Dual Involvement in Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice Creates Major Struggles in Adulthood

Dual Involvement in Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice Connects to Major Struggles in Adulthood: Small number of troubled "crossover youths" carry high public cost, report finds
November 09, 2011 by John Kelly

Los Angeles youths who exit both foster care and juvenile justice earn less as young adults and cost the public more than youths who only exit foster care, and are more than twice as likely to have been treated for a serious mental illness, according to a study released today by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

“Young Adult Outcomes of Youth Exiting Dependent Or Delinquent Care In Los Angeles County” found that a sliver of the so-called “crossover” youths account for much of the public costs of the larger group when they are young adults.

The findings are hardly surprising; there is wide recognition that crossover youth fare worse than youths who only come into contact with one agency. But the California study shows that in many cases, the crossover youths experience negative outcomes at twice the rate.

“We didn’t realize crossover youth would have such striking distance,” said Dennis Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the study’s six authors. “We knew it would find they’d be troubled, but didn’t expect this difference of degree to show up.”

Crossover youths accounted for an average of $35,171 in public service utilization costs, such as being jailed or receiving welfare benefits, which is nearly three times the $12,532 average for other foster youth.

Eighty-two percent received some state benefits – welfare, food stamps or Medicaid – compared with 68 percent of other foster care exiters.

The research suggests that two major factors for the disparity were treatment for mental health disorders and further criminal activity. Four years into adulthood, 24 percent of the crossover youth had been treated for schizophrenia or psychosis; the comparable rate for foster youths was 11 percent.

Two-thirds of the crossover youths had a jail stay in their first four years after foster care; they were three times more likely to land in jail than other foster youths in the study. The average cumulative cost of jail-stays over the first four years of adulthood ranged from $18,430 for child welfare youth to $33,946 for crossover youth.

A quarter of the crossover youth accounted for three quarters of the public costs associated with the group during young adulthood. Culhane said a follow-up study is already in the works to determine whether other factors can help predict which crossover youths will struggle and require high levels of public assistance.

“To the extent you can do that, there is huge potential for offsetting costs” by making better preventative investments, Culhane said. Mental health treatment, he predicts, “is going to be a major factor.”

The study suggests that connecting more crossover youths to employment opportunities is another potential avenue for improvement. After four years, foster youth had earned an average of about $30,000 and crossover youth had earned $14,000. Crossover youth were half as likely to have consistent employment.

The Los Angeles-based Hilton Foundation plans to use the findings of this study to craft a strategy for working with crossover youth and seek approval for a project this winter, said Jeannine Balfour, the foundation’s senior program officer for domestic programs.

Culhane said Los Angeles County, is an ideal place to pilot strategies for helping crossover youths because of the recently passed state law extending foster care until 21 and the fact that the county has an integrated data system for all of its departments.

“That’s very unique,” Culhane said. “You could pilot something, and have immediate information to make sure you’re getting the right people.”

The study used records from thousands of youths who exited foster care from an out-of-home placement in 2002 and 2004, and juvenile records for any youths who exited probation from 2000 to 2006. Those records were then cross-referenced against service utilization data from the county and state agencies that handle health, criminal justice, employment and welfare.

There were a total of 596 youths who exited foster care in one of those years and also exited probation. On most measures of adult outcomes, they fared significantly worse than the youths who came into contact with one system.

The demographics of the crossover kids, two-thirds of whom were male, ran inverse to racial data of the probation-exiting population: African-American youth accounted for 25 percent of probation exiters but more than half (56 percent) of crossover youths; 57 of teens who exited probation were Latino but they account for only 30 percent of crossover youth.

Former foster children have overtaken war veterans as the single largest population in California’s homeless shelters.

Many Penniless Former Foster Kids Call The Streets Home
Sharma, Amita, KPBS, April 6, 2011.

Former foster children have overtaken war veterans
as the single largest population in California’s homeless shelters.

The average American parent spends $50,000 dollars from the time a child turns 18 until age 26.

Foster children, who leave the state’s care at 18, get $500.

These findings are among a bevy of disturbing facts contained in a new report from the Childrens' Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego. It portrays the grim trail of hopelessness facing the 30,000 young Americans -- including 300 in San Diego -- who leave the foster-care system each year upon reaching age 18. It's a trail Melissa Lechner has tread for the past several years.

“When I left the foster care system, I ended up couch surfing, going from a friend’s house to a friend’s house," Lechner said. "I tried getting my own apartment with two other people. That didn’t work out. I moved into another friend’s place. By 2007, I became homeless.”

Lechner is a 22-year-old Grossmont College student who works part-time as a caretaker. She has been homeless off and on since 2007. In the winter months, home has included the sidewalk in front of the downtown library. During warm weather, home for her and other ex-foster kids was the San Diego River bed.

“We all cuddled together in tents to keep warm, laid out our blankets," Lechner said. "I ended up with staph a couple of times because of the dirt. Churches would come out and feed us.”

Lechner went into the foster care system when she was 10 months old after her mother was killed in a car crash. She spent the next 17 years with 10 different foster families and in a handful of group homes.

“I knew it would happen," she said. "I’m a foster kid. It’s to be expected. Foster kids end up leaving the system and having nowhere to go. They don’t give us any sort of funds to be able to get our own place. They just leave us out to dry.”

But San Diego County Child Welfare Services Director Debra Zanders-Willis said social workers do try to prepare the kids for self-sufficiency. She said six months before foster kids exit care, social workers help them create a transition plan that includes assistance in writing resumes, interviewing skills and finding a job.

She said there is also subsidized housing available for foster kids turning 18 until age 21.

“There are a lot of resources available for foster youth when they exit out of foster care,” Zanders-Willis said.

That statement, according to attorney Kriste Draper with The Children’s Advocacy Institute at USD, is more theory than reality. She said there are about 100 beds in government subsidized housing available in the county even though 300 foster kids are emancipated locally each year. Social workers try to help kids find jobs, she said.

“But that doesn’t always translate into the child being brought to this worker’s place, sitting down doing that (job-application) work, taking time out of their school day or after school, coordinating with the group home to get the rides," Draper said. "Caseloads are so high.”

As a result, Draper said, most foster kids on the cusp of leaving slip through the system’s cracks. And all of us, she noted, are to blame.

“As a state we have decided that a foster child’s parents are not good enough to be their parents," Draper said. "Each one of us through our tax dollars has said we can be better parents. And if we are going to accept that responsibility, then we need to make sure that we are better than the homes we have taken them from. And right now, I think that we fail at that.”

Evidence of that failure lies in the numbers. Nearly 40 percent of foster kids become homeless. Only 3 percent earn college degrees. By age 24, just 50 percent have jobs. And the federal government spends nearly $6 billion a year on foster kids, who can’t function on their own, through public assistance and other expenditures.

“Financially, what we’re doing makes no sense,” Draper said.

But reform requires influence. Bob Fellmeth, executive director of The Children’s Advocacy Institute, said children have none.

“Children are not politically powerful," Fellmeth said. "They don’t vote. They don’t give campaign contribution money. They’re not organized. Of the 1,200 lobbyists in Sacramento, there’s a very, very small, tiny voice (advocating for children) and these foster kids are the tiniest of the tiniest."

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Residential treatment centers receive massive budget cuts

State funding cuts to foster care and treatment programs hurting local agencies
Lee, Alfred. Pasadena Star-News, October 14, 2009.

Rosemary Children's Services is facing a 10 percent cut from the state this year.

A 10-percent cut in state funding has forced local foster care and residential treatment programs to eliminate some services and beds for needy children, officials said Wednesday.

The reduction took effect Oct. 1 and was approved by the state Legislature in an effort to fix the state's budget gap.

In Pasadena, Rosemary's Children's Services will lose out on $660,000 in funding and is looking at cutting services, Executive Director Greg Wessels said.

"It's very discouraging. You'd like to think that the work you've chosen for your life is important not just to you but to everybody else. Then you realize that there are much bigger realities," he said.

Keyonna, 16, has been living at one of Rosemary's residential treatment centers for four months after being kicked around the system since she was a small child. Her mother was a drug addict and couldn't take care of her, she said.

"It's been hard for me, and now that I'm here in this program, it's helped a lot," Keyonna said. "It's helping us grow into adulthood."

For Altadena-based children's services agency Five Acres, the cuts will result in a loss of about $800,000 in funding per year, said Executive Director Bob Ketch.

