Permanency Tip of the Week: Unpacking the “No” to Permanency
A common experience for Youth in foster care is that they have almost no control over key aspects of their life. When Youth have an opportunity to have some control, such as when being asked if they are open to being adopted, they might say No and refuse to participate in the process. This “No” needs to be acknowledged and unpacked – not just straight out accepted. Begin with validating their life experiences along with the range of thoughts and emotions they may be experiencing. Once this relationship foundation is established, which might take a while, the exploration of the “No” can begin. The final answer might just be “Yes”.
Permanency Story of the Week: How Healing and Love Grew a Family
Owens family – When Adam and Karen Owens lost their son Gavin at age 3 and a half, they left the hospital in intense grief. At the same time, they shared a strong feeling that Gavin’s story would continue. Adam, Karen and their daughter Madison (Madi) have welcomed four new brothers and sisters into their family through adoption. Although each of the children is medically fragile, they are thriving now. Adam and Karen speak of themselves as a parents to six: Madi (10), Siah (10), Angela (7), Jayden (6), Harper (4), and Gavin, always remembered and loved.
Current Permanency Related Articles:
How Predictive Analytics is Saving Children’s Lives in Los Angeles
Situational awareness — know what’s going on anywhere and everywhere in the city; Real-time optimization — use the power of computers to improve conditions second-by-second; Predictive analytics — spotting problems and opportunities while there is still time to make a difference. In the first case, you learn about problems. In the second case, you try to make problems better. In the third case, you try to avoid problems in the first place. Yes, the first two applications are valuable and important. But it’s that third area — predictive analytics — that can have the most dramatic, life-changing impact. Consider, for example, this story from Los Angeles, which is trying to predict which children are at risk of abuse, so they can intervene in time. As you read, I hope you’ll consider whether you could apply this same technique to your own city’s child abuse issues. Equally important, I hope you will realize that the same basic concepts and techniques can be applied to virtually every other aspect of urban life.
More Than Me: An Explanatory Study of Pregnant and Parenting Youth in the Foster Care System
By the time they are 21, more than 50% of female foster youth have a child. This is more than twice the pregnancy rate of their non-foster peers. Due to the 2010 extension of foster care to age 21, this high pregnancy rate has entered the policy spotlight. Today, these transition-age youth may choose to remain within the foster care system, and often lack the resources and supports critical to parenting. Consequently, foster care support organization First Place For Youth has conducted an investigation into these disparities and how to best address them.
Speaking Up and Speaking Out About My Time in Foster Care
From ages 13 to 18, I hated everything about the child welfare system: my social workers, my foster placements, court dates–you name it, I hated it. I was so frustrated with the idea that the choices my parents made forced me to be “different.” I felt very embarrassed and ashamed of my “ward of the state” label, and would try my best to hide from it in all social situations. Those feelings followed me all the way to my freshman year of college. I was so excited to be in a new setting where no one had to know about my foster youth identity, and I could finally be “normal.” The only thing that still tied me to that identity was my involvement with the Guardian Scholars Program.
Three Things Foster Parents Don’t Have to Be
To all those foster parents that are daily learning to navigate everything they need to do and everything they have to be for the sake of these kids…here’s three things you don’t have to be for them today, or tomorrow, or ever: 1} Perfect – You don’t have to be perfect parents to be perfect foster parents. 2} In control – There is nothing clean or orderly or simple about foster care. 3} Saviors – Your job is not to be the savior of these kids; it’s simply to love these kids as your Savior has loved you. Fully, freely and sacrificially.
Normalcy as a Child Welfare and Care Provider Objective
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released a report that argues for a child welfare framework that promotes greater rates of normalcy—activities and experiences such as getting a driver’s license or a summer job— in foster youths’ lives.
Keeping Foster Kids From Becoming Homeless
Sharnae Goslee – Unemployed and fresh out of the foster care system, Sharnae Goslee hoped to enroll in a job training program the day she arrived in Baltimore by bus from the Eastern Shore two years ago. But with no birth certificate or high school transcript, she could not apply to the program. Instead of landing a job, she ended up homeless — sleeping in shelters, on the couches of people she barely knew and sometimes in abandoned houses. She spent hours walking the streets with nowhere to go. She sold her food stamps to pay her phone bill so potential employers could call, but they never did.
“You lose everything,” Goslee said about aging out of the foster care system at age 21; she entered it when she was 3. “You lose your support system and everything all at once when you age out.”
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