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.

Immigration: A break for foster kids

Immigration: A break for foster kids
San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 4, 2011.

Youngsters who are brought to the United States illegally, and mistreated after they arrive, have gotten a boost from a federal appeals court in fighting deportation orders as adults.

The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco involves undocumented youths who are placed in long-term foster care because of abuse or neglect, based on a judge’s findings that it would be harmful to return them to their home country. That classification, which allows the youngster to qualify for legal residency, was granted to about 1,500 youths nationwide last year, said attorney Kristen Jackson of the nonprofit Public Counsel, which represented the immigrant in this week’s case.

Her client, Jorge Raul Garcia, had been granted legal status as a teenager in 2000 but was deported to Mexico eight years later after being convicted of two minor thefts in the Los Angeles area. The ruling allows him to return and seek to regain legal residency.

The court said Garcia had a tragic childhood in Mexico — his father was convicted of murdering his mother, and during his youth he suffered an injury that left him brain-damaged. He entered the United States illegally in 1992 at age 8. The court didn’t say who brought him, and Jackson, who is handling his appeal, said she doesn’t know. A year later, Los Angeles County authorities said Garcia had been a victim of severe physical abuse where he was staying, and he was declared a dependent of the court in 1994 and placed in long-term foster care. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and diabetes and attended special education classes in school.

The county also applied to immigration officials for legal residency for Garcia in 1994, but it wasn’t granted for more than five years, a delay that the court said may have been due to a missing birth certificate. He left the foster care program in 2004, at age 20, and a year later was convicted of stealing a bicycle in Long Beach and of shoplifting in Manhattan Beach. After he served jail sentences for both crimes, immigration authorities began deportation proceedings.

Deportation would have been mandatory after a serious felony conviction, but non-citizen legal residents convicted of lesser charges can apply for an exemption if they were “admitted” to the United States at least seven years earlier and have lived here ever since. Immigration courts decided that Garcia had been admitted to the U.S. in 2000, when he was granted legal status, leading to his deportation in mid-2008 because his convictions took place less than seven year later. But on Wednesday, the appeals court said federal law recognizes the long-term foster care program for undocumented immigrants, in which Garcia was placed in 1994, as a type of admission into the United States.

The law’s eligibility requirements show “a congressional intent to assist a limited group of abused children to remain safely in the country with a means to apply” for legal residency, the court said in a 3-0 ruling. Those in Garcia’s category “should not be wrenched away without adequate (legal) process,” the judges said.

It’s the first federal court ruling to address the issue, said Jackson, Garcia’s lawyer. Interested readers can view it at www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/11/02/08-73004.pdf

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."

Reentry into foster care

Santa Cruz County's foster kids re-entry rate spikes, prompting review
Hoppin, Jason. San Jose Mercury News, March 28, 2011.

SANTA CRUZ -- The number of local foster children removed from their home after being reunited with parents has spiked in recent years, prompting Santa Cruz County officials to take a new look at how those cases are handled.

At one point, nearly one in five foster children who returned home did not stay for more than a year, with the county's so-called re-entry rate of 18.5 percent rate topping the statewide average by more than 50 percent.

While that number has since declined, children in Santa Cruz are still more likely to re-enter the foster care system than children elsewhere in California.

"We don't know what changed to make it go up," said Judy Yokel, the county's director of family and children's services. "We just know that it did." The statistic is particularly disappointing to Santa Cruz advocates, since local numbers once beat state averages.

The county's current re-entry rate of 15.2 percent now easily outstrips the federal standard of 9.9 percent.

That has prompted the county to change the way it analyzes each case, bringing together groups of people key to a child's welfare before making any decisions on their future.

"We now hold one before we return any kid home," Yokel said. "No kid goes home anymore without team decision-making." Such cases are among the most heartbreaking scenarios for those who work within the foster care system, with parental drug and alcohol relapses often playing a large role.

Storey, a social worker at Felton-based New Families, a regional foster care organization, said courts and the county can often take too punitive of an approach, quickly removing children when parents relapse but offering little help with recovery.

"What they don't understand is that there's a process of healing," Storey said. "The majority of professionals that work in recovery know it takes two years for people to get themselves straight."

Few seem to know what happened to flip the county's number so dramatically. In March 2005, the re-entry rate was 5.3 percent - less than half the state average.

One possibly explanation is the economy -- Santa Cruz County first exceeded California's average during 2008, when the economy was thrown into chaos.

"It's possible. Hard economic times certainly make it difficult for parents to care for their child adequately," Yokel said.

But those statistics reflect the previous 12 months of cases, seemingly predating the economic downturn. And the overall number of foster care cases did not go up, Yokel said.

The re-entry rate is one of the few clouds in an otherwise bright sky. Several years ago, the county formed a committee to oversee improvements to the family care system. Since then, referrals for abuse or neglect are down, the timeliness of adoptions remains high and three-fourths of foster children are reunited with their families within a year.