As a result, Five Acres has already shuttered a six-bed group home and reduced staff for foster care services, and the agency is also looking at further cuts in the number of children it serves.

"Every week I read an intake summary...and these are often times histories of kids who have been in multiple placements, who've been abused and neglected by their families and also by the system," Ketch said. "These are kids that are hurting and they need help."

Pasadena-based Hathaway-Sycamores has also closed six beds and made cuts at its residential treatment center, in addition to cuts to its foster care services. The agency will lose out on about $275,000, officials said.

And Hillsides, also based in Pasadena, stands to lose about $450,000 and has made some administrative cuts, said Associate Executive Director Suzanne Crummey.

Such programs had already been struggling, agency officials said. The state has not raised its reimbursement rate for such services since 1990, said Hathaway-Sycamores President Bill Martone.

Hathaway-Sycamores has gone down from 178 beds in 2005 to 34 beds now, although part of the reason was due to changes in program philosophy, Martone said.

"When a child has an acute situation that really requires that level of intervention and it's not there, then I think we have some real problems in our child welfare system, and I think that's the danger of under-funding," Martone said.

Every state Governor should know the importance of assisting youth transitioning out of foster care

Gov. Schwarzenegger signs legislation to provide services and resources to California’s foster children, Gotten, Valeria. California Newswire, Oct. 12, 2009.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a package of legislation focused on expanding and promoting adoption opportunities and increasing services for children in California’s foster care system.

The bills signed into law will create a food stamp program to assist youth transitioning out of the foster care system and help provide housing for former foster youth working toward a higher education degree. The legislation also ensures that California’s foster care system will continue to have the resources necessary to provide the valuable services these children depend on and helps older foster children secure a safe and stable living environment.

“Every child deserves to grow up in a safe, nurturing environment and this legislation will expand adoption programs and services to ensure that opportunity for California’s foster children,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “It is also important to provide youth with the right tools when they transition out of foster care and these bills help make that possible by improving their access to quality education and providing them with resources to be successful as independent adults.”

The Governor announced that he has signed the following six bills:

· AB260 by Assemblymember Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) that will require that a licensed person shall not make any false, deceptive or misleading statement or representation, require a mortgage broker to receive the same compensation for providing mortgage brokerage services whether paid by a lender, borrower or a third party and will prohibit a mortgage broker from steering a borrower to accept a loan at higher cost.

· AB 719 by Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) to create a 12-month transitional food stamp demonstration project that grants federally funded food stamps to foster youth for one year after their eighteenth birthday, when they age-out of the foster care system and no longer qualify for state aid.

· AB 1393 by Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) to require the University of California, the California State University and California Community Colleges to give priority for on-campus housing to emancipated foster youth.

· AB 295 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) to extend the Older Youth Adoption pilot project for six months until June 30, 2010 to provide participating pilot counties with sufficient time to demonstrate the effectiveness of pre-adoption and post-adoption services for older youth who have been in the system over 18 months and are living in group homes or non-related foster families.

· AB 167 by Assemblymember Anthony Adams (R-Hesperia) to exempt a foster youth who transfers from a new school during the eleventh or twelfth grade from completing locally-imposed course requirements that exceed minimum state standards, if those local requirements would prevent the student from graduating while he or she remains eligible for foster care.

· AB 669 by Assemblymember Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) to exempt current or former foster youth age 19 years or under from California State University, University of California and California Community Colleges in-state residency requirements for tuition and fees.

· AB 1325 by Assemblymember Paul Cook (R-Yucca Valley) to create an alternative option to the definition of “traditional adoption,” in the case of adopting a Native American child. In traditional adoption, termination of parental rights of the biological parents must occur for a Native American child to be adopted. Unfortunately, termination of parental rights can be detrimental to Native American cultures. This bill will add the option of Customary Adoption. Customary Adoption is defined as “a traditional tribal practice recognized by the community which gives a child a permanent parent-child relationship with someone other than the child’s birth parent.”

In addition, the Governor signed a series of foster care-related bills that make changes to existing state laws to ensure that California continues to receive important federal funding to maintain child welfare services:

· SB 597 by Senator Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) to establish the development of a plan for the ongoing oversight and coordination of health care services for foster youth and the development of a personalized transition plan for a foster youth in the 90-day period before he or she ages out of foster care.

