Lisa's 11th Wedding Anniversary

I safeguard this blog for foster care-related news, including upcoming trends that can positively or negatively impact foster care youth who are "aging out" of foster care and entering adulthood without family support.

However, I did want to mention -- as a former foster child myself -- that current statistics do not reflect the many survivors such as myself who, with support, were able to successfully navigate the murky waters of adulthood, stay afloat and build families of our own.

Everything I do, as a volunteer for Foster Care Alumni of America's Ohio chapter is to forge new pathways in order to change the odds, and promote available resources, so that more former foster youth can "make it," survive, thrive and establish healthy "chosen families" of their own.

Here's to the future 10th - 11th - 20th - 50th wedding anniversaries for today's young people in/from foster care. It wasn't easy for me to get to where I am today - and I don't wanna be here alone :)

Watching the Teen Job Market Disappear

Trends in the Summer Employment / Population Ratios of the Nation’s Teens 1989 – 2010

According to the Center for Labor Market Studies:

• Teens are at a unique disadvantage: No other age group of American working-age adults has been beset by such a dramatic decline in their overall employment rates over the past four years, or over the last decade as a whole.

• "During the summer of 2000, near the height of the early 1990s-2000 national economic boom, nearly 52 percent of the nation’s teens held some type of job."

•  "As a result of the national economic recession of 2001 and the largely jobless recovery of 2002-2003, the teen summer employment rate dropped considerably, falling to 41 percent by 2004."

• "The next four summers, from 2007-2010, saw the teen employment rate fall steadily and sharply from 42.6 percent in 2006 to 29.6 percent in 2010. Over that span, the summers of 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 each set post-WWII summer lows for teens."

• "There are no signs that teen employment rates will improve this summer."

Employment Rates of Teens (16-19) in

Selected Household Income/Race-Ethnic Groups in

the U.S. during the Summer of 2010

Additional observations from the Center for Labor Market Studies:

• "Accounting for race shows even greater disparities in summer teen employment rates. The breakdown by race and ethnicity of teens at work in the summer of 2010 shows about one in ten low-income, black youth and between one in seven and one in five black and Hispanic teens from low- and middle-income families."

• "Yet employment rates over the same span were 40 to 41 percent for white youth in families with incomes in the middle and upper middle income range. This means more affluent white youth were four times as likely to be employed as low-income black youth."

Why the United States Needs College Graduates

According to The Undereducated American, a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce:

• The United States has been under-producing college-educated workers for decades. From 1915 to 1980, supply grew in tandem with demand. But, starting in 1990, the share of college-educated young people in the workforce rose very slowly.

• The under-supply of post-secondary-educated workers has led to both inefficiency and inequity

• The nation must add 20 million post-secondary-educated workers by 2025 to increase productivity and reverse income inequality, or run the risk of becoming the global leader in income inequality.

Continued Concerns Regarding Psychotropic Drugging of Foster Care Youth

According to the Multi-State Study on Psychotropic Medication Oversight in Foster Care conducted by the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute:

• The use of psychotropic medications for foster children between the ages of 2 and 21 has risen significantly over the past decade.

• Out of the forty-seven of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia participated in this study, nine states had no written policy/guidelines regarding psychotropic medication use for foster youth.

Read the report to learn more about challenges faced by states, and innovative initiatives that some states have implemented in order to address this issue.

47% of College Students are Independent Students

According to the CLASP fact sheet Yesterday's Nontraditional Student is Today's Traditional Student:

• 47% of undergraduates are independent students
• Nearly a quarter of students are parents, and more than one in eight students are single parents
• 63% of community college students would be unable to attend college if they did not work

Meanwhile according to a brief by CLASP and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, Not Just Kid Stuff Anymore: The Economic Imperative for More Adults to Complete College:

• Between 2008 and 2018 demand for college-educated workers will rise by 16 percent while demand for other workers will stay flat.

• Demand for college-educated workers in nearly half of the states will grow 2 to 3 times faster than demand for high school graduates or dropouts. In six states (IN, MA, ME, MI, MN and OH), jobs that require a college education will grow 5-7 times faster.

• By 2018, nearly two-thirds of the nation’s jobs will require some postsecondary education or training.

According to this report, just as our economy is demanding more workers that have some postsecondary education or training, our traditional source of such workers – high school graduates – is leveling off:

• Over the next decade there will be no national growth in the number of high school graduates.

• Thirteen states (AK, HI, IL, MA, ME, MD, MS, MO, MT, NH, OH, PA, and WV) will have 5 to 10 percent fewer high school graduates in 2020.

Savings Account and College Retention

According to the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, students with savings accounts in their name — regardless of the amount saved — are six times more likely to attend and remain in college compared to their peers without savings.

I recently created a series of scenarios for foster care youth (independent living activities) in which unexpected events catapoulted them into "crisis mode" -- and, in each scenario, if they had budgeted ahead of time in order to maintain a savings account, this would have saved them money and stress in the long run.

Barriers to Access for Children on Medicaid

According to the New England Journal of Medicine:

"Expansions of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are designed to extend access to high-quality medical care to all U.S. children. However, evidence suggests that the 37 million children covered by Medicaid–CHIP are less likely to receive specialty care than children covered by commercial insurance."

Access Disparities for Medicaid Children
Researchers have found that medical specialists are more likely to deny appointments to children with Medicaid. Assistants posed as mothers and made phone calls to 273 clinics in Cook County, IL. Only 11% of privately insured individuals were denied appointments, while 66% of the children on Medicaid were denied. 

Disparities were also present in waiting times. At the 89 clinics that accepted both insurances, there was a 42 day wait for a child on Medicaid as opposed to a 20 day wait for those with private insurance. 

Possible reasons for the differences include lower reimbursement rates for Medicaid and more problems with the payment process.

Researchers say that the results are not likely to be unique to Cook County. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Priced Out: How the Wrong Financial-Aid Policies Hurt Low-Income Students

According to Priced Out: How the Wrong Financial-Aid Policies Hurt Low-Income Students:

• Since the early 1980s, college tuition and fees have increased at four times the rate of inflation—even faster than skyrocketing healthcare expenses.

• The average low-income family must contribute an amount nearly three quarters of its annual household income each year just to send one child to a four-year college. That’s after all sources of grant aid are taken into account. 

• After exhausting all sources of grant aid, the typical low-income student must come up with over $11,000 a year to attend a public or private nonprofit college.

•  Meanwhile, middle-class and high-income families contribute amounts equivalent to just 27 percent and 14 percent of their yearly earnings, respectively.

College Results Online
The U.S. Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) enables you to create your own group of colleges to compare their graduation rates and related information.

Petition: Protect the vulnerable, not the rich. Don't cut programs that help kids.

Link to sign petition.

Stay tuned for future blog entry on "Hidden Rules"

Our Role in Overcoming Mediocrity

Mediocrity says: "Let's just keeping doing the things we've done before, regardless of whether or not our efforts are effective."


It's up to us, as advocates, to suggest creative, innovative methods that can actually make things better.

I would argue that mediocrity is the primary cause of:

• Insufficient investigation of reported child abuse that allows further abuse, and even fatalities, to occur
• Abuse of children within foster care placements, including residential facilities 
• Fatalities of children within foster care placements, including residential facilities
• Lack of preparation for adulthood for transitional youth
• Lack of supportive resources to support young people after they "emancipate" from the foster care system

It's not that certain people in power are "evil;" it's simply that they are tired, worn-out, and disillusioned.... The road got bumpy, and they ran out of gas, out of passion, out of vision, out of steam.

They have, apparently, lost the fire that ignited their desire to make a difference in this particular area in the first place.

But we foster care alumni don't have that excuse: "This isn't an assigned task we are trying to accomplish, it's the life we have worked hard to live - and the journey that we each took in order to get there."

For foster care alumni,  surviving during and after foster care is incredibly personal to us -- and we need to channel that energy and direct that passion towards making things better.

It will require personal discipline on our part: When we see a person in power that is just mired in apathy, we might (frankly) want to yell at them.

But - when it comes to "advocating without alienating," we who strive to strategically share know that yelling just closes other people's ears.

Imagine something that you, yourself, are just SICK of doing. That's how they feel about their work -- the difference is that we know that it's incredibly important.

How can we convey that message without accusing them or attacking them? (Accusing and attacking WON'T work - they'll just build up walls in their hearts and minds against us).

Perhaps, we can be gracious enough to stand back and let them respond to our story, and appreciate the fact that it has reinvigorated their work.

Maybe we can cheer them on in their newly renewed desire to make a difference, rather than condemning them for the past.

One young man in Ohio is so powerful in terms of his voice and his passion, and so diplomatic in terms of his dealings with other people that I have nicknamed him: 

"The Foster Care Evangelist."

While sharing his personal talents and positive energy, this young man has reignited the passion of caseworkers who were previously described as being "apathetic" and "worn out" -- but whose passion for making a difference has recently been "born again."

His example taught me something new.

It kicked me out of my mediocrity when it comes to 'just doing the things we've done before.

His patience and perseverance reminded me of how we each CAN and WILL and MUST make a difference.

2011 Ohio Poverty Report

The Ohio Department of Development has released their 2011 Ohio Poverty Report which notes that approximately 1.7 million Ohioans, or about 15 percent of Ohio's population, are categorized as poor.

The report indicates that between 1999 to 2009, approximately 539,000 more Ohioans fell into poverty.

Another resource to be aware of is 2011 State of Poverty in Ohio series, published by the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies and prepared by Community Research Partners.

National Governor's Association Report on Foster Care, Transition to Adulthood

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices released a 2010 report on The Transition to Adulthood: How States Can Support Older Youth in Foster Care, which provides states with strategies for supporting foster youth as they age out of the foster care system and transition to adulthood.

The Table of Outcomes for Foster Youth Compared With Youth in General, on page 4, is a particularly helpful tool for advocacy.

Health Care Needs of Youth "Aging Out" of Foster Care

Did you know that:

• Each year 26,000 youth emancipate from foster care on their 18th birthday and often lose critical Medicaid health coverage?

• Former foster youth experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at six times the rate of their peers in the general population, and twice the rate of veterans returning from war?

• Only 57% of former foster youth have health coverage at ages 23 and 24 --- as compared to 78% percent of their same-age peers without a foster care history?

Beginning January 2014, Medicaid eligibility will be extended to cover children formerly in foster care who are under the age of 26.

Psychotropic Meds for Youth in Foster Care: Who Decides?

Dated January 5, 2011, and authored by the Georgia Supreme Court Committee on Justice for Children, this report makes vital recommendations:

1. Georgia needs to obtain accurate information about psychotropic medications and youth in foster care, including how many youth of what ages are receiving which medications for what purposes and at what costs.
2. Georgia needs to develop guidelines for the use of psychotropic medications for youth in foster care.
3. Georgia needs to develop a clear process for obtaining informed consent for the administration of psychotropic medications to youth in foster care. The process needs to be specific about who has authority to consent for a youth in foster care.
4. Georgia should develop one or more independent clinical teams that include a board-certified child psychiatrist to provide the following services:
   • individual case consultation to the state agency and prescribers;
   • training for those who work with youth in foster care;
   • independent review of all prescriptions for psychotropic medications that are written for youth in foster care before the prescription can be filled.
5. Youth in foster care should have a comprehensive mental health treatment plan that includes consideration of a variety of interventions and treatments that may include medications.
6. Georgia needs to establish quality assurance mechanisms to continuously improve all systems serving the mental health needs of youth in foster care and to hold all parts of the systems accountable.
7. The court system should help raise awareness about psychotropic drugs and youth in foster care.

