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Tina Turner’s legacy is perseverance: Doing something despite difficulty or delay in reaching success; continuing to pursue a commitment despite obstacles in the way.
She grew up feeling unloved and unwanted. She experienced kinship care, parental abandonment, and domestic abuse. These two quotes capture her perspective:
What would it look like:
It would look like the beautiful example that I saw during my visit to Hope Landing on Wednesday, May 17, 2023. I wish with all my heart that each and every one of Ohio’s (diverse, budget strapped, focusing on other things) counties had a local partner who was willing to make this level of commitment.
Hope Landing is a short-term transitional housing unit located in the Newark-Heath area that gives youth a chance to get on their feet. It provides former foster youth with a safe place to live while connecting them with community services and mentoring to help them get a job, obtain a driver’s license, and learn how to live independently. Hope Landing is a place for youth in transition to catch their breath, figure out next steps, and prepare to and move on to a successful future.
Link to more photos.
I was honored to be named a REFCA Champion and to be interviewed by Angela Tucker as part of the INNOVATE! podcast series. The acronym stands for: Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America.
Here's a link to the interview:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1885968/12800858
Show Notes: REFCA Champion Lisa Dickson is involved in a wide array of initiatives in Ohio that amplify and honor youth voice and experience. She works diligently to ensure that young people living in foster care are designing and implementing on the federal level, including speaking directly to HUD leadership. In this episode of INNOVATE!, Lisa shares the story of how she helped create a youth-specific Ombudsman Office and how she advocated for the inclusion of youth voice and leadership in the passing of the Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities Act.
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) provides federal funding to states to prevent and respond to child abuse and neglect. It requires states to facilitate mandated reporting and procedures to respond to ensure children’s safety. This federal bill expired in 2015 and is still awaiting renewal.
Foster care is imperfect and many aspects of it can be improved. However, without foster care, my siblings and I would have continued to experience abuse without intervention. As a child, I often wished that someone would stop by my house and witness the abuse that my siblings and I were experiencing. I hear stories about other kids whose summers were filled with sunny day adventures. My summers were filled with abuse and fear.
Being placed in foster care created a seismic shift from the environment of my childhood. It gave me a new understanding that a home could be physically and emotionally safe. It provided me with a different mindset about relationships and what it means to be a man.
Claims have been made by family rights advocates that Children’s Services has a hidden agenda to surveil and regulate families of color, for the purpose of taking more youth into care. What I’ve witnessed is the opposite: Within the overworked foster care system, young people of color must often report their abuse many times before their voices are heard.
The abuse that took place within my family was deeply ingrained and life-threatening. We were deliberately insulated from authorities by my father, and told, “What happens in the home stays in the home.” It was my sister who found the courage to tell a teacher what was happening. Even after doing so, she had to take the next step and run away, to further demonstrate the danger of our living situation.
It’s important to note that disproportionality among races within the foster care system exists -- but it does not exist within a vacuum. Our nation’s housing, education, health care and policing systems are overshadowed by a history of racial inequities and racist practices. Addressing those structural issues will help improve outcomes for families of color. Linking families with services and resources can assist in many circumstances. But, in situations of abuse, the safety of youth can never be sacrificed.
As a survivor of abuse, I want to emphasize that children and teens of all races and ethnicities deserve to be protected. It is vitally important that youth safety remains first and foremost. Experiencing abuse as a child doesn’t just impact your present – without intervention, it can undermine your future. At the very time as a child when you are developing autonomy, the abusive surroundings are robbing it from you.
When it comes to national conversations regarding the renewal of the CAPTA legislation, there is one more voice that hasn’t and cannot be heard: The voices of children and teens who have lost their lives due to abuse.
A 2021 study by Case Western Reserve University’s Schubert Center for Child Studies revealed that Cuyahoga County’s “rate of confirmed abuse or neglect-related child deaths is significantly higher than the national average.”
In my role as a Youth Ambassador for the OHIO YAB (Overcoming Hurdles in Ohio Youth Advisory Board), I will continue to advocate for safeguards to protect today’s young people. My goal is to leave a legacy of better and ongoing protections for those who experience abuse as a child.
~ Jonathan Thomas credits the foster-care system with turning around his life and that of his siblings after they suffered abuse as children and were removed into foster care. He currently serves as a youth ambassador for the Overcoming Hurdles in Ohio Youth Advisory Board, a statewide organization of youth ages 14 to 21 who’ve experienced foster care.
My early morning thoughts after reading about youth spending nights in Franklin County Children Services offices...
