Help Foster Care Youth access needed benefits to which they are entitled – prevent homelessness, increase the stability of the household and get these children on the right track!

How you can assist the Bay Area Legal Aide Youth Justice Pro Bono Project:

Volunteers (license is not required) will receive a pre-screened case from BayLegal which identifies the factual and legal issues. The volunteer attempts to negotiate with the county to obtain the benefits for which the child is entitled. If initial negotiation is unsuccessful, the volunteer submits a Request for an administrative hearing, prepares a Position Statement (due day of hearing), and provides representation (hearing is scheduled approximately 3-4 weeks from Request). BayLegal is available to provide mentorship, samples and guidance throughout the case. Estimated time per case: 25 hours

TRAINING:
Where: San Francisco, O’Melveny & Myers, LLP, 2 Embarcadero Center, 28th Floor, SF, 94111 (brown bag lunch)
When: August 10, 2010 noon – 2:00 p.m.

RSVP and Questions: Genevieve Richardson, probono@baylegal.org

Related posts:

1. More Legal Rights for Adolescents: May 25th
2. Bay Budget Blues
3. Juvenile Justice Mental Health Consultation presents “Mindfulness & Self-Care for Service Providers with Mind Body Awareness Project (MBAP),” free training

When people find out that Gigi Edwards Bryant grew up in the Texas foster system, they tell her they’re amazed that she’s successful. That she made it.

With the State of Texas watching over her, Bryant often thinks in response, “Why shouldn’t I have made it through?”

But Bryant, a small-business owner, mother of three and civic volunteer, understands why people say that. She understands because the system failed to protect her. And she’s heartbroken over the way she believes it failed her brother. She doesn’t want it to fail anymore.

As Gov. Rick Perry’s recently appointed chairwoman of the Department of Family and Protective Services Council, Bryant hopes to use her experiences to help shape a system that she says struggles with many of the same problems as it did decades ago.

“We’re still looking at the same process that breaks children, stopping children from dreaming to be the best they can be,” Bryant said. “I never stopped dreaming.”

Texas officials think she’s the first former foster child to lead the council, which advises the state agency on issues ranging from protecting children and elderly or disabled adults to rules for day cares.

“Her personal journey will really help us to be more in tune, to be more aware, to be more understanding and to just make sure we’re always putting in the forefront what we’d want for our own children and families,” said Joyce James, deputy commissioner of the department.
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Bryant says that through the advisory council, she’ll work to address the over-representation in the foster system of African American children, who also stay in the system longer than other children. And Bryant says she wants to see a foster care system in which children make it because of the experience, not in spite of it, as she did.

“When ‘foster’ is added in front of a child’s name, certain things happen that would not happen if it was your own child,” Bryant said. “It’s not a title a child asks for.”

Bryant, 52, is a fifth-generation Austinite. She entered the foster system at age 6 with her three siblings after their mother was arrested for killing a man.

Bryant, her brother and two sisters, still in blood-spattered clothing, were taken from home. Their mother was placed in a state psychiatric hospital, where she received electric shock treatment and was never herself again, according to Bryant. She didn’t get her kids back. Bryant never knew her father.

Meanwhile, the children were separated and placed in foster homes.

For Bryant, that was the start of living in some 20 homes, mostly in the Austin and Corsicana areas, by the time she left the system at 18. Her school and church changed every time she moved. She’s been Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran and a member of the Church of Christ.

“We never completed a thing,” she said.

Worse, she said, the system failed to keep her safe. She was sexually abused by foster parents and by other children in various foster homes, she said, until she learned that wasn’t supposed to be happening. And though she figured out that she could be moved to another home if she reported the abuse, she never received counseling, she said. She said she is not aware of police ever having been contacted.

Her brother, Charles Rector, disappeared at 14 and resurfaced years later in jail, she said. As an adult, he was convicted of the 1981 kidnap, rape, shooting and drowning death of Carolyn Kay “Katy” Davis, 22, whose naked, bruised body was found in Lady Bird Lake.

Bryant reconnected with her brother and was a witness to his 1999 execution. After the lethal drugs began flowing, the American-Statesman reported at the time, Rector, 44, said softly: “I love you, sister.”

Bryant links Rector’s fate to his time in the foster system.

Bryant and those who knew her as a teenager say that she was able to endure her time in the system because she was fiercely determined to succeed. Influenced by her biological great-grandmother’s focus on prayer, her Christian faith sustained her, she said.

“I just believed there had to be something else,” she said.

Along the way, she found people who cared.

Judith Martin was a caseworker to Bryant when, as a teenager, she was pregnant and determined to keep her baby.

“Gigi was definitely a memorable kid on my caseload, oh my, yes,” Martin said. “She was clear about who she was and where she wanted to go. She wouldn’t just let people make choices for her. And shining through all that was her spirit.”

Modean Wilkins, Bryant’s last foster mother, said: “I saw her wanting more in life than the average 16-year-old.”

Wilkins remembers Bryant taking great care with her allowance and babysitting money. If she got $20, she’d keep $10 and put $10 in the bank, Wilkins said. When she graduated from high school, she had saved enough to buy a Volkswagen.

Today, Gigi Bryant is president of GMSA Management Services Inc., a business development consulting firm. She is on the board of the Austin Community College Foundation and the advisory council of the Assistance League of Austin, and is a member of the Douglas Club, a volunteer organization.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Edward’s University after a decade of taking classes while working and raising her daughter, now 35, and older son, now 30. She also has an 18-year-old son. She holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas.

After years of what she says were abusive relationships, Bryant is now married to her “best friend,” Sam Bryant, who is the father of two children of his own. Together, the Bryants have four grandchildren.

Gigi Bryant’s daughter, Shantel Wilkins (no relation to Modean Wilkins), said her mother kept her and brother Marcus Wilkins “on the straight and narrow,” encouraging academic achievement to the point that summers were spent reading and handing in book reports to their mom. “We weren’t watching TV and hanging out,” said Shantel Wilkins, whose brother Marcus played football for the University of Texas and the NFL.

Bryant had been on the Department of Family and Protective Services Council for four years when the governor tapped her in March as chairwoman. She said she made sure Perry’s aides knew about her experiences in the foster system, telling them that “if they wanted me to hide that, I’m not the right person.”

James, the department deputy commissioner, said Bryant has long volunteered to share her experiences with child welfare workers.

Bryant has “always encouraged us to listen to the young people,” James said. “Part of her experience was we did not listen to her when she outcried about what was happening to her. It was like no one heard her.”

Scott McCown, a former state district judge who is executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said the advisory council holds less sway now than it did years ago, when it was a policymaking board.

But the council, which meets quarterly, does review rule changes, such as this year’s proposed tweaks for day care centers (the council expects to make recommendations later this year on whether to lower adult-child ratios). And Audrey Deckinga, Department of Family and Protective Services assistant commissioner for Child Protective Services, said of council members: “We take their advice very seriously.”

Bryant says she’ll work to discourage the department from separating siblings in the foster system. “Why are we still talking about kids needing to be with siblings?” she asked. She said of her brother and sisters: “We could have been together and known each other.” She is not in touch with her sisters.

Bryant frequently gives speeches about foster care. She talks about the horrors she endured in the system but also of her optimism for the future and desire to make improvements. She says she doesn’t want people who hear her story to feel sorry for her—rather, she wants them to do something to improve the life of a child.

“Would I have chosen this life for myself and my siblings?” she asked during a speech at a Central Texas Council of Child Protection Boards event in May. “No, but it makes me who I am.”

Related posts:

1. May is National Foster Care Month…You Can Change a Lifetime!
2. Advocates concerned over proposed cuts to foster care transition services
3. Foster Youths Need Access to Mental Health Care

For the past five years, I have worked closely with Washington policymakers to further the protection of and attention given to foster children in the U.S. and around the world. Children Uniting Nations is one of the premier nonprofit organizations working with at-risk and foster youth.

