Greetings Permanency Champions,
Current Permanency related articles:
From Place to Pace – 2 Feature film DVDs for $5.99 and a Raif Update!
Thanks you for supporting From Place to Place over the last couple of years. This film has helped move our system towards reform and we want to continue to share the message from Raif and Mandy. All across the country, people use From Place to Place as a tool for recruiting foster and adoptive parents and volunteers, training social workers and as an advocacy piece on the importance of how we treat our most vulnerable children in the country. Join the thousands who have already experienced the power of From Place to Place!
Updates on Raif – Many of you ask how Raif is doing. He is still living in Colorado with his wife (he got married to the same girl he speaks of at the end of the film!) in a home and travels in the summer. They have had the same do and phone number for the past three years! Thanks for letting Raif know that he was heard – it made all the difference!
CSSP Names Exemplary Youth Programs
National search highlights initiatives helping vulnerable youth to thrive. Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) announced the winners of its national search to identify initiatives making a critical difference in the lives of youth who are in foster care or involved with child welfare systems. Fifteen local, state and national youth and family serving programs that exemplify CSSP’s Youth Thrive™ framework have been recognized. The approach calls for developing five factors in young people (age 11-26) that help mitigate or eliminate risk and promote healthy development and well-being.
eBook – How to Prepare for your Foster Child by Dr. John DeGarmo
The arrival of a new foster child into a foster house can be a time of excitement, as well as anxiety. Please find the attached eBook, entitled How to Prepare for your Foster Child. In this eBook, you will find strategies and tips designed to make this difficult time a little easier.
Radio Interview with Kevin Campbell
Founder of the Center for Family Finding and Youth Connectedness & developer of the Family Finding Model. The developer of Family Finding has a set of strategies now utilized in in Ontario, British Columbia and over 200 jurisdictions in the United States, to establish lifelong supports for youth in foster care.
Journey 2 Justice Becomes A Journey To Freedom
Every Victim Counts – Authored by Esther J Pilgrim & Davina A Merritt – Esther Pilgrim was a scam victim in 2007 of Tim Blair, aka Tim Dog, an early 90’s hip hop artist. The local police refused to take a police report which forced Esther into investigating and presenting her own case to the DA’s office. The DA’s office finally took the case. During Esther’s journey to justice, she was contacted and made contact with multiple alleged victims of this same predator dating back 15 years. There was even a previous arrest and charge in Studio City, California in April of 2003. Esther’s journey was long, painful and at times very discouraging. However, she persevered and her journey to justice became a journey to freedom. Shortly after Tim Dog aka Tim Blair reportedly faked his own death; she was embraced by Davina Merritt. These two shared pasts as former foster children and shared a vision to serve wounded souls. This book is dedicated to all victims of all crimes. May you give your pain a purpose and fly higher.
Giving Thanks by Kathleen Strottman – CCAI Executive Director
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI). – Despite the daunting winter weather, millions of Americans took to the roads, the air and the rails to travel home in time for the holidays. CCAI was founded on the simple yet profound belief that every child needs and deserves a family to call their own. We go to work each day with the hopes of identifying the legal and policy barriers which prevent children from realizing their basic right to a family. While we still have a long way to go before we reach our goal of a family for every child, we have taken many steps toward making this dream a reality this year. For this I am incredibly grateful. Please see this posting for her list of things to be thankful for this past year.
Study Finds Over 1 in 3 Young Women in Foster Care Give Birth by Age 21
In the second of a series of four research briefs, Professor Emily Putnam-Hornstein and a research team from the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley answer a long-standing question: what is the birth rate among young women in foster care? According to the study, funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and part of the “California’s Most Vulnerable Parents” series, a full 34.3 percent of girls who were in foster care at age 17 gave birth at least once by age 21. The rate was highest among Latinas, whose birth rate was more than double the rate for Whites. In addition to a high rate of first birth, youth in foster care experience high rates of subsequent pregnancy: among girls in foster care who had a first birth before age 18, 38.6 percent had a repeat teen birth.
Prior to AB 12, the role of the child welfare system generally ended when a youth graduated from high school, and hopefully went on to college. With the extension of foster care to age 21, however, this is no longer the case. What was formerly a hand-off by the child welfare system to the post-secondary educational system is now a partnership, where both systems play a vital role in the life of the foster youth.
To understand what makes this partnership a success, the John Burton Foundation has written a report that highlights how six regions have created successful partnerships between child welfare professionals, K-12 systems and local colleges and universities. By working together, these communities have discovered innovative approaches to improving educational outcomes for foster youth, and thereby ensuring the full potential of extended foster care.
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· Take care and keep up the Permanency work – Our children, youth, young adults, families and communities are depending on it!
Sincerely,
Gregory Manning, PsyD