What I like best about this report is how it describes the level of responsibility that the state has for young people in foster care:


"The state of Georgia has the awesome responsibility

of serving as parent for some 7500 children in foster care."

Serving as a parent implies: Knowing what prescriptions have been prescribed, why they have been prescribed, what the side-effects are, what the long-term treatment plan is -- and not hesitating to advocate if the medication appears to be more harmful than helpful.

Did You Know About This Progress in Florida?

Normalcy for Foster Care Youth
"For many years youth in state care were not able to participate in the same types of activities as their peers. In order to fix that problem, the state is now required to include a “normalcy” component in the case plan.

According to Fla. Admin. Code 65C-30.007(10), youth should be encouraged and supported in taking part in extracurricular activities, obtaining work, attending social events, learning how to drive and doing all the other normal things that youth do.

Preparation for Adulthood
Florida law requires that transition planning begin for youth in state care at age 13 with the adoption of an education or career plan The state is required to conduct a “pre-independent living assessment” for all youth between the ages of 13 and 15.

It should then identify services needed to meet the needs identified in the assessment. The state must then conduct a staffing once a year to ensure that the youth receives the services and training necessary to develop independent living skills. Florida Statute §409.1451(4)(a).

Forging An Education and Career Path
Beginning at age 13, the youth’s case plan must include “an educational and career path” component based on the abilities and interests of each child. Florida Statute §409.1451(3) (b)1.

This path must be incorporated in the case plan and must be reviewed at each judicial hearing. The youth, assisted by foster parents and DCF or the CBC, must chose one of these post-secondary goals:
1. Obtaining a 4-year university degree.
2. Obtaining a 2-year college degree.
3. Obtaining a career/technical certificate.
4. Beginning employment or apprenticeship after completing high school or enlisting in the military.

How does YOUR state rate regarding Child Welfare Outcomes?

Check out the Child Welfare Outcomes Report Data Customer Report Builder and find out...

Plight of the Working Poor -- the Fastest Growing Class in America

Quote from The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler:

"Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage. They are caught in exhausting struggles. Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn, hold them back. The term by which they are described, 'working poor,' should be an oxymoron. Nobody who works hard should be poor in America."

Did you know that:

• The fastest growing class in America is the working poor?
• One out of every three families in the United States is considered to be "low income?"
• Over 1 in 10 children in the United States has at least one unemployed parent?

The Winter 2010-2011 Working Poor Families Project Policy Brief revealed:

• Over 10 million low-income working families in the United States, an increase of nearly a quarter million from the previous year.
• 45 million people, including 22 million children, lived in low-income working families, an increase of 1.7 million people from 2008.
• 43 percent of working families with at least one minority parent were low income, nearly twice the proportion of white working families (22 percent).
• Income inequality continues to grow with the richest 20 percent of working families taking home 47 percent of all income and earning 10 times that of low-income working families.
• Over than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the recession began in December 2007.

Quote from Half in Ten, a national campaign: “Call it a war on poverty, call it expanding the middle class, call it promoting economic security. Call it whatever you want, but start making the connections between the plight of middle-class and lower-income Americans, and get involved.”

Federal Reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act

On December 20, President Obama signed the reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), which funds services to protect children from abuse and neglect. CAPTA also includes the Adoption Opportunities Program, and this year the Act strengthens this program.

The Department of Health and Human Services is now required to spend 30 to 50 percent of Adoption Opportunities Program funding on key areas such as post-adoption support and recruitment efforts for older children, children of color, and children with special needs.

Counting the Invisible Men

Counting the Invisible Man: Black Males and the 2010 Census (2011), published by the Twenty-First Century Foundation and Frontline Solutions, is research brief that outlines:

• The efforts of four communities to increase the participation and counting of African American males in the 2010 Census
• Potential strategies to utilize in 2020