social workers, just doesn’t add up. Each year that a social worker can save a foster child from jail or welfare, we save the state at least $49.6 million. Let’s all remind Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of two very important words: opportunity cost.”
NICOLE HUDLEY
California Youth Connection
Oakland
Related posts:
