FCAA Ohio Thanksgiving 2009

The Ohio chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America greatly appreciate the sponsoring organizations that made this year's Thanksgiving event possible, and the press representatives who shared our message with the local community:

• Congregation Agudas Achim
  
• Capital University Student Government
• Kappa Sigma Upsilon
• Jewish Student Organization of Capital
• Catering By Scott
• Franklin County Children Services
• ODJFS
• Columbus Dispatch
• 10-TV
• Fox News
• Columbus Literacy Council

We thank Ohio First Lady Frances Strickland for taking time out of her busy schedule to attend, and participate in, this year's Thanksgiving gathering of current and former foster youth from all across Ohio.

Foster Care Alumni of America Ohio chapter Thanksgiving Reunion 2009

Thanksgiving dinner provided for those who have experienced foster care
Crane, Misti. Columbus Dispatch front page, Nov. 23, 2009.

SHARI LEWIS | Dispatch
Riccardo Rushin, 19, of Canton, talks with his Stark County group at a Thanksgiving dinner in Bexley that drew about 100 Ohioans, many of whom are or have been in foster care. Rushin has lived on his own since he turned 18 and "aged out" of foster care.

They might have nowhere to go Thursday, or somewhere that feels safe but is only temporary.

Young people who've known the hardship of living without family and who've been challenged to find strength despite a shaky foundation found communion yesterday at a meal that came four days before the holiday but embodied its spirit.

Thanksgiving is about family. It's about grace and gratitude.

For foster children and young adults who've moved beyond their temporary homes, family in its conventional sense can be elusive.

About 100 people from across the state, many of whom are in foster care or recently "aged out," as they say, gathered yesterday afternoon at Agudas Achim, a Bexley synagogue.

Thanks to the kindnesses of others and the dogged advocacy of former foster child Lisa Dickson, they found camaraderie and Thanksgiving.

Dickson founded the Ohio chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America. She's 36 and has a family of her own, but she remembers the feeling of isolation that could accompany the holidays, particularly when she was a young adult.

"There wasn't a family to come back to; there weren't those roots," Dickson said.

"For a lot of people, the holidays can be the loneliest part."

In and of itself, being a foster child can be lonely, said Alex McFarland, who is 19 and president of the Ohio youth advisory board. He said it's worse when those outside the situation misunderstand.

"A lot of people have the image that we've done something wrong, when more than likely somebody's done something wrong to us," said McFarland, who lives in a suburb of Dayton.

The dinner was the third-annual -- the first in Columbus -- and was made possible because of a $1,000 donation from Capital University's student government that paid for food. The synagogue gave its space free, said Gabriel Koshinsky, vice president of student government and president of the Jewish Student Union.

The meal yesterday offered an opportunity to meet new people and learn about opportunities for foster children. It also gave guests the chance to reclaim the sense of belonging.

Dre Williams, who is 18 and lives in a foster home, and Kadeem Monroe, who is 19 and on his own, came to Columbus with a group from Stark County.

"I don't know how many days I felt like I was the only foster child in the world," Monroe said.

People who aren't part of the system don't understand the challenges or the emotional burdens or even how foster care works, the two said.

Williams said he wishes more good people would embrace children who can no longer live with their families, and that fewer people would invite foster children into their homes primarily for the money.

He's now living with Jodi Wilson, who has been a foster mom to 14 kids over 17 years. She maintains ties with many of them, and has a warm rapport with Williams.

"These kids are alone, or I believe they feel alone," said Wilson, who also works as supervisor of Stark County's independent-living program.

Bringing them together as a family of sorts is important, Wilson said.

"They have a common language, common experiences," she said.

"I'm 52, and I still talk to my mother every day. They don't have that."

SHARI LEWIS | Dispatch
Lisa Dickson, a former foster child who founded Ohio's chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America, snaps a memory of the event she sought.

2009 Ohio Summit on Children

During the Governor's second of two Ohio Summits on Children, foster care youth and alumni shared their insights during roundtables on:

1. Funding

• Leveraging local funds
• Coping with the escalating cost of services
• Flexible funding
• Countering TANF reductions

2. Systemic Issues

• Establishing a shared vision
• Developing/maintaining a continuum of care in this economic climate
• Measuring outcomes/data
• Connecting data systems
• Reducing staff turnover

3. Behavioral Health

• Access to services
• Placement prevention/intensive home-based services
• Early screening for mental health and developmental needs
• Application of trauma-informed care

4. Education

• Increasing graduation rates and academic performance
• Engaging youth who do not adapt to traditional education
• Engaging families and building community partnerships
• Creating safe schools and healthy communities
• Supporting children with autism spectrum disorders and their families

5. Building and Sustaining Local Planning Teams

• Developing a high-functioning Family and Children First Council
• Engaging all partners
• Integrating Summit and HB 289 plans
• Developing leadership

6. Health

• Access to health care
• Timely screening and coordination of care
• Teen pregnancy
• Prevention and prenatal care

7. Out-of-Home Care

• Supporting kinship programs
• Ensuring the sufficient availability of foster homes
• Short-term residential/step-down care
• Timely adoption of children in permanent custody

8. Family Engagement

• Involvement of fathers
• Parenting skill development
• Parent advocacy/family-driven plans
• Families separated by incarceration

9. Youth in Court

• Truancy
• Violent youth crime
• Alternatives to incarceration/detention
• Disproportionate minority contact

10. Transitioning Youth Out of the System

• Youth employment/WIA
• Housing
• Health care needs
• Post-secondary education

Permanency Or Independent Living? It's NOT an Either/Or Situation

As a former foster child, I've been saying this for years:

"The child welfare system tends to focus on where to place youth.

"But regardless of placement, whether a young person ends up being adopted, reuniting with biological parents, being connected with family members or staying in a group home, foster home, institution or juvenile facility...

"They still need to have the tools necessary to build relationships and to ensure their long-term physical and emotional survival."

Glad that the experts are catching up!

Pieces of Me: Voices For & By Adopted Teens

Pieces of Me, Who do I Want to Be? is a collection of stories, poems, art, music, quotes, activities, and provocative questions for an adopted teen or young adult who wants to put the pieces of their adoption story together - but doesn’t know where to begin.

It is a book of voices, from ages 11 to 63, speaking honestly and authentically about what it means to be adopted. Most are adoptees from around the world – some are transracial, some are international, some are from foster care, some are young, some are old.

The book is separated into five sections:

• Gathering the Pieces
• Stolen Pieces
• Fitting the Pieces
• Sharing the Pieces
• Where do These Pieces Go?

Each chapter offers hope, encouragement, empowerment, and a sense of not being alone.

ISBN 9780972624442
www.emkpress.com/teenbook.html
info@emkpress.com

Filling Family Portraits: An Ohio Adoption Advocacy Event

Who: Adoption advocates, adoptive families, adoptees When: Friday, November 6th, 2009, from Noon - 1:00 p.m.
Where: The Ohio Statehouse, West Lawn, Statehouse Steps
Sponsored by: OACCA, PCSAO, Ohio Adoption Planning Group, Adoption Network Cleveland, OFCA, Ohio CASA, ODJFS, Children's Defense Fund, National Center for Adoption Law and Policy, IHS, and Voices for Ohio's Children.


Agenda:

• Pledge of Allegiance led by Rebecka and Moriah Miller
• Greg Kapcar, Public Children's Services Association of Ohio
• Penny Wyman, Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies
• Senator Eric Kearney
• Representative Marian Harris
• Peter Schoepflin, Adoptive Parent
• Christine Johnson, Adoptee
• Call to Action from Lisa Dickson, Foster Care Alumni of America Ohio chapter

Did You Know?
One in five children who are waiting in foster care to be adopted will have to leave the system without a family at age 18 or 21. As many as 26,000 children will "age out" in the U.S. alone. (AFCARS Report, U.S. Dept. HHS)

Lisa Dickson's Call to Action:
"I aged out of foster care in 1989 - but it wasn't until over a decade later, in the year 2000, that my picture frame was finally filled." (At this point Lisa held up her wedding photo). "I was 27 years old when I married my husband, and finally became a legal member of a forever family.”

“Our children shouldn't have to wait that long. We can do so much better for the young people in and from foster care today. Every year, over a thousand Ohio youth "age out" of the foster care system without being connected with forever families.”

"When I married my husband, I became a stepmother to his two beautiful daughters. We've been married for ten years now, and I learn more every day about what it's like to love two children who are not biologically my daughters - but whom I love more than anything.”

"As I watch my stepdaughters enter their teenage years, and young adulthood, I know that my husband and I will be there for them no matter what. They won't face the uncertainty that I faced as a child.”

"They will know that they are loved. They will know that they are safe. They will know that they have a place to belong to.”

"If they make a mistake while budgeting in college, they won't be homeless. If the road is difficult, I won't pull over the car, and tell them to get out. They will know that, even during the hard times, my love will still be there.”