Pioneered in Los Angeles, Children Uniting Nations has become the model program for the rest of the country. CUN provides advocacy and funding and produces large-scale recruitment events. Children Uniting Nations is dedicated to providing children in the foster care system with highly trained mentors who are compassionate, steadfast and have an unconditional desire to give of themselves in order to make a positive difference in the lives of the nation’s most vulnerable children.

Our mission is to provide legislators and political leaders with critical science-based research to support effective federal policies and to create awareness within Congress, the administration, foundations, academic institutions, major corporations, and the media on the key issues related to improving social mobility for at-risk youth and their families. We also educate and inform the public on the opportunities and challenges of pursuing systemic policy change in the education, health and well-being of our children.

There are about 550,000 children in foster care today in America, and 100,000 of them are waiting to find a home with a permanent, loving family. Mentoring programs can make a significant difference in the lives of children in foster care. Studies show that children who are mentored are 45 percent less likely to use illicit drugs, 59 percent more likely to succeed in school and 73 percent more likely to attain higher life-achievement goals.

However, many programs that support mentorship are simply not sufficient and almost nonexistent at the state level. Mentor programs that serve foster children are unique and require additional considerations, including specialized training and support necessary to provide for consistent, long-term relationships for children in care. Mentor programs are cost-effective approaches to decreasing the occurrence of many social ills, such as teen pregnancy, substance abuse, incarceration and violence.

Both Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have been great mentors of mine on the journey to establishing an agenda for change in the U.S. Initially it was Landrieu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who supported actions to make effective strides in the support of at-risk foster children by ensuring they too have the chance to pursue education and receive emotional stability through dedicated mentor relationships. Both women have pursued an aggressive agenda aimed at meeting the needs of children in foster care by connecting them with responsible, caring mentors and by reforming the foster care financing system.

It was Landrieu who introduced the Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2009, legislation that provides student loan forgiveness for individuals who volunteer to serve as role models for a child in care. The bill has also authorized $15 million to establish statewide foster care mentoring programs and $4 million to begin a national public awareness campaign and mentor recruitment program. This legislation builds on a Landrieu amendment to the Serve America Act, which added programs for mentoring foster youth to the list of national service programs eligible for assistance. Landrieu also authored an amendment that was adopted as part of 2010 budget legislation that would allow for reforming the foster care financing system to shift resources to promote safe, stable and permanent homes for foster children.

Sometimes, unfortunately, placing a child with a loving family can take up to five or 10 years. That is why in the meantime, strong mentoring programs, like those being promoted by Children Uniting Nations, are so essential. I have seen firsthand the benefits of connecting foster youths with caring, nurturing adults who can provide academic assistance or just a relationship-building opportunity. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves as a resource on adoption issues, runs an internship program for former foster youth. These remarkable young people come to Washington, D.C., to intern with members of the House and Senate. Not only do we get to know them individually as people, but these young adults get to tell their stories and become powerful advocates for mentorship programs — and to perhaps present many ideas to President Barack Obama, who is interested in a more service-oriented nation.

All of the 100 million children in America are our children. Most of these children have somebody in their life, a parent or another role model, who can help care for and nurture them. This is not always the case for children in foster care. These children are truly our children because as a government and as a society we are responsible for them. We must continue to work together to improve their lives. Connecting them with responsible mentors is one way to achieve that important goal.

Daphna Ziman is founder and chairman of Children Uniting Nations.

Related posts:

1. Children Uniting Nations Celebrates 11th Annual Day of the Child November 22; Rides From Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch at the Barker Hangar
2. Innovative foster teen program opens in Ventura County
3. SF Independent Living Skills Program’s Graduation Ceremony: A Bid Farewell to Resilient Former Foster Youth

When foster kids turn 18 they no longer receive financial assistance from the government, but San Francisco still tries to help by providing transitional housing. The city’s latest project in a well to-do neighborhood is being met with a wall of resistance.

Lakeshia Wright entered the foster care system when she was 5-years-old. Like all foster kids, she “aged out,” as it’s called, when she turned 18, meaning no more government assistance. “After you’ve left your foster parents, it’s kind of like, where do you go from here?” she told ABC7.

The City of San Francisco wants to put two dozen kids who are either aging out of foster care or others who are at risk for homelessness at the King Edward II Inn, a bed and breakfast in the Marina. Plans call for turning it into permanent transitional housing with an on-site manager and social services.

“We have concerns on how this facility is going to interact with our neighborhood,” says John Millar. Millar is president of the Marina Community Association, which questions everything from the $9 million financing to the size of the project.

“A number of our members have said, if we could scale this back and make it a more manageable facility, or break it into two; can we have two smaller facilities?” Millar says.

But, Trent Rohrer says, “We think 24 youth will fit in this location without a problem.” Rohrer is director of the Department of Human Services, in charge of affordable housing. This would be the first of its kind in the Marina, a neighborhood where the median household income is nearly $85,000 a year.

“It’s an opportunity for them and it could be a very good one, but also could be an opportunity that will make them feel awkward when they look around and see they are quite different from the rest of the people in the neighborhood,” says Kat Anderson with the Marina Community Association.

“They have to live somewhere. Just because they are foster youth or because they’re coming from the system, doesn’t mean they will be a problem for the neighborhood,” Wright said.

The head of the city’s Human Services Department says critics have the wrong idea about who will live here and how the place will be run.

“I think the neighbors are fearful we’ll be placing individuals there who are criminals, who are drug abusers, who are active alcoholics, who are a blight on the neighborhood, and that’s simply not the case,” says Rohrer.

He says the kids will be in school, job training or working. “Some of the rhetoric is really disappointing to me,” he says.

The Mayor Gavin Newsom is fully supportive of the project:

“You say we want to share the responsibility of integrating a social services safety net in all our diverse neighborhoods. They say that’s great. Then, you actually do it and they say that’s unconscionable. Who are these people? Well these are people like you and me,” he says.

The project’s opponents say they feel unfairly portrayed and just want more information.

“This isn’t just a ‘not in my backyard.’ This is, ‘If it’s coming to this city, this neighborhood, we want to make it the best program, the most avant garde,’” says Patricia Vaughey with Marina-Cow Hollow Neigbors.

Michaela Alioto Pier is the district supervisor and she is opposed, saying the apartment building will not be completely accessible for the disabled and is near trouble spots on Lombard Street.

“The fact that it’s close to some real hotspots where we see a lot of prostitution, drug dealing,” she says. “We should do it right, we should do it appropriately and we should do it with community support.”

The housing is expected to be ready sometime in 2012. In the meantime, the city is hoping to form a citizens advisory task force as the project moves forward.

Related posts:

1. Advocates concerned over proposed cuts to foster care transition services
2. For Foster Care Teens, Graduation is No Celebration
3. For Foster Care Teens, Graduation is No Celebration

Between the disastrous budget years that helped push Gov. Gray Davis from office in 2003 and the disastrous budget years that have plagued the second term of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, there was one year — 2006 — when everything seemed rosy. The mortgage market was booming, the economy was humming, and the governor proposed a budget that continued to pay down Davis-era debt. Democrats in the Legislature instead tried to use some of that money for program expansions. As usual, they and the governor locked horns, but gently, given the comfortable level of revenue expected.

Then the April tax payments came in and shocked everyone. California was rolling in unanticipated money. Our tax system is heavily weighted toward income taxes on the wealthy, so when well-to-do investors have a good year on Wall Street or realize profits from lucrative investments, the state hits the jackpot along with them — and that’s what happened in 2006. Led by a group of Google backers who cashed in their chips, wealthy taxpayers gave the budget a surprise boost.

So what was the state to do with all that extra money? Democratic Assemblywoman Karen Bass of Los Angeles had a smart plan to spend $82 million of it on a long-needed overhaul of the foster care system that would keep more children with their relatives instead of sending them to group homes or into foster care.