Ken Goldstein, executive director of CASA of Santa Cruz County, which assists in the court process once children enter the system, said he is aware of the re-entry problem. But he also had few answers.

"Adults learn slowly," Goldstein said. "Sometimes it takes some time to change."

The needs of foster children don't decrease during a recession - they only multiply

Letter to the Editor: Fostering Care
San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 19, 2009.

Like so many other state responsibilities, foster care fell by the wayside earlier this year while Sacramento fought over the budget. But the needs of foster children - our children - don't disappear because of a recession, so we were pleased to see that several foster care bills were signed into law.

AB131 was sponsored by the Judicial Council of California and authored by Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa. It would require parents who can afford it to reimburse the state for court-appointed counsel in a dependency case. Another Evans bill to receive the governor's signature was AB154, which brings California in line with the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act. The new law doubles financial incentives to adopt foster children who are older or have special needs.

But the governor should have signed Evans' third bill, AB82. The bill would have established safeguards for foster children being prescribed psychotropic medications. Such medications can be dangerous. Ordinarily, a child's parent would provide this kind of support.

It's unfair that the governor has chosen to abdicate this responsibility for the children we're raising collectively.

Youth needs fall through the cracks

Changes urged for Fresno Co. social services
County might disband Children and Family Services agency
Branan, Brad. Fresno Bee, Oct. 11, 2009.

Children are at the forefront of a debate over whether to change the way Fresno County delivers social services. (actually, it sounds like children are coming in dead-last)

County administrator John Navarrette wants to eliminate the Children and Family Services Department and move its work to other departments.

The department's child-welfare duties would go to the Employment and Temporary Assistance Department under a new name, the Social Services Department. The county's Behavioral Health Department would take over children's mental-health programs.

Navarrette says the changes are needed to trim costs because federal and state funding for social services is declining. By eliminating four administrative positions and making other changes to consolidate departments, the county would save more than $1 million annually through the plan, he said.

"All of us have to take a hit," he said. "We're all doing more with less."

But critics, including some county supervisors, question his estimates, and say any savings aren't worth reducing quality of service. They worry that the mission of Child Protective Services will get lost in a merger with the county's largest department.

Foster children often need mental-health counseling, so they should be served by the same department, critics add.

But Navarrette and his department heads insist services would not suffer under the plan. To appease critics, Navarrette said he included a policy guaranteeing that 25% of mental-health revenues would continue to be allocated for children.

The Board of Supervisors expects to vote on the proposal Oct. 27. If approved, the reorganization would take effect Jan. 1.

Supervisors Debbie Poochigian, Judy Case and Phil Larson say they're still studying the plan and haven't made a decision. Supervisors Henry Perea and Susan Anderson say they're opposed.

Approving the plan would bring Fresno County in line with the rest of the state, because it's the only county with a Children and Family Services Department providing both child welfare and mental-health services, Navarrette said. Officials at the California State Association of Counties and the County Welfare Directors Association of California could not confirm his statement.

Navarrette said the proposal was motivated in part by changes at Employment and Temporary Services. The department's director, Julie Hornback, announced her retirement this year, and another department official, Steven Rodriguez, left to become Madera County's top administrator.

Under Navarrette's proposal, Fresno County won't hire replacements. Instead, he would move Catherine Huerta, director of Children and Family Services, to head the new Social Services Department. Child Protective Services would be added to a department that has more than 1,500 employees and administers welfare, employment and other services.

Perea, who has criticized Child Protective Services in recent years, doesn't like the idea.

"By putting CPS in the county's largest department, children may be overlooked and put in danger," he said.

Anderson also thinks Child Protective Services won't get the oversight it needs in such a large department.

Navarrette disagreed, although he conceded that workloads would increase in the Behavioral Health and Social Services departments as supervisors assume new responsibilities.

Anderson and Perea also worry about moving children's mental-health services to the county's Behavioral Health Department, which now runs adult mental-health programs.

The idea has been proposed before, most recently by Perea. But Perea said he would only support a merger of mental-health programs if it included Child Protective Services.

Dr. Morton Rosenstein, a physician and chairman of the county's foster care oversight committee, shares Anderson's and Perea's concerns. The committee expects to make a recommendation on the proposal later this month.

"Fresno County is unique in that children's mental health works with Children and Family Services and it has worked very well," he said. If they are separated, Rosenstein said, "they won't work as well together."

Anderson also worries about communication between children's mental-health and protective care, should they be split into separate departments.

"More children's cases will fall through the cracks," she said.

Children in the foster-care system would not notice any changes and would be served by the same people who see them now, Huerta and Navarrette said.

County workers responsible for foster care would continue to communicate with those responsible for mental health, just as they do now, Navarrette said.

Curt Thornton, a member of the county's Mental Health Board, said moving children's programs to Behavioral Health would add to the burdens of an overworked management staff. The board has not made a recommendation, but Thornton said he is leaning toward opposing the plan.