"There are more than 3,000 children in Ohio who are waiting for that kind of assurance and certainty today.”

"Right now, at this moment, is an opportunity to fill their picture frames with our love. Our consistency. Our perseverance.”

"We who are here today have the strength to love, and the confidence to let adoptees tell us their story. We can build pictures of the future, and face pictures of the past. We can open our hearts and our homes, and provide FOREVER.”

Lisa Dickson, Communications Chair of Foster Care Alumni of America's Ohio chapter, speaks from the heart at the Nov. 6th Adoption Rally “Filling Family Portraits” on the Statehouse Steps. OACCA Weekly, Nov. 9, 2009.

Consequences of Dropping Out of High School

*Source of chart: Dillon, Sam. Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts. New York Times, Oct. 8, 2009.

According to Andrew Sum, Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern, being a dropout in 21st century America is one of the country’s costliest problems.

Learn more about:

- The Consequences of Dropping Out of High School

- The Costs and Benefits of an Excellent Education for All of America’s Children

(Please note that the link to the costs & benefits source is slower to load...)

Recessions Can Scar Children's Futures

I agree with Katie Couric that one story that hasn't been told is the impact of the recession on children and youth -- not just current struggles, but implications for the future.

Research by the Economic Policy Institute indicates the recessions create long-term hardships for children and families, putting children's futures at great risk.

Best Workshop I've Attended All Year

Anthony President is a Cuyahoga County trainer through the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program, who works for Lakeland Community College.

His workshop, Filtering the Noise for Young Black Boys, is based upon Anthony's concern is that Generation Y is being influenced by negative street culture, not just in the United States, but spilling out all over the world...

NOISE:
Boys are particularly negatively influenced by “noise;” negative imagery that glorifies “hood culture.” This noise can skew their perception, and impede positive messages, from parents, educators and pastors, from being heeded.

As William Isaac Thomas wrote, "How we define a situation influences how we respond to it."

Boys can be indoctrinated to believe that gang life is their only way to survive, that there is no other reality.

Young men are especially vulnerable to street culture if they have no hope, no vision, no plan for the future, no positive peers, no positive encouragement, and no positive role models.

SOURCES OF NOISE:
1. Parents: Role-play is very important to boys. They often receive their first lessons in the definition of manhood from family members. In some families, young men are being groomed to become hustlers.

2. Peers: Anthony discussed the gang recruitment process, and the evolution of posers into gang members.

3. Media: Generation Y is the most technically savvy generation. TV has replaced parents as the #1 storytellers. Videogames and music videos demonstrate the elevation of the anti-hero. And, on YouTube, just by checking a box that says they are over 18, young children can watch “mature” material.

4. Relatives, Neighbors, Surroundings: These influences can further paint a thug picture of reality.

Six ISMs:
1. THUGISM: The word “thug” comes from India, and refers to “gleeful killers.” The Thug Manifesto is based on anger towards mainstream society for exploiting poor people. Frustration has led to anger, which has led to hate.

The thug life is not a long-term lifestyle. Participants typically wind up broke, dead or in jail. This is why gang leaders are constantly seeking new recruits. Some children as young as eight years old are already trying to emulate older gang members.

2. GANGSTERISM: Gang culture has become a part of Americana. Former gang members write best-selling books, appear on talk shows and episodes of Law and Order. Gangsterism is a divisive ideology: one gang against the other.

Why might young people join gangs? Power, money and respect. Sense of identity and belonging. Escape from boredom. Desire for sex. Quest for safety. If a young person disobeys the gang's bylaws, two consequences are BOS (beat on sight) or TOS (terminate on sight).

3. PIMPISM: Ideology based on manipulation as a means of survival. Often involves the objectification and exploitation of women. The three Ps (p*****, pay and a place to stay).

4. HOODISM: Based on the idea that "this hood is all I have" and if any strangers trespass in the neighborhood, the proper response is to beat them up or kill them. This ideology is currently being challenged in the Give Me A Pass Campaign.

5. GHETTOISM: Celebrates the worst of African American stereotypes. Thinking in the short-term, money spent on luxury items.

6. SEXISM: Music can permeate our natural defense mechanisms. Listen to how women are portrayed on music videos and referred to in lyrics. What language is being used to describe women? Does it value women? Language precedes thought, and influences behavior and interpretation of social reality.

Anthony showed an excerpt from a documentary called War Zone. The young men in the video were trying to enact their personal fantasies, based on music videos, on real-life women. He also shared how Kazi and the Hip Hop Project channel music and abilities in a positive direction.