Schwarzenegger and Republicans in the Legislature wanted a larger “rainy day” fund as a hedge against bad times, and a spending cap so the state would not embark on programs it couldn’t afford in future years. Democrats argued that money properly spent now would save the state millions in the future and was a necessary investment. Then-Speaker Fabian Nuñez, also a Los Angeles Democrat, also from a district affected by the broken foster care system, went to bat for Bass’ plan and included it in the budget that Schwarzenegger signed.

Meanwhile, Californians were happy with their government. Largely because of a decent economy and a fairly easy budget year, the Legislature’s approval ratings soared. Schwarzenegger was easily reelected.

When the housing bubble burst, Schwarzenegger stepped up his demand for far-reaching budget reform to cap annual spending and mandate saving for the future. This page called it “budgetary Skynet,” a reference to the computer system that, in the “Terminator” movies, eliminated the human factor from defense decisions. “A better future for California will come when voters and elected officials begin to make tough choices,” we wrote, “not when they shrug their shoulders and relinquish their power to a budget machine.”

Bass then became speaker and had to preside over the dismantling of much of her good work on foster care. Soon to leave the Assembly for a seat in Congress (her election in November is all but certain in her heavily Democratic district), she hasn’t backed off her support for foster care reform. But she has come around on Schwarzenegger’s rainy-day fund.

“So much of what we did was undone” by the last several very bad budget years, Bass said recently. “I do think we need something to even out the budget from one year to another.”

The Times’ editorial page reluctantly joined Bass and other legislative leaders in backing Schwarzenegger’s May 2009 ballot measure that would have imposed an automated spending cap and a rainy-day fund. It failed to pass because it was packaged with tax increases that angry Californians were unprepared to accept.

Today, this page again asserts its support for the governor’s budget reform, this time putting aside our past reluctance. It’s unfortunate that automated budgeting is necessary. But it is necessary. The state must continue to invest in the social welfare of its people, but we must do it in accordance with California’s projected growth so that we do not repeatedly yank from the young, the elderly and the poor the very services that we provided only a year or two before.

There are, in theory, alternatives. A revamp of our tax system along the lines of the one produced by the Commission on the 21st Century Economy, for example, would be one way to smooth out the revenue peaks and valleys and make the state’s tax receipts more predictable from year to year by putting less emphasis on the income of corporations and the wealthy. But there is little widespread support for transferring the tax burden to middle-income earners. Allowing the Legislature to make budget decisions on a majority vote, instead of two-thirds, would force lawmakers and the majority party to stand behind their budgets. There’s a measure on the November ballot to do that, but there’s also a measure to expand the two-thirds requirement. Until California is ready to adopt widespread and rational governmental restructuring, it needs to change its budgeting practices.

There are downsides. The public can become impatient when the state is sitting on a large reserve. It happened in 1978, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown prudently socked away a huge reserve for expenses he saw coming in future years. Property owners were angry that their taxes were rising when the state had plenty of money, and the surplus became one of the factors that helped defund government with Proposition 13. In the 1990s, the state had enough money to roll back vehicle license fees. Gray Davis prudently raised them again, as the law contemplated, when the surplus disappeared — but that move helped get him recalled. Budget reform can put reserves for future years off limits for tax rebates as well as for spending.

This is Schwarzenegger’s last budget, and his last chance to push for a spending cap and a rainy-day fund. It’s the right time and the right goal. The Legislature should agree, and send budget reform to voters one more time.

Related posts:

1. In Sacramento, An Angry Exchange Over Child Welfare Budget Cuts
2. City Budget: Doom and Gloom
3. Reuters: “Schwarzenegger budget ax would fall heavily on poor”

Full day of meetings and advocacy for foster youth legislation.

When: Wednesday, August 4th at
Where: the State Capitol in Sacramento

Senate Appropriations Committee will be the biggest challenge yet for AB 12. Let’s give AB 12 the best shot possible by educating our elected officials about this important legislation. The John Burton Foundation will be holding a full day of meetings on Wednesday, August 4th.  If you have been waiting until crunch time to get involved, now is your time! To register for the day, click HERE. If you have any questions, please contact Sara Rhodes at sara@johnburtonfoundation.org or at 415-693-1326.