· AB 154 by Assemblymember Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) to specify that any savings in state funds attained from an increase in federal funding for adoption services be reinvested in the foster care and adoption service system. The bill also requires adoption agencies to inform prospective adoptive parents of their potential eligibility for federal and state adoption tax credits.

· AB 595 also by Anthony Adams (R-Hesperia) to tighten requirements for approving criminal background checks for foster care family homes licensing in an effort to prohibit persons convicted of specific offenses from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

· AB 665 by Assemblymember Alberto Torrico (D-Fremont) to broaden the use of the federal adoption incentive awards that are received by the state as a result of increased adoptions of older children to include other legal permanency options available to older foster youth in order to increase the opportunities for these youth to be placed in stable homes. Other legal permanency options include legal adoption, relative guardianship and reunification services when those services were previously terminated.

· AB 938 by the Committee on Judiciary to require that when a child is removed from his or her parents and placed in foster care, the child’s social worker must within 30 days, conduct an investigation to identify and locate the child’s adult relatives and notify them that the child has been removed from his or her parents’ home.

The Governor also signed the following two child welfare-related bills:

· AB 488 by Assemblymember Norma Torres (D-Pomona) to authorize the Department of Social Services to renew or extend beyond a three-year time period specified performance agreements with private, nonprofit agencies that provide child welfare services. This bill also requires the county or private nonprofit agency to fund an independent evaluation of the agency’s performance.

· SB 118 also by Senator Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge) to direct counties to include information about incarcerated parents who receive services required by the court to reunify that parent with his/her children.

Editorial calls on Governor Schwarzenegger to remember his commitment to foster care

Editorial: 'Aged-out' foster youth at terrible risk
San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 2, 2009.

The phrase "at risk" gets tossed around a lot by educators and social workers. Nowhere is the buzzword more applicable - and more poignant - than in its description of foster youth who are "aging out" of the system at age 18.

Talk about "at risk." One recent study revealed that 54 percent of young men and 25 percent of young women are incarcerated within 18 months of leaving the foster-care system. Another survey showed that 70 percent of California prison inmates have spent time in the foster-care system.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders do not need a lecture on the meaning of these numbers. The well-documented struggle of emancipating foster youth, and the failure of an overburdened system to help them, motivated the governor and legislators to significantly enhance the resources and accountability in the system.

What these leaders need is a reminder of why these investments in our most vulnerable citizens are so critical - especially now, when the economy is compounding the challenges on the young people who lack family support and, in many cases, the skills to navigate on their own.

The same Schwarzenegger who in 2006 signed the landmark package of foster-care reform bills recently slashed $80 million from the state support for child welfare services. Those cutbacks would cost California $44 million more in federal assistance for youth.

The result would be a devastating rollback in the state's effort to give these foster youth - our children, our collective responsibility - the services they so desperately need. Social workers would have higher caseloads and less time to identify and address the needs of youth under their charge; there would be less money for transitional housing and independent living programs; there would be cutbacks in programs that allow children to reunify with their families instead of landing in long-term foster care.

These ill-advised cuts become "schizophrenic and counterproductive" when viewed in the context of the Legislature's pained efforts to reduce the prison population, observed Frank Mecca, executive director of the state's County Welfare Directors Association.

"We don't have the option not to protect when the hot line rings," Mecca said. "All (Schwarzenegger) did was pass the buck to others to make the impossible choice of which child's safety and which child's well-being we're going to compromise."

Amy Lemley, policy director of the John Burton Foundation, is among the foster-care advocates who is trying to stir pressure on the governor and legislators to restore these cuts. "If you can't rally to protect abused and neglected children, what does that say about the state's priorities?" she asked.

Schwarzenegger and legislators must work together to restore that $80 million for child welfare services. They should connect the dots, and recognize the much higher costs of the system's failings.

Children are dying due to lack of timely intervention and oversight

More children dying of abuse, neglect in Sacramento County
Lundstom, Marjie and Sam Stanton. Sacramento Bee, March 10, 2009.

The number of children who died of abuse and neglect shot up in Sacramento County last year, nearly triple the previous year's toll, a new report has found.