7. KEEP IT REALISM: This socially constructed definition of masculinity is rooted in white Italian gangster films like The Godfather. It is a narrow and destructive method of training boys to become men, which includes fronting to get respect, and mastering a tough guy pose: “You gotta look mean, or people won’t respect you.”

Masculinity is perceived as being based upon performance. Uncles tell their nephews to never back down from a fight. Crowds cheer on fights, and participants feel that they can’t back down, or they will lose face. Anthony asks, "Is there all there is to being a man? What about pride in being a protector or a provider?"

FILTER: When Anthony was a young man, growing up in Cleveland, the people around him helped him to develop an internal filter to screen out the noise (pervasive messages) of mass media and society. He learned that, if he used education as a vehicle, there was another reality in which he could exist.

To address street culture, we need to:
- Be as pervasive as the negative messages
- Equip young people with the tools to resist negative, pervasive messages
- Replace the language of the street (“Whassup, pimp?”) with the language of empowerment
- Provide young people with the resources they need to succeed, including the development of problem-solving activities
- Use the power of stories (success stories and/or cautionary tales)

Filters can be created by teaching young people:
- Personal responsibility
- Problem-solving skills
- Delayed gratification
- Available resources
- Positive ways to overcome challenges and barriers

It's vital for the adults in young men’s lives to teach them how to invest in education and skill set development that will lead to increased financial rewards throughout a lifetime (vs. dying young).

Action Plan: Reach out to the teenagers in your life. Find something to praise in their behavior. Ask them about their goals for the future. Encourage them to put them in writing, sign and date them. Check back with the teens to see whether or not their goals are being met.

Redirect if necessary: One young man told Anthony that his goal was to get a girl pregnant, so she could get Section 8 and WIC, and he could live with her. Anthony and the young man listed the pro's and con's of this idea.

Anthony then said, "That can be one reality. What about this one? You get a two-year post-graduate degree and wind up with a well-paying job. You wait to marry the right girl, the one you love. She also has achieved a degree. Which one of these options has a better pay-off, in terms of your future?"

What's the easiest transition between youth and adult systems?

Free Training Videos on Child Welfare Issues

Check out the DSHS Children's Administration Ongoing Training site!

Stories from Homeless Former Foster Children

Stories from Homeless Former Foster Children

Health Reform Could Cover 13 Million Uninsured Young Adults

Young adults ages 19 to 29 are among the largest and fastest growing segment of the population without health insurance.

Economic crisis is unraveling social safety nets across the nation

The National Council of Nonprofits recently released a report titled: A Respectful Warning Call to Our Partners in Government: The Economic Crisis Is Unraveling the Social Safety Net Faster Than Most Realize.

The report indicates that nonprofit organizations throughout the nation are struggling to meet growing demand for services at the same time that their operating costs are rising and their revenues falling.

Tim Delaney, President and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits explains that, "The economic threats to nonprofits and the communities we serve are real and dire. It is both unrealistic and unsafe to those depending on services to simply assume that nonprofits will somehow be able to continue to deliver more services that cost more with declining revenues. The math just doesn't work."

This report encapsulates data from GuideStar, the Listening Post Project at Johns Hopkins University, the Bridgespan Group, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund, as well as state non-profit associations in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey.

Rather than asking for additional funding from the federal and state governments, the report calls on government officials and nonprofit leaders to collaborate more effectively to meet growing community needs.

Teen Resource Fair, Part 1

Teen Resource Fair, Part 2

Things That Weigh Heavy on My Heart

These are the things that weigh heavily on my heart as I ponder how we might address them.

Ohio is in serious economic trouble right now. Our state unemployment compensation funds have been completely depleted. Ohio is one of 17 states that are now borrowing from the national trust fund to cover unemployment benefits. We are currently $1 billion in debt, and the shortfall is expected to top $3 billion by the end of 2010.

One of our counties is in a fiscal emergency: Auditor of State Mary Taylor recently placed Scioto County in fiscal emergency -- the first Ohio county ever so designated. She said the county has a combined county fund deficit of more than $3.5 million as of June 30, 2009.

Did you know that, according to CBS News, child abuse spikes during a recession?

Liquor sales are up: The Ohio Department of Commerce said Wednesday that sales of liquor continued to set records, rising to $729.9 million for FY09. When times are tough, it can seem easier to add up change to buy liquor than to face the pain, and try to be a part of a positive solution.