[AB 12 is a state version of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, which was signed into law in 2008, and opens up federal resources for states to extend foster care to specified individuals up to 21 years of age. Additionally, AB 12 will mandate California to seek federal finances for kinship guardianship assistance payments. For continued updates on AB12]

Related posts:

1. AB 12 Passes Senate Judiciary Committee!
2. AB 12 Passes Human Services Committee!
3. Support AB 12 California Fostering Connections to Success Act Today

The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) has released a online resource guide Best Practices Guidelines: Serving LGBTQ Youth in Out-of-Home Care. This easy-to-use resource contains the first-ever set of comprehensive professional guidelines for how child welfare and juvenile justice professionals can best serve LGBT youth in state care.  To read the full report, click here.

Related posts:

1. Subscribe to the California Dependency Online Guide
2. Beyond Emancipation: Updated Edition of Resource Guide for Youth in Transition Available
3. Fostering Connections Resource Center Opens

It’s emancipation season for California’s foster kids. While most 18-year-olds are rejoicing over their high school graduation, many kids “aging out” of the child welfare system hardly get a moment to celebrate before facing tough choices about how and where they’re going to live.

Every year more than 100 San Francisco foster kids are released from care when they turn 18 or finish school, and the numbers have been especially high recently as the large wave of kids who entered the system during the crack epidemic of the late 1980s ages out.

These kids lose much of their support system just in time to face the daunting challenges of the adult world. At best, their lives to this point have been turbulent. On average they’ve bounced through five or so different placements before leaving the system, and we can bet they don’t wake up on their 18th birthdays to a singing telegram and a gift-wrapped set of independent living skills. It’s no secret that foster youth have high rates of homelessness, substance abuse, unwanted pregnancy and criminal activity.

Emancipation fever is all over Sacramento, where lawmakers are deciding whether to buy more time for older foster youth on a permanent basis. The state Senate judiciary committee this week passed AB 12, which is designed to extend foster care services through age 21. The bill still has to go through appropriations and a vote on the Senate floor.

It seemed like wherever I turned last week, emancipation was on someone’s lips.

I called Maya Durrett, program director at the San Francisco CASA Program, just to find out what her shop is up to lately. CASAs (court-appointed special advocates) mentor foster children and advocate for them in court.

“Well, it’s emancipation season,” she said.

Durrett told me housing is a huge issue for transitioning foster youth (“A lot of our kids go and live with relatives the court has forbidden them to live with for the last 10 or 15 years”), as is accessing employment opportunities, mental health services, school, substance abuse treatment and medical care.

“Bureaucracy is hard to navigate,” Durrett said, “especially when you might have some animosity toward it because it’s always been in your life and probably didn’t do a very good job raising you.”

Some foster youth can’t wait to be emancipated when they turn 18, and they start rejecting services, which Durrett said is natural at that age.

“They feel like they’ve been bossed around and they want people to stop telling them what to do,” she said.

The problem is that many of them come back six to 24 months later, asking for help. Durrett’s colleague Erika Dirkse gave an example.

A year ago, she said, one of her clients (we’ll call him Michael) was emancipated on his 18th birthday and wanted nothing more to do with the system, including therapy for mental health issues. He soon became homeless, used drugs to self-medicate and had a run-in with police. Over the winter he got back in touch with his CASA, who has helped him start a new paper trail and re-engage with community-based services. Michael is currently earning credits toward his high school diploma, has made mental health appointments, is living temporarily with a relative and is working to get into transitional housing.

While Michael is showing measurable improvement, Dirkse said his emancipation status means there’s no coordinated case-management strategy to support him. In essence, there’s no coming back to the system.

“We’re not receiving any funding or help with these kids,” she said. “We just do it because they need help.”