"You've had someone who has been a virtual workaholic, and I don't know how much longer she's going to last," he said, referring to Behavioral Health director Giang Nguyen. "We're talking about a fundamental change."

Nguyen doesn't dispute his assessment, but still supports the plan. "The workload will increase for everyone," she said.

Annual Tea and Fashion Show helps foster care youth to make it in college

Program helps foster kids finish college
Hulbert, Cynthia. Sacramento Bee, Oct. 12, 2009.

Brittany Chamalbide was more than ready for her Heidi Klum moment.

Makeup? Flawless. Hair? Perfectly coiffed. Chamalbide was rocking a clingy red dress and strappy black sandals, and the runway was beckoning.

"I'm super excited," said Chamalbide, 18, as she prepared for her modeling debut. "This feels like a real fashion show."

It was real, and it was important. The annual event was a benefit fundraiser for scholarships and other educational necessities for foster youths, like her, who have "timed out" of the system at age 18.

Surveys suggest that 80 percent of foster children want to go to college, said Joni Pitcl, president of the Foster Youth Education Fund, the nonprofit group that sponsored Sunday's event. Only 3 percent actually go, however, and only 1 percent finish.

Many youngsters leave the foster care system without the funds, confidence and support to navigate college, Pitcl said. "For these kids, a flat tire can turn their lives into a tailspin," she said. They need support and guidance, but they have nowhere to turn."

The annual Tea and Fashion Show has raised about $200,000 over the past seven years, helping dozens of foster youth go to school and manage their educational expenses.

Each year in Sacramento County, about 250 youths "age out" of foster care, and a shaky economic climate and government budget cuts have hit them particularly hard this year, Pitcl said.

More than 300 people attended this year's fashion show at California State University, Sacramento, which also included a silent auction and raffle of donated items. Part of the proceeds from the event will go to the university's Guardian Scholars Program, which helps needy students with academic counseling, financial advice, social support and mentors.

Chamalbide and some 50 other young models wore outfits Sunday supplied by Macy's in Sunrise Mall, and they wore them proudly.

"I love it," Alex Gonzalez, 20, said of his white shirt with snap buttons, black jacket and jeans. "It works for me. I would totally wear this shirt, if I could afford it. It costs $90!"

As the minutes ticked by and the spotlight got closer, Gonzalez and his fellow models peeked from backstage at the runway that they soon would own. Music was thumping, and the house was packed. VIP seats lined the stage.

"I'm pretty proud to go out there," Chamalbide said.

Sure, they had butterflies. But these models were not easily flustered. After all, each of them had endured far scarier things in their young lives.

"Going through all of that stuff, it's a struggle," said Mark Hamlett, who was separated from his siblings at age 11 and placed in foster care. "But I'm OK now," said Hamlett, who turns 18 next week. "I think I'll be fine."

Chamalbide, Gonzalez and Hamlett all are students at Sacramento State, thanks in part to the Foster Youth Education Fund. So, as they took to the runway Sunday, they did so with plans for diplomas and careers.

"I feel really good," Chamalbide said.

Then she and the others stepped onto the stage, and toward a bright future.

Does privitization help or hurt children?

Is privatization good for foster kids?
Heimpel, Daniel. Los Angeles Daily News, Oct. 12, 2009.

A 2-year-old boy in foster care died in Siskiyou County this summer. Across the rural, sparsely populated county in far Northern California, people looked to blame someone, something for his death.

Was it the fault of the woman taking care of the toddler, the third foster parent in twice as many months? Was it the fault of Child Protective Services? Or was it the fault of the private, nonprofit foster care agency that the county had entrusted with the toddler's life?

Between sobs, the social worker from the private agency that had placed the boy told me that this was just a tragic and random event. She said that speculating on this incident was hurtful to the people involved.

But I am of a different mind. When a child dies, it is imperative to scrutinize the cumulative cause of a child's passing.

In this case the child was left in the care of a 77-year-old woman. The toddler had been moved from the home of another foster parent three weeks earlier - a home where the young boy was thriving, according to both a CPS report and statements from neighbors.

The foster mother who the toddler was taken from can't stop crying. In the five months that the brown-haired boy lived with her, she had loved him, even wanted to adopt him. She holds pictures in her shaking hand: the boy splashing in a baby pool on her front lawn, of him smiling in her arms and of him lying in a baby-blue casket, a wreath of white atop his head.

And from a well of rage she levels a strong accusation: The private, nonprofit foster care agency that took him from her did so to maintain a placement, keep a kid in care and thus keep state money flowing in. This estimation is cynical. People who work in child welfare, overwhelmingly do so out of a love for children - but that love is not shared by profit's unbending bottom line.

While the director of the private, nonprofit agency that had taken the boy would not discuss the case in detail, he did take time to tell me how business was for the hundreds of private, nonprofit foster family agencies, or FFAs, that have popped up all over rural California and the rest of the country.