Eleven children died in 2008 from abuse and neglect, compared with four in 2007, according to a self-assessment from Child Protective Services scheduled for delivery to the Board of Supervisors today.

The assessment, required every three years, found that CPS has fallen significantly below the state average for how quickly social workers respond to reports of possible abuse. Of all referrals requiring an in-person response, Sacramento CPS fell to 82 percent for those requiring a contact within 24 hours – well below the 96 percent state average – in the first quarter of 2008.

The report also revealed a worsening record in frequency of local CPS workers' visits to clients' homes. In March 2008, 89 percent of Sacramento children who required monthly CPS visits received them, down from 98 percent in March 2006 and March 2007.

The decline in response occurred even as fewer CPS cases were being opened for investigation, the report noted.

Release of the report comes as CPS finds itself under scrutiny for a series of problems, ranging from the increase in child deaths to revelations that documents inside the agency have been altered – issues disclosed by an 18-month Bee investigation. Soon, a county audit of the agency is expected to be released, and a grand jury report on CPS also is under way.

Until now, CPS has largely blamed its problems on individual workers and their failure to follow policies and procedures.

But this document reveals more systemic issues within the agency, including a widespread lack of training, poorly prepared supervisors, high caseload and "slow and burdensome" discipline for problem workers.

Overall, the report concluded, CPS needs to do more to protect vulnerable children. The last time Sacramento child abuse and neglect deaths hit double digits was in 1999, according to Child Death Review Team figures, which differ slightly from the county's.

"Since March 2008, there has been a significant rise in child abuse-related deaths within Sacramento County," said the report from Lynn Frank, director of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CPS.

Though the report made it clear that "not all of the children were known to Sacramento County CPS prior to their deaths," it said that "immediate action has been taken to examine the circumstances of each death and to examine policies and practice as they relate to those circumstances."

The circumstances of how some children died last year illustrate failings that CPS identified in its own assessment.

For instance, 4-year-old Jahmaurae Allen died July 21. The social worker in that case failed to connect with the family for seven days after a doctor reported suspicious injuries to CPS, even though the agency had flagged the situation for an "immediate response," or contact within 24 hours.

When Jahmaurae's social worker did meet with the family, she closed the case after a cursory review. The boy died one month later; the mother's live-in boyfriend faces murder charges.

The agency pointed out in its new report that it has reduced the percentage of children being sent back to foster care after an earlier removal from their homes. This "foster care re-entry" declined from 21.9 percent of kids returning to foster care in 2004 to 15.8 percent in 2006-07, the most recent data available.

This trend, though, did not help 3-year-old Valeeya Brazile, who died Feb. 5 after being removed from her mother for violence. The little girl was placed with a stable foster family where, by all accounts, she was happy and thriving. She was returned home less than four months later and, the following year, was beaten to death – allegedly by the mother's boyfriend.

Both Valeeya's and Jahmaurae's mothers also face child endangerment charges.

In acknowledging the agency's weaknesses, the report stated that CPS faces high worker turnover, a lack of experienced workers and daunting caseloads.

CPS caseloads in its various programs range from an average 10.6 cases per worker each month to as many as 46.3 cases per month.

The agency has taken pride in recent years in its use of "Structured Decision Making," a check-off list that provides guidance to front-line workers assessing safety and risk in troubled families.

But the new report warns – yet again – that the agency's use of SDM has been "inaccurate and inconsistent."

Last December, 2-year-old twins were shot to death by their father, two years after CPS had used SDM to assess the family following an incident with an older child.

In 2006, the 12-year-old girl – who had three siblings – had told authorities that her stepfather had been beating her with a stick, forcing her to go without food, shaving her head and making her sleep in the garage without blankets, according to CPS documents.

Ultimately, the agency determined that the four children's risk of neglect was "moderate" and their risk of abuse was "low," the documents show. A safety assessment determined that there were "no children likely to be in immediate danger of serious harm."

Two years later, the twins, along with their mother, were shot to death in their south Sacramento home. The father committed suicide.

Over the years, the CPS Oversight Committee has criticized the agency for how it evaluates potential risk to children. The citizens committee, formed in the aftermath of 3-year-old Adrian Conway's brutal 1996 death, has repeatedly told the Board of Supervisors that CPS workers and supervisors are failing to properly use the tools that help assess a child's current safety and future risk of harm.

