A Family for Every Child is dedicated to finding loving, permanent families for every waiting foster child. Our blog is focused on providing support to families who are thinking about or are a part of the foster care or adoption process.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Picture This: ‘Everyone Needs Someone,’ Foster Kids Who Survived

Every year, about 20,000 of the 542,000 children in foster care in America “age out” as they turn 21. All of a sudden, they have to fend for themselves. Five percent of them — about 1,100 young adults — are left on their own in the New York City area. Who are they?
Removed from their birth parents because of abuse, neglect or abandonment, foster kids typically grow up in various homes, staying for as little as a few days or as long as a few years, but rarely with enough stability to get the education and skills they need to start out on their own.
This is the underlying theme of “Everyone Needs Someone,” a group project by Salaam Garage in New York that is now on exhibit at the Long Island Children’s Museum through Sept. 2. Some of the stories are below; more pictures and information about how to help can be found at www.salaamgarage.com.
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Teddie (Photo by Moya McAllister)
Kicked out of his/her mother’s home at the age of 14 by his mother’s boyfriend, Teddie entered foster care and lived in several group homes until he aged out at 18. Since then, he has been homeless, couch-surfing with various friends or romantic partners, staying in LGBT-specific (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual) shelters, but never fitting in.
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Shirley (Photo by Alejandra Villa)
Shirley Newman is a consistent mother. A former foster child, she keeps her three children on a rigid daily schedule: school, snack time, homework, dinner and bath.
Shirley, 29, had a far different upbringing. She was only three years old when her mother left her with her drug-addicted father, and took Shirley’s two younger siblings with her. Shirley and her father moved in with his girlfriend, Marie, an alcoholic who was just as abusive as Shirley’s father. When Shirley was eight, neighbors reported the abuse.
“I remember being taken out of school by total strangers and having to sit all day in a tall building near the Grand Concourse [in the Bronx], and the next thing I knew I was on Long Island,” she says. ‘
Ten months later she was taken back to her father without an explanation. “I was just a puppet on a string; I was so used to being pulled wherever I was told,” she says now.

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Renald (Photo by Heather Walsh)
Renald is a quiet, soft-spoken 22-year-old living in his first apartment and attending college. Renald had a traditional family and the comforts of home — until he was 13 years old. Suddenly, one day he and his younger brothers were placed into the foster care system on Long Island without any warning, and for reasons he is unable to explain. He would never return home.
As a young adult, Renald is beating the odds. While many foster kids never complete high school and end up jobless and homeless, he is attending The College at Old Westbury, part of the State University of New York. He aspires to become a lawyer.

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Nefertiti (Photo by Amelia Coffaro)
24-year-old Nefertiti said she dreams of being a social worker so that she can help kids who are going through difficult situations. At an age when most kids learned how to ride a bike, she learned to cook, clean and take care of herself. Feeling unsafe at her grandmother’s house, Nefertiti saw school as her escape. She recalls academic awards like Student of the Month and Honor Roll with pride.
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Linda (Photo by Ian Spanier)
Twenty one-year-old Linda was thrust into the foster care system at the age of three. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia to a drug-addicted mother, she, along with her four brothers and two sisters, were scattered by the foster care system when her mother decided she could no longer take care of them and left them at a friend’s house.
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Krista (Photo by Heather Walsh)
Krista had a secure home life until she was five. Her parents were young adults with “conflicts” and were unable to care for her and her 9-year-old sister, so the girls were sent to live with their grandfather. The stay was short-lived.
“Each time your stuff is packed up and the social worker is standing there telling you that you are going somewhere else, you feel abandoned. You feel unwanted. You feel you aren’t worthy,” says Krista. That happened 10 times and the invisible wounds, she says, don’t heal in adulthood.
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Elijah (Lisa Weatherbee)
Elijah was two years old when Children’s Services found him and his 12-year-old brother, JB, living unsupervised in a Bronx apartment. Mom hadn’t been around much — a heavy drug user, she gave birth to five kids with five men but didn’t raise any of them.
So JB and Elijah were sent to live with their grandmother and third brother, CJ, in Atlanta. When he was eight years old, his grandmother fell off a ladder and broke her leg. She was left crippled and unable to care for the brothers. Elijah was forced into the foster care system for the next 12 years.
When he was discharged at age 21, Elijah had $4,000 — half of which he spent on a car. “Thank God I had a job. If I didn’t have a job and I just aged out of care, I’d have been f*****.”
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Dmitriy (Photo by Heather Walsh)
Dmitriy was born in Russia and, at age three, was placed in an orphanage four hours southwest of Moscow. In his eyes, the building looked like a castle, but he wasn’t treated like royalty. There were roughly 100 kids grouped into “families” with no formal living standards, structure or discipline, he says.
An American family adopted him when he was 11. His new life with a mother, father, two brothers and a nice house in the Long Island suburbs with a swimming pool appeared to be ideal.
But one day, unable to control his anger, Dmitriy got into a brawl with his adoptive father. He was removed from the home and sent to a psychiatric facility for more than a year. He says he felt like a prisoner. After returning home for a short period he was placed in a series of group homes.
At 21, Dmitriy aged out of the foster care system on Long Island. While many young adults in the same situation are uneducated, unemployed and homeless, he has a high school diploma, a full-time job and an apartment to call home.
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Aquarianne (Photo by Yvonne Allaway)
Aquarianne lost her father when she was 11. Her mother was an absent figure, an addict who was unable to give her children a home.
At 18, Aquarianne was officially aged out. After high school, she attended Queensborough Community College (she is still paying off the student loans). It was there that she tapped into her passion for the performing arts and met her current partner and father of her daughter. They are now expecting a second child.
She talks of her resolve to graduate from college on time, recalling, “One semester I took 17 credits.” That same inspiration led her to attend a final exam on the day before she gave birth. She earned her college degree — an accomplishment that at one time seemed unfathomable. Now 21, she continues to prove that nothing is out of her reach.
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Alex (Jorden Hollender)
Alex never knew his biological father, and he was taken away from his mother, who was HIV positive, when he was just five years old. Alex instead spent his teen years living in group residences, and he called members of the Bloods — the famed Bronx gang — his family.
“I was the type of guy who was always in the streets, always selling drugs, always fighting people,” says Alex. “I didn’t care about my life,” he says, “so I just went with them, did what I had to do.”