"Of course, it is very important that we continue to get placements and foster parents," he said. If not, his agency and all his competitors would be out of business; keeping kids in care keeps bread on his table.

In 1986 the California State Legislature allowed the development of FFAs. The intent was that these private entities would come in to place children with special needs. Despite the narrow intention of the state, FFAs did what profit-driven organizations do: They multiplied, and soon the foothold they had in foster care was an escalator.

By 1996 there were around 14,500 children placed by FFAs in California. And by January 2008, the peak, more than 20,000 kids were placed in FFAs, according to the California Department of Social Services. The number is even more significant when considering the trend of reduced overall numbers of foster children in care. From a peak of nearly 90,000 total kids in care in 1998 the number has steadily dropped to 65,000 in early 2009. Today well over one-third of California foster children are not cared for by the state, but by private, nonprofit agencies.

In rugged Siskiyou County, 110 of 123 total foster children are placed by foster family agencies, according to county's Human and Health Services director. And as agencies like the one that moved the now-deceased 2-year-old have taken over care, the director explains that HHS has "turned a lot of responsibility over to the foster family agencies." In the case of the young boy who died in August, the move was precipitated by the private agency not the public one.

This harkens to a deep-seated belief in this country that if a public service like foster care is faltering, private enterprise can come in and do it more efficiently. In Florida, foster care was privatized after four of five pilot programs crashed and burned. Today there is no way to judge its success because there is no effective monitoring program in place. Kansas, one of the pioneers of privatization, has been lambasted for its performance, and in rural California the results have been mixed.

In Siskiyou County where 87.4 percent of children are placed with FFAs compared with 43.9 percent of the general California foster care population, county social workers were 10 percent less likely to make their mandated monthly visits than their colleagues across the state, according to statistics furnished by UC Berkeley's Center for Social Services Research. Public social workers, pushed to the limits by heavy caseloads, take advantage of private social workers because there is simply not enough time in the day to see every child.

While in Yreka, the Siskiyou County seat, I stopped into another of the foster agencies that dot the small town. I sat with a woman who felt that she was doing God's work by helping children. But she also realized that doing God's work was contingent on keeping the money flowing, on keeping kids in care. "To be honest. It's about the placements, that's the bottom line," she said.

For the young boy buried on the long flank of Siskiyou County's towering Mount Shasta, we may never know how much the bottom line contributed to his death. But the question must be floated: Can we as a society be engaged in privatizing our children?

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.

Free dental care for foster care youth in Sacramento

Verizon Foundation helps 400 foster children
Robertson, Kathy. Sacramento Business Journal, Sept. 21, 2009.

More than 400 foster-care students in Sacramento will get free dental care thanks to a telemedicine project funded by a $100,000 start-up grant from the Verizon Foundation.

The project was created by the California Dental Association, University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry and the California Health Care Foundation to improve access to care.

The grant by the philanthropic arm of Verizon will support the first year of a project at Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento and a second site in Southern California.

The four-year pilot project will improve access to dental services in 15 community locations across California by giving participating dentists the technological ability to examine patients remotely with help from dental hygienists and dental assistants in underserved communities.

After remote exams, dental hygienists and assistants will perform preventive and temporary treatment. More complex cases will be referred to dentists.

The collaboration “demonstrates that when partnerships are formed, we can still do great things in and for our communities even during times of unprecedented budgetary constraints,” Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said in a news release.

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.

Fostering Connections Act passed... will states deliver?

Rooftop Foster Kids
At 18, they lose their foster parents and become homeless. A law may help them
Heimpel, Daniel. LA Weekly, March 18, 2009.

The corner of Hollywood and Western is the epicenter of an underground world: a community outside the collective vision of club-hoppers and restaurant-goers rushing by, and one forgotten by public policy. Homeless youth, many cast off at 18 by the foster-care system, root out lives in a dim, moldy labyrinth of “abandos” — abandoned buildings hidden behind storefronts and the busy boulevard.

They “cop a squat” — sit on the hard concrete benches at the Metro station across from City Council President Eric Garcetti’s field office, and climb onto roofs to get above the cops and the sometimes-unsafe world below.

For most foster children, turning 18 means their case will be terminated — although the euphemism long used by the government for what happens to these young adults is “emancipation.”

Social workers and other experts say that, with that sudden loss of any temporary parent they may have known, often comes too much responsibility. A large number of the 1,200 foster youth who “age out” of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) every year can’t cope any more than a teenager suddenly kicked out by parents at 18. The Children’s Law Center says that within two years of losing foster care, half will be unemployed, a quarter will have been imprisoned, and one-fifth will be homeless.

Rico, 21, and Starr, 20, are walking in front of the Starbucks at the northeast corner of Hollywood and Western. Rico is slightly smaller than Starr, who is two months pregnant. A few hundred feet north of Hollywood Boulevard they cut into a parking lot.