Sometimes complex issues like this one can be like the story about the Seven Blind Mice and the Elephant. In that story, one mouse touches the elephant’s foot, goes back to his fellow mice and tells them it’s a pillar. The next day, another mouse goes out, touches the elephant’s trunk and reports back to tell them that, no, it’s a snake. The following day, another mouse touches one of the tusks and says it’s a spear. And so on.
Until finally one brave mouse has the courage and the fortitude to explore the entire elephant. She doesn’t just see the issue from one angle. She runs up one side and down the other. She studies it from top to bottom, and from end to end. And then reports back that the Something is: “As sturdy as a pillar, as supple as a snake, as wide as a cliff, as sharp as a spear…” and all the other descriptions. Because that Something is an Elephant.
This is the story that comes repeatedly to my mind when it comes to this issue, the underlying factors, and thinking outside the box when it comes to solutions to effectively address it.
Because 'Elephant in the Room' is that:
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| Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell |
On Wednesday, January 11, 2023, Cieria Roman, Raven Grice and Lisa Dickson participated in a virtual meeting with Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell and Policy Advisor LeVine Ross to discuss safety concerns related to Cuyahoga County youth, especially those that have been spending the nights in the Jane Edna Hunter building on a regular basis since 2018.
This was preceded by a prior meeting with Councilman Dale Miller, during which he recommended that we speak with Councilwoman Conwell.
Ohio youth leaders shared their concerns and recommendations, and how important that it is to have foster care youth and alumni at the table. Because it is our lived experience that brings a sense of urgency. Today's youth and young adults often come up with creative solutions that others might not think of...
As Cieria said, “We come ready, we come with our hearts, we come with solutions. These are our brothers and sisters and this is our legacy.”
We also shared:
Councilwoman Yvonne Conwell followed up by sending a message of thanks, and some ideas for next steps forward.
In 2022...
2023 will be a year of continued advocacy for...
To the tune of: 12 Days of Christmas
Love, love, love these messages of encouragement, created during the early Thanksgiving dinners...
You can click the images below to enlarge them.
Here's a link to more photos.
It makes my heart incredibly happy that Ohio’s very first Youth Ombudsman, Jenny Stotts, was honored as one of Adoption Network Cleveland’s two 2022 Triad Advocates of the Year. She entered foster care as a baby, was adopted and her adoptive parents still serve as foster parents today.
She and Assistant Youth Ombudsman Jeff Phillips would love our help in letting youth know about the Youth Ombudsman Office. Ohio foster care youth, alumni and allies first began advocating for a Youth Ombudsman Office in 2018. We met with legislators, gave testimony, and worked with CDF Ohio to build up a coalition. Let’s continue to spread the word, and let youth know how to contact the office.
The 2022 Central Ohio Thanksgiving Together for current and former foster youth took place on Sunday, November 20, 2022 from 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm, at Reynoldsburg High School’s Summit Campus, 8579 Summit Road, Reynoldsburg OH 43068.
This ACTION Ohio event was made possible due to support from Reynoldsburg City Schools, the Leo Club, the Dave Thomas Foundation, the Tzedakah Collective, Beth Tikvah's Sisterhood, Randi Lewis, the Junior League of Columbus, Bethany Workman, Cieria Ramon, Andi Atwood and Cece Norwood.
As Vinney Male mentioned during the 2022 SW Ohio Thanksgiving dinner, even as we come together to celebrate our annual Thanksgiving reunions, we also want to remember members of our chosen family - foster care alumni and allies - who are no longer with us:
2022 Southwest Ohio Thanksgiving Together for current and former foster youth took place on Saturday, November 12, 2022 from 12:30 – 3:00 pm, at the Emerge Banquet Center, 2960 West Enon Road, Xenia OH 45385.
This ACTION Ohio event was made possible due to support from local churches, the Emerge Emancipation Program, the Dave Thomas Foundation, My Very Own Blanket, Zachary Super and Midwestern Plumbing Services.
One of my college friends wrote a poem about me for my 21st birthday. She said it captured my personality. I was surprised, because I had never told her that a nearby creek was the one place I felt safe as a child.
She Walks in the Creek Bed
I looked down into the creek bed and saw her
Her with the flowers in her baskets, that she’d saved from the rocks
Her with the daisies in her eyes, that she’d saved from the current’s knocks
And you can’t see where she’s been brought down
And thrown to the ground
Because the water swallows splashes to keep singing
And so does she
And she’s beautiful, the girl with the flowers in her baskets
She’s beautiful, the girl without anything at all
Not because she walks in the creek bed
But because she’s coming out
