Foster Youth and Social Determinants of Health

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the non-medical conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and grow older. These factors dictate a vast majority of overall well-being and life expectancy, often outweighing genetics or direct medical care.

Viewing their experience through a "social determinants of health" lens can help individuals, communities, populations, and governments better understand the many factors that influence their health and well-being.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur before the age of 18. These experiences—such as abuse, neglect, and household instability—disrupt a child’s sense of safety and stability, and can lead to lifelong health, behavioral, and economic challenges.

When it comes to foster youth and alumni:

• What is the real intention of ACES?
• How could the system better support physical and emotional safety?
• How could the system better help youth develop coping mechanisms and heal from trauma?
• How could the system better listen to youth concerns, including rights violations?

Foster care youth and alumni are at risk of overmedication. For example, trauma in young children can lead to be behavior that looks like ADHD. The multiple systems that serve foster youth can do more to equip and empower them when it comes to:

• Developmental Assets
• Developmental Relationships
• Alternatives to “talk therapy”

When it comes to education access and quality, resources have increased from when I "aged out" foster care. But college costs and other challenges have increased as well. Areas for improvement include:

• K-12 and Post-Secondary Supports
• Value of Cross-Systems Coordination

Foster youth aren't widgets on an assembly line. The environments we come from before entering foster care, the environments we are entrusted to during our time in care, and the level of care, thought and intention that is given to where we end up living afterwards -- each has an impact on us. This includes:

• Economic Stability: Before, during and after foster care
• Improved Transitions: Providing resources to support youth after they leave foster care to improve economic stability

A Harvard-Casey study demonstrated that foster care youth experience PTSD at a higher rate than Vietnam war veterans. Our rate of PTSD was five times higher than the general population. This points to:

• The need for trauma-informed care
• The importance of equipping and empowering young people to handle PTSD after foster care, by providing them with tools and helping them build coping skills.

Suits for Success 2026

Suits for Success welcomes additional professional clothing donations, to be given to current and former foster youth, ages 14-24, at the 2026 Leadership and Life Skills Summit.

We are looking for professional clothing items that current and former foster youth can wear to the workplace and during other important events in their lives.

Do you have clothing that is just sitting in your closet, that is still in great condition — but you literally know that you will never wear it again? 

Let the outfits that once brought you joy — and are still in great shape — bring joy to others, by donating them to Suits for Success. 

Going Out Like People Do

Lunch with the hubby today...

Birthday with the Kiddos

My birthday was filled with cuddles. Three days worth!

Link to more photos.

Some of my core beliefs

As former foster youth, we have the opportunity to:

• Seek to build a future that is brighter than our pasts
• Make things better for the next generation of foster youth
• Advocate to elevate the voices of young people in and from the foster care system

There is a way to make things better for others who have experienced our situation.

We have a responsibility to listen to our younger siblings of the foster care system. 

Volunteering behind the scenes is rich with purpose. I say this as someone who has been volunteering my time to support the OHIO YAB since 2006 -- almost 20 years. 

As a former foster, I volunteered my time before that as well. I went back to my prior placements, including group homes and emergency shelters, to seek to support current residents and give them hope. 

Steaksgiving 2025

 Just a glimpse of hubby love:

Window of Tolerance

I've been researching something called the Window of Tolerance. There are many images online that try to capture it in different ways. This is one of them.

We do our best work when we are in the Optimal Zone:

But things can happen that lead to hyper-arousal:

When that happens, what can we do to get back to feeling calm again?

Taking Care of My Candle

I was recently working on an assignment from a legislator to map out examples of young people in Ohio who lost their lives to abuse, including specific details on how these losses could have been protected. 

This assignment was an important one.

It also broke my heart:

• I’m a fixer - and I wanted to go back in time and fix each situation. 
• I’m a protector - and I wanted to step in to protect each child. 
• I expected myself to just push through, but there was an ache in my throat, and a feeling of danger in my nervous system that I needed to listen to...

Sometimes I think that those of us who have been at this work for a long time can expect ourselves to be super-human. Which isn’t really fair to ourselves. 

I’m trying to listen to my body this year, and take time to make sure I’m being attentive to my own needs. It’s a growth area. I’m calling it: Taking care of my candle. 

We had a Security Day at my workplace last year, and one of the trainers shared the quote above. He said that we need to normalize compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress as part of our work. He pointed out that it would be inhuman if we were able to witness such painful things and had no emotions about it and didn’t care. 

This is likewise true when it comes to how foster care advocacy work can intersect with both primary trauma and secondary traumatic stress. The next step is figuring out what to do, and how to care for ourselves when this happens. Not IF — but WHEN.