“You gotta move kinda quick,” Rico says, wary of police who troll these areas. Rico crouches and moves through a hole cut in a chainlink fence, and wades into high weeds in the forgotten backyard of a slumping apartment building. Nearby stands the skeleton of a burned-out house.

He dashes through an alley and hops through a window, into another abandoned building. Standing inside the black, moldy honeycomb of rotted walls, he hears a sound. “Who’s there?” he calls into the darkness. The noises stop. The air is cold, damp and filled with the pungent odor of rot.

Starr reaches inside a large handbag in which she hoards potato chips and chicken, which, she admits, she steals from Ralph’s. She pulls out a key and opens a locked door on one corridor. Light spills in, just enough to illuminate a sodden floor that’s spongy underfoot. There is a gaping hole in the ceiling’s Sheetrock. The windows are boarded shut, sunlight sketching the gaps along the window edges. Rico lights a candle, shedding faint light on the young couple’s twin bed.

The thumping that Rico had heard appears — a human shadow crosses the doorway. “Just trying to spook you, man,” says Jason, a young man who sleeps on a mattress nearby.

Rico and Starr laugh nervously, but it’s not that funny. In these abandos everything is spooky. Rico hates seeing his breath when it’s cold. It reminds him of ghosts.

Starr reaches for a can of disinfectant and sprays it wildly. “The mildew smell is too much,” she says. “We just come in here to sleep.”

“Yeah, let’s go get some air,” Rico says. The two leave Jason in the depths and re-enter the world outside.

Rico, like two of his four siblings, grew up in L.A.’s foster-care system. At 17 he was involved in a robbery and went to juvenile hall. When he came out at 18, he was already too old. His foster care had been terminated. The best thing that’s happened in the three years since was finding Starr in a shelter for homeless youth.

Rico is one of 25,000 foster youth nationally who grow too old for foster care each year, and his story is not uncommon.

Major changes could be on the way, because national child welfare–policy leaders no longer believe the notion that 18-year-olds can fend for themselves. Last week, a top researcher on the failures of foster youth programs released the first cost-benefit analysis that delved into the idea of keeping youth in foster care past 18, invigorating a drive to change the law.

Former President George W. Bush signed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, which includes a new law offering federal funding to states that extend the age to 21 for foster youths who choose to stay. But to get that money, states must pass enabling legislation and match those funds, which in rough economic times makes it a daunting effort.

California Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass is pushing enabling legislation to fund a $70 million program, targeted at 18- to 21-year-olds, for the roughly 4,500 California foster youth who lose their safety nets every year. “At 18, kids with families can’t survive on their own in this economy,” Bass says. “What do you think it’s like when you have nobody?”

The nationwide study released March 9 makes the first fiscal argument for what is claimed by advocates anecdotally — that the long-term costs of abandoning young adults is much more expensive than helping them.

The study, which focuses on the increased earnings these youth earn if they manage to get a college education, concludes that keeping young adults in foster care could mean a $2.40 return on every dollar spent.

The report did not include the price of maintaining a population of former foster kids who hang out on the rooftops of tough urban areas for safety and sleep in abandoned buildings: the increased medical, prison, rehab, welfare and teen-pregnancy costs.

The study’s lead researcher, Mark Courtney, director of Partners for Our Children at the University of Washington, says foster youth are cut off at 18 because, historically, the foster-care apparatus did not want to take on extended caseloads. “If you talk to someone in the [children’s services] department, off the record they will probably tell you it is shameful that we do this,” he says.

In Los Angeles County, juvenile courts are charged with ensuring these youths have ID cards, Social Security cards and some idea where they are going to live, work or go to school — the basics that a parent would normally shepherd. Rhelda Shabazz, head of the Youth Services Department for DCFS, admits that some young people get pushed out of foster care when they are clearly not ready. “Although we know it does happen,” she says, “we trust the juvenile courts to fill their role as partner and gatekeeper.”

Some 400 “transitional housing” beds are available for the 1,200 youth fresh out of foster care each year in Los Angeles, as well as the roughly 2,000 who are still under 21 and, under the rules, can jostle for the same few beds.

Rico leads Starr to a “luxury” apartment building just off Hollywood Boulevard. He hops a gate, unlocks it for her, and in the elevator presses “R.”

The doors open. The air is fresh. The roof commands a view from downtown to the Hollywood sign. Rico takes off his shoes and dips his feet in the rooftop pool. The sun is pulling low and there’s a chill in the air.

Rico used to live up here, before the security guards caught on. Like other kids who try to get up off the streets, sometimes he would sleep under the sky and stare out at illuminated Griffith Observatory. When it got cold, he would climb into the crawlspace under the pool.

Although Starr never stayed up here with him, she immediately sees the appeal. “It’s a funny way to see the city,” she says. “I am always seeing places where I can sleep.”