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Social media connects adoptive parents and birth families

Armed with my smart phone, I recorded our six-month-old son taking his first few bites of baby food. He reacted as you might have expected – surprised, then disgusted, and finally it all came oozing out and down his chin. It was a major milestone in his development and worthy of sharing. Immediately after I posted it to Facebook, his birth mom and birth grandfather both “Liked” it and commented on it.
Today, many birth parents and adoptive parents are embracing social media and interactive communication tools like instant messaging, photo/video sharing, text messaging, and video teleconferencing, to share information and stay in touch. While many may celebrate this expansion of openness, some ground rules are recommended.
When we adopted our second child, his birth mom expressed interest in connecting with us on Facebook and Skype. Without hesitation, I accepted her Facebook “friend” request. Then “friend” requests began pouring in from her parents, her siblings, and her extended family – many that we didn’t know. The open adoption arrangement that we discussed at placement was with his birth mom and not her Aunt Betty. With a desire to nurture our budding relationship and to protect her privacy and our own, I struggled with how to proceed.
Some of her family members supported her adoption plan and others didn’t. So, I worried how our adoption might unfold in a public arena like Facebook. I also wondered how to protect our personal information, and I grappled with censorship – trying to determine what information about my child was appropriate to share on Facebook.
After talking with our son’s birth mom, I befriended her immediate family on Facebook and I imposed tighter privacy controls to prevent our photos and content from being “tagged’ and shared outside of our network. As a family, we also decided some information is too personal and should be privately emailed to his birth mom. Other adoptive families may wish to set up a separate Facebook account just for birth family communication.
In addition to sharing information, Facebook has allowed us to get to know our son’s birth family better and to stay informed of what’s going on in their lives. Their status updates and online photos have helped us learn more about them, get to know their personalities, and see pictures of our son’s biological brother and sister. We also chat and email with his birth family through Facebook, and we have Skyped with them on special holidays; these tools are especially useful for helping us maintain a strong, long-distance relationship.
Just because these interactive communication tools are available, however, doesn’t mean you have to use them or that they should replace face-to-face contact. Before you jump on the bandwagon, take time to evaluate your situation and weigh the pros and cons.

Social networking tips for birth parents

• Discuss with your child’s adoptive family the different ways you’re going to stay connected (e.g. letter updates, phone calls, email, social media, text messaging, etc.).
• Decide together what information is appropriate to share via social networks and what information is best communicated privately.
• Establish rules for posting comments and sharing photos on social media, including whether you want to be “tagged” or identified in pictures/videos.
• Adjust your privacy settings to restrict access to any personal information that you don’t feel comfortable sharing with your child’s adoptive family.
• Decide how extended family members fit in. Be sure that any “new connections” between both families are disclosed and mutually agreed upon.
• Keep in mind that humor and sarcasm play differently online. Be sensitive about what you write and how the adoptive family or your child could perceive it.
With any open adoption, it’s up to you and adoptive parents to decide what level of openness you wish to have before and after the placement. Together, you decide what personal information you want to exchange and how to maintain an ongoing relationship.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012


“Helping Foster Kids Transition to Adulthood”                                                    

     Finally a long-term study is being done on “aging-out” and the effects or abilities of transitional programs to ease the dangers and problems associated with aging-out or being left on one’s own.

     The study is being performed by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation and the University of Chicago with the help of Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The study will follow “1,300 Tennessee kids and young adults who are either aging out of foster care or leaving juvenile justice facilities” (Walters). 

     The goal is to determine just how effective intensive transitional living programs are.  The goal is of these programs is to reduce the likelihood of youth experiencing “mental health problems, substance abuse, criminal justice involvement, unemployment, poverty, housing instability, and homelessness” (Walters).  The control group will be naturally occurring as youth are left to find their own social services throughout the rest of the country already.  The study also apparently has a very diverse group of participants (males, females, many cultures/races, and many different educational backgrounds). 

     This study should produce a great deal of much needed data for all states and local programs.  However, an interim study will not be available until 2013, with a final report coming in 2015.  This data will help organizations like ours better understand the aging-out process and learn what transitional programs work.  This will then allow us to adjust our own programs or create new ones to better serve the youth and the community.  Hopefully this study will also prompt larger, more involved studies from the federal government and/or the Department of Human Services.      

Read the entire article by Jonathan Walters

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Read a New Report on Openness in Adoption
A recent report from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute highlights the results of a survey on infant adoption practices. Openness in Adoption: From Secretary and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections notes that the vast majority of adoptions are now open. Key findings include:
  • 95 percent of agencies offer open adoptions
  • 55 percent of adoptions are open, 40 mediated, and only 5 percent closed
  • Adoptive parents report positive experiences; more openness is also associated with greater satisfaction with the adoption process.
  • Women who placed infants for adoption and then have ongoing contact with their children report less grief, regret, and worry, and more peace of mind.
  • Adopted persons are the primary beneficiaries of openness, receiving access to birth relatives, as well as to their own family and medical histories.
The report also provides recommendations for best practices in open adoption, including pre-