Both Durrett and Dirkse told me that a lack of resources at the San Francisco Human Services Agency means too many kids are squeezed out of the system before they’re ready to be on their own.

Next, I got a call back from Trent Rhorer, executive director of the Human Services Agency. He acknowledged the prevalence of unwanted outcomes for foster youth, and said he supports a move that’s happening system-wide toward family reunification instead of emancipation. Still, he said, kids in San Francisco don’t leave foster care without plans for housing, education, employment and health care. He also said that money doesn’t determine which kids are ready to leave the system.

“Our child welfare workers don’t have, nor should they have, an intricate understanding of our $700 million budget,” he said. “We shouldn’t have fiscal factors driving social-work decisions.”

Still, Dirkse doesn’t believe it works that way, particularly for kids who might not think they need help until they’ve been out in the world for a while.

“If a kid says, ‘leave me alone,’ are you going to keep them on the books?” she said. “To say that financial considerations aren’t a part of the issue of emancipating youth writ large is a fallacy.”

Advocates and agencies around the state have been organizing to make sure AB 12 becomes law. Funding and implementation will be tough issues, but Dirkse said the bill holds crucial potential for young people like Michael.

“It could allow them to test the waters of independent living, for which most of them are woefully unprepared,” she said, adding that foster youth need an opportunity to strike out on their own, and possibly fail, but still have a safety net available to them. “If the state is their parent, it’s the least the state can do for them.”

Related posts:

1. For Foster Care Teens, Graduation is No Celebration
2. Marina Residents Concerned Over Foster Care Project
3. SF Independent Living Skills Program’s Graduation Ceremony: A Bid Farewell to Resilient Former Foster Youth

Now Hiring: Peer Advocate/ AmeriCorps Member- 2 Positions

Beyond Emancipation will be hiring two Peer Advocates/AmeriCorps Volunteers to work with emancipated foster youth from August 2010-July 2011. These are full time positions with a living stipend, health benefits, child care stipend (if eligible) and a $5,325 education award. You must be a former foster youth with your GED or high school diploma to apply. For more information Click Here. Hurry, though, the application deadline is July 21!

Related posts:

1. Job Opportunities
2. Foster Youth Education Initiative Releases Report on Improving Opportunities for Foster Youth
3. SF Independent Living Skills Program’s Graduation Ceremony: A Bid Farewell to Resilient Former Foster Youth

Date: August 19th
Time: 7-8:30pm

The California Foster Youth Education and Career Network is offering a special webinar to be hosted by Tracy Fried, a national leader in improving educational outcomes for children in care, and Rose Baker, a foster parent with over 30 years of experience.

The webinar will provide practical information on:

• how to navigate the schools,
• the educational rights of foster children,
• how to enroll or check your child out of school, and
• what to do when your child’s educational needs are not being met

This is an opportunity for you to ask questions, hear from other foster parents, and get the answers to your concerns. You have several ways to participate in this forum. You can join by telephone and on your computer, or you can just participate by telephone.

To join by telephone only:

>Dial 888-886-3951, and enter the passcode (718173) when prompted.

If you plan on joining by telephone, please call or email Mia Stizzo (916-551-1431 or mia.stizzo@cfpic.org) and provide a mailing or e-mail address so she can send you any materials you may need to follow along.

To participate in the Webinar:

>First, dial your telephone conference line: (888) 886-3951 and enter the passcode (718173) when prompted.
> Go to www.cccconfer.org.
> Click the Participant Log In button under the Meet & Confer logo
> Scroll down and locate CA FY Ed and Career Network and click Go.
> Fill out the form and enter the password: 718173

Please contact Mia Stizzo (contact information above) if you have any questions. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. The California Foster Youth Education And Career Network Invites You To Become A Member Of A Vibrant Learning Community By Joining Us In A Series Of Monthly Webinars
2. Foster Youth Education Initiative Releases Report on Improving Opportunities for Foster Youth
3. Reminder: March 16th Webinar Training Identity Theft and Vital Documents: Ensuring Foster Youth Access the Full Range of Financial Aid