“It’s really just us two,” Rico says. “If you got a girlfriend, that’s your best friend.” Starr looks at him and smiles. “I don’t know what I’d do without him,” she says. “Now I can understand why those older homeless people talk to themselves.”

In the growing gloom, Rico and Starr descend and head back to their room in an “abando,” hidden from the traffic coursing along Hollywood Boulevard.

Assembly bill would help put new federal policies and money to work for the state's kids

Editorial: Fixing foster care in California
Los Angeles Times, March 12, 2009.

For years, thousands of California youths were abused or neglected twice over -- first by parents who couldn't or wouldn't provide basic care, then by governmental agencies that sent them to live with strangers instead of extended family, only to cut them off from all support on their 18th birthdays. The state and many of its counties are now doing better, keeping foster children with family members whenever possible, and in some cases continuing care to age 21 to ensure that young adults have a place to live, adequate job training or admission to college.

Outmoded and foolishly restrictive federal laws discouraged humane and cost-saving innovations -- until last year, when Congress adopted a wide-ranging overhaul of federal foster care reimbursements. Now a state bill by two Assembly Democrats, Jim Beall Jr. of San Jose and Speaker Karen Bass of Los Angeles, would help put the new federal thinking -- and funding -- to work for California kids.

AB 12 would permit California to use federal money to pay half the cost of its kinship guardian program, allowing grandparents and other family members to get the same financial help that formerly could go only to group homes or unrelated foster parents. But that's just Part One. The money that the state and county would save because of the new federal participation would then go to extending services to foster youth until they become 21 -- and those dollars would in turn be matched by more new federal money.

The bill would represent a huge step forward in fulfilling the state's duty to see abused and neglected kids through childhood, in the care of loving family members when possible, and into college or paying jobs. But some caution is in order. As final language is hammered out, there may be pressure to divert savings to help with the state's budget woes instead of reinvesting in foster care. That would be a costly mistake; a study released Monday showed a $2.40 return for every dollar invested in extended foster care.

Some attention is needed on the federal side as well. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines issued in the waning days of the Bush administration restrict funding to "new" kinship-guardian relationships, not existing ones the state and counties already pay for. That punishes California for having done the right thing for families while waiting for Congress to catch up. Revising that language would help more kids here and further the purposes of the federal law.

The department also could help by making clear that emotional or mental health problems are sufficient medical reasons for extending foster care for young people between 18 and 21 who are incapable of holding a job or pursuing vocational, secondary or higher education. Lawmakers, both federal and state, certainly did not intend to push onto the street (or into more costly programs) those children most in need of help.

Financial incentive to support foster care youth until age 21

Selected recent California newspaper editorials
San Jose Mercury News, March 11, 2009.

San Francisco Chronicle: "To invest in our children"

California not only has a moral obligation to do more for the thousands of foster youth who "age out" of the system every year. It also has strong financial incentives to help support them to age 21.

The Fostering Connections Act, signed into law last year by President George W. Bush, will offer federal reimbursements to states that choose to extend foster care to age 21. To qualify, those foster youth would need to be enrolled in school or a job-training program, working at least 80 hours a month or unable to do any such activity because of a medical condition.

California needs to seize this opportunity to enhance the lives of its foster youth—while improving its bottom line in the process. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), and Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, have introduced state legislation (AB12) that would allow California to tap those federal funds for youths between 18 and 21.

Myriad studies have shown that the period immediately after "emancipation" at age 18 is the most precarious for a foster youth.

These young people—our children, our collective responsibility—are many times more likely than teenagers with family-support structures to become homeless, incarcerated or pregnant. Their chances of getting a college degree are somewhere in the single digits, according to various studies.

A new study of three states
(Illinois, which extends foster care benefits to age 21; and Iowa and Wisconsin, which do not) underscores the cost-benefit ratio of helping young adults get on the right track. The study found that each dollar spent on extended-years support to foster youths returns $2.40 as a result of their increased education alone. If anything, that cost-benefit analysis is extremely conservative, considering the state costs of incarceration, teen pregnancy, homelessness and mental-health programs.

Fortunately, the top leaders in Sacramento understand all this. Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, have long championed the cause of foster care. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed significant reform legislation that has brought more accountability and services into the system.

Bass, Steinberg and the governor's health and human services director all participated at a Monday news conference in support of AB12. If the measure is passed by legislators and signed into law, California would be eligible for federal reimbursement in October 2010.

This one deserves fast, bipartisan approval.

Extending Foster Care to Age 21 is a proven solution

Advocates Want Foster Care Extended
March 9, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KCBS) - Some California officials are pushing a plan to extend foster care for kids until they are 21-years-old. They cite a new study that says it would save the state millions of dollars in the long run.

California isn't exactly flush with money right now, but the federal government passed a law last fall that offers $80 million in matching funds, if the state keeps young adults in foster care after they turn 18.