Have you visited the website for the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare? That organization exists because there is a strong correlation between substance abuse and the neglect and abuse of children.

Gambling is being promoted by our Governor as some sort of magic elixir to fix the budget problems. And it seems that Ohio’s children are last on his list.

At a time when the needs of foster care youth transitioning to adulthood are being recognized on federal level through the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, Governor Strickland chose to cut the Ohio’s state independent living allocation by 100%.

This was after Ohio foster care youth, alumni and allies successfully advocated to retain that funding allocation. Can you imagine how difficult it was to look into the faces of the young people who testified and tell them about the Governor's veto?

Now, unless Ohio complies with National Youth in Transition Database requirements, our state stands to lose up to $250,000/yr. in federal funding to help transitioning youth as well. That is $250K of Chafee funding that could be spent supporting foster care youth before, during and after transition to adulthood.

Last week, Gov. Ted Strickland issued an Executive Order to cut funding for the state's adoption assistance programs. These cuts will affect the funds that provide financial assistance for adoptive families to provide services for children with special needs (PASS, SAMS, state match for IV-E and nonrecurring adoption expenses).

All this, in addition to massive cuts regarding child protection, which have led to laying off caseworkers and increasing caseloads.

I am deeply concerned.

But I also believe that the tougher things get in our state, so far as foster care and adoption advocacy is concerned, the more important it is for us to band together and press forward. We can't give up -- because there is too much at stake. And we need to formulate a shared vision of how we can make things better.

There’s a team-building exercise in which each person uses one finger to lift something (like a table), and their combined strength makes it possible to lift that table off the ground.

I can’t lift the weight that’s on my heart all by myself.

It’s the weight of a state, and all of us who care about Ohio youth and their welfare need to come together and take collective action.

Foster Care and Teenage Pregnancy

This is from 2006, so if you want to know where your state stands today, please visit: Estimated Percentage of Females Who Will Become Teen Mothers: Differences Across States.

While I am not a teen parent myself, I could have been. That is to say that I had a miscarriage when I was 15 years old. If I had not had that miscarriage, I'm not sure what would have happened.

I was in foster care. Would I have been separated from my child? Would I have been able to provide for my child? Would I still have entered college at age 16 years old? I don't know...

What I do know is that any efforts to address the needs of a community can be made more powerful if they include consumer voice and firsthand experience.

If I were a pregnant teen, I'd be more likely to listen to someone who had been through the experience, and made it, and was a successful parent.

That's who I think needs to be co-presenting and co-developing the workshops.

You need the voice of experience, combined with the wisdom of research and connection with all available resources... There are all sorts of resources out there, if someone wanted to step into a leadership role and take this on:

1.) Chapin Hall recently released a report on Pregnant and Parenting Foster Youth: Their Needs; Their Experiences.

2.) Healthy Teen Network hosts an annual conference. I've suggested to them in the past the possibility of waiving conference and travel fees for former-teen-moms-now-workshop-instructors who might want to present.

3.) The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy even invites teens to make their own commercials about early parenthood.

4.) The National Crittenton Foundation recently released "Rights and Resources," developed with and for pregnant and parenting teens in foster care. It provides state-specific information.

5.) The Department of Labor provides a Youth Persons Demonstration Grant to support community organizations that train and educate young parents to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency. This grant targets high-risk young mothers and fathers and expectant mothers ages 16-24, and is open to nonprofit and faith-based groups.

In terms of measuring and maximizing effectiveness, Child Trends released a fact sheet on What Works for Adolescent Reproductive Health.

One example of an innovative program is Family Scholar House in Louisville, Kentucky. They give single-parents the support they need to finish a four-year college degree.

NACAC Youth Track

Early emancipation of foster teens as a cost-saving measure??

I recently received reports from social workers that some counties are trying to cut costs through premature emancipation of Ohio teenagers.

Just yesterday, I presented a workshop on Strategic Sharing for homeless youth during a statewide retreat - and over half of the youth in attendance had been in foster care.

I've been contacted by young people in Cuyahoga County saying that their case had been "terminated" prematurely since the budget cuts were announced, and that the reason they were given was noncompliance with their case plan.

At a time when our nation is moving forward in terms of federal matching dollars for extending foster care to age 21, and making measuring outcomes of youth "aging out" of foster care a federal priority, Ohio seems to be moving backward and not forward in this area.

Ohio foster youth are entering into adulthood during a recession. Any decision to close their case should be made based upon their readiness to face that world - not based on cost savings for the agency, or convenience in not having to deal with that particular teenager.