Foster care is one of Karen Bass' top three priorities

Foster care, front and center
Capitol Alert , March 9, 2009.

When Karen Bass first ascended to the Assembly speakership, she named overhauling the state's foster care system among her top three priorities.

(The other two were balancing the budget and modernizing the state's tax codes.)

Today, Bass and a host of others will hold a press conference to highlight a new report that says California "could realize at least a 2-1 benefit-to-cost ratio in extending foster care for youth to age 21."

Among the attendees will be: Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, former Senate leader John Burton and a bipartisan cast of current legislators.

Bass will press for AB 12, legislation she's co-authoring with Assemblyman Jim Beall, to extend the foster care age and try to capture more federal funds.

Interview with Chair of FCAA Board of Directors

Man's journey through foster care makes him agent of change
Mayer, Steven. Bakersfield California, Nov 15, 2008.

It was Christmastime 1963 when, at the age of 4, Bill Stanton became a foster child for the first time.

Bill Stanton of Kernville grew up in foster care and now the 48 year-old uses his own experiences and the experiences of others to work toward a better foster care system nationwide.

“I could paint you a picture of that day,” he says, his eyes gleaming with the memory of a father’s sin.

Bill’s family had just finished trimming a meager Christmas tree in their third-floor Brooklyn apartment, when the excited 4-year-old tried to climb the tree, sending it crashing to the floor.

“Dad became really enraged,” he remembers. “He picked up the tree and threw it out the window. Then he threw me out the window.”

Bill landed on a pile of trash and survived the fall. But the incident signaled the end of his biological family and the beginning of 14 years of foster care.

“I was bounced through five different foster homes before I was placed with the Stantons,” he says. “I was adopted by them at age 19.

“That still happens today,” Stanton, now 48, says from the comfort of his family home in the hills above Kernville.

“We still move kids from place to place,” he says. “I don’t think the system — the courts — have a grasp of the damage that does.”

Stanton’s natural empathy for children and teenagers who are thrown into foster care has fueled a passion for reform. He has become an advocate for adults who experienced foster care as children and the children who experience it still.

A frequent keynote speaker and national spokesman for what is called the foster care alumni community, Stanton has served four years as board chairman of Foster Care Alumni of America, a nonprofit community of peers who advocate for improvements to federal legislation that impacts foster kids.

This month, Stanton was named the organization’s first “Vision Award” recipient for his work.

Will Hornsby, a child welfare specialist at the Children’s Bureau, a section of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, helps conduct reviews of state foster care systems across the country.

Stanton’s background in the court system, Hornsby says, combined with his personal experience as a youth in the system and as a foster parent and adoptive parent gives him a multi-faceted perspective on the issues surrounding foster care.

“Bill brings a level of deep understanding, empathy and passion to this work,” Hornsby says.

Nearly two years ago, Stanton, his wife, Debbie, and their daughters Bethany, 16, and Abbigail, 14, welcomed a 2-week-old foster baby into their home.

Trevor John, “TJ” for short, was a crystal meth baby.

“I don’t know what a 2-week-old dreams about, but TJ woke up with night terrors,” Bill remembers. “It was just the saddest thing to see ... he’s a wonderful little guy.”

Not long ago, Bill and Debbie Stanton adopted TJ. Together they have taken one child out of the foster system and given him a home and a family.

But for Debbie, it’s not accurate to suggest the newest member of their family hit some kind of adoptive jackpot.

TJ is family, she says. It’s that simple. He brings as much love and goodness to the mix as he gets.

There are more than a half-million children in the foster care system nationwide, with roughly 2,700 children in the system in Kern County.

About 12 million American adults have experienced foster care, and Bill Stanton would love to see many of them turn their attention back to the system as advocates for change and mentors for foster youth.

“My mission is to reach out to those people in their 30s, 40s and 50s,” he says. “They can give policymakers insight.

“They understand what it means to put your life in a plastic bag as you’re moved to the next home,” he says. “Their experiences give them instant credibility.”

Foster Care Alumni of America
* A non-profit association founded in 2004
* More than 2,000 members from 50 states
* Mission: Connect the community of adults who have experienced foster care, and harness their accumulated experience and expertise to transform America’s foster care system.