Kevin West, 23, spent years in foster homes, group homes, sleeping in cars and on benches and beaches in Santa Cruz. "Many foster youth know too well from their days being in the system that many of them will not make it. And they're not expected to make it, really. Most of them, after emancipation, find themselves living on the streets, they're incarcerated or their lives end prematurely."

A new study of foster extension programs in the Midwest find at least a 2-to-1 cost-benefit for the states, so San Jose Assemblyman Jim Beall said it's worth it for California to continue foster care for the 18 to 21-year-old group. "In states that provide the kind of support proposed by this bill, AB 12, the outcome for foster care youth have been dramatically improved. So this is a proven solution."

Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to support foster youth until age 21

Governor Schwarzenegger Supports Extending Federal Foster Care
Imperial Valley News, March 9, 2009.

Sacramento, California - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued the following statement today in support of extending AFDC-FC benefits to California’s foster youth up to the age of 21:

“I am committed to working with Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg on a bipartisan solution that ensures our children and youth in foster care are provided with the tools needed to succeed at life. Along with our federal partners, together we can better equip our youth by making sure they continue to have access to important resources and services as they transition into adulthood. I look forward to continue working across the aisle with the legislature and our federal and local partners on an issue important to so many Californians.”

The Governor last year signed a package of bills aimed at improving the lives of children and youth in California’s foster care system by making it easier for caregivers and providers to access the resources they need to protect one of the state’s most vulnerable populations. The legislation makes it easier for caregivers who receive CalWORKS grants to reapply after relocating within the state, increases access to the alternative foster care programs for youth in need of additional support, and provides for the continuation of federal child welfare funding.

Last year, the Governor also signed AB 2310 and AB 2483 to ensure that youth aging out of the foster care system have access to resources and services, including financial aid, career services and other benefits. In addition, the Governor’s Department of Social Services worked in conjunction with the U.S. Social Security Administration to quickly adopt a federal provision in 2008 to ensure implementation of AB 1331 by Assemblymember Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) making it possible for foster youth to leave foster care with approved benefits in place rather than waiting months to receive them.

In 2007, the Governor signed a series of bills to further enhance foster care services in California. And in 2006, the Governor signed a package of legislation designed to improve California’s foster care system and the safety of children entrusted to the state’s care. Also in 2006, the Governor secured a first-of-its-kind federal waiver that provides unprecedented flexibility by allowing counties to use federal funds to support innovative strategies that keep children out of foster care and in safe, stable homes.

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.

Foster care youth need a seat at the table to create positive change

My View: Foster care system can be changed for the better
Chantel Johnson, Chantel. Sacramento Bee, Oct. 19, 2008.

Few people here in Sacramento have as close a connection to the policies they propose as I do. When I work on legislation with foster youths and advocates, it's personal.

Between the ages of 7 and 17, I lived in 10 different foster-care homes. I was the youngest of five children, and my journey through the system began when my mother became addicted to drugs. My father was in Ohio and unable to care for us, so we relied on relatives and foster families throughout California.

The chaos of home life soon translated into trouble at school. I was kicked out of junior high three times for acting out – getting into a fight, giving counselors a hard time and skipping classes. In high school, I joked that I showed up for two periods: breakfast and lunch.

Toward the end of high school, I moved to a group home. There I met housemates who had experienced much worse things in the homes they were shuffled in and out of – and in the foster-care system in general.

Many of their personal struggles matched or foreshadowed disturbing statistics that are all too common for foster youths: Fewer than half graduate from high school. Among those who do, less than 2 percent earn a college degree. And within two years of turning 18, half of all foster youth will find themselves homeless, in prison or on welfare.

That's why I'm now dedicated to working with and on behalf of the 77,000 foster children in California to fix the system. I say "with" because the young people themselves must have a seat at the table if we, as a state, are to truly understand – and improve – their situations.

Today, I work for California Youth Connection, a nonprofit that took the unprecedented step 20 years ago of involving foster youths in every step of its legislative work. That includes drafting recommendations, educating lawmakers at hearings and in district offices, and working to build a statewide grassroots movement to keep foster care on the front burner.

It's working. In 2006-07, our recommendations contributed to the enactment of an unprecedented 14 new laws and an additional $82 million for foster care in the state budget – the largest increase in more than a decade.

Others have noticed the results. CYC's leaders – Executive Director Janet Knipe, Associate Director Tiffany Johnson and Board Chair Tonia High- tower – recently were awarded the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for successfully tackling some of California's critical challenges with practical solutions.

And the work continues. At our annual legislative summit last month in San Diego, 115 foster youths from 28 chapters around the state developed our latest round of policy recommendations for legislators.

These ideas that come from personal experience are worth pursuing:

• Collaboration between county programs and the state university system to develop a college preparation program for foster youths in grades nine to 12.

• Providing a school district liaison to offer college information to foster youths at the start of high school.

• Representation of foster youths on county advisory boards that deal with transitional housing and other basic needs for the first years of adulthood.

• Creation of a network of career and educational specialists who focus on assisting current and former foster youths with career and educational endeavors.

• Extending Medi-Cal services from age 21 to 24 for foster youths.

These are all steps in the right direction. Failing to enact them is a missed opportunity, and scaling back funding for existing foster-care services is a dangerous step backward.

We know that this is a year of deficits and painful cuts in services, but cutting services to children should never be an option. If you think that the state coffers are hurting, think about how such a downturn affects people at the very bottom.

I've been there, and I'm working with bright, courageous foster youths every day to remind elected officials that progress comes from changing, not shortchanging, the system.

Transitional housing in Tuolumne County for youth emancipating from foster care

Transitional home will help those leaving care
Hansen, B. J. MML News Reporter, Sept. 20, 2008.

Sonora, Ca -- A transitional home for young adults that are exiting the foster care system should be constructed by next Spring in Tuolumne County.

Child Welfare Services Program Manager Linda Downey says this type of home is needed, due to some unfortunate statistics.

“In Tuolumne County, approximately 17% of our youths who emancipate from foster care are homeless within 12 months,” says Downey. “Approximately 10% commit law violations as adults, 12% become parents within 24 months of leaving the foster care system, and approximately 21% leave the system without a high school diploma.”

Because of the sensitive nature of the topic, officials are declining to release the address of the new home. It will have five beds and be around 5000 square ft. in size. Funding for the project came from a $1 million California Housing and Community Development Grant.

Downey adds that Tuolumne County has around 80-90 youths in the foster care system at any given time. Individuals between the ages of 18-24 will be eligible for the housing program, and they can remain for 24 months. They will also be taught ways to budget money and receive assistance in searching for jobs.

A Home Within connects foster youth with volunteer therapists

Jefferson Award: Presented to Toni Heineman
Moody, Shelah. San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 24, 2008.

When Toni Heineman, a clinical professor in the pediatrics and psychiatry department at UCSF, realized that foster children in the Bay Area were not getting the mental health services they needed, she took action.

In 1994, Heineman founded a nonprofit called A Home Within, which connects foster youth with volunteer therapists in communities across the country.

"All of these children have been traumatized in some way," Heineman said. "Mostly, they come into the foster care system because they've been neglected, but they've been removed from their families - and that in and of itself is a trauma. Often, they've been removed from their families repeatedly as they go from one foster home to another. Everybody tries to make it stable, but it's really hard. It's often very difficult for them to trust people, because they have not had much experience with people actually being there day after day."

During her years of study, Heineman noticed that foster children had limited access to counseling and psychotherapy because they didn't have consistent parental care and their families didn't have much money.

"A lot of us see foster kids when we're in training as interns or residents," she said. "It's an interest that grew over time - it wasn't a sudden 'aha' moment."

After receiving a doctorate in mental health, Heineman became a licensed clinical psychologist and went into private practice in San Francisco. She chose to focus on the needs of foster children and later continued her efforts by founding A Home Within, of which she is executive director.

More than 300 therapists in chapters across the country volunteer to work with foster youths in cities including San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami and Washington. Each chapter is maintained by a clinical director who organizes the efforts of volunteer therapists and consultants.

"The concept is very simple," Heineman said. "We ask senior clinicians in the community to offer their time pro bono to lead consultation groups. For the therapists who (work with us), each of them agree to take just one child weekly for (free) psychotherapy and to work with the kid in the same way they would if the child's parents were able to pay. In other words, they work until the work is done, not because of policy changes or funding cuts or all of the other things that go along with being part of a public system.

"We're really saying that the private sector is available to help; we are part of the system, too, and we should be helping out the public system that is charged with the care of foster kids. This is one small contribution that we can make."

Heineman, who has two adult children, said she feels privileged that her young clients are willing to share their stories with her. Her motivation is to help foster children lead happy, healthy lives.
An unusual aspect of A Home Within is that its therapists and counselors continue to work with foster children after they are emancipated at age 18.

"What we are finding is that these young adults who are emancipating from the system, who for years as teenagers said that they did not want any therapy, are coming back, calling and asking to have therapy," Heineman said.

She said that her long-term goal is to make A Home Within's services available to all foster children.

"Every single child needs one stable, caring adult in their lives in order to thrive," Heineman said, "whether it's a therapist, who can help the child form better, healthier relationships with other people, or a biological parent, a caregiver or an adoptive parent."

For more information about A Home Within, go to www.ahomewithin.org

Each week, The Chronicle features a Bay Area resident who has won a Jefferson Award for making a difference in his or her community. The awards are administered by the American Institute for Public Service, a national foundation that honors community service. Bay Area residents profiled in The Chronicle are also featured on CBS5-TV and KCBS-AM, which are Jefferson Award media partners, along with The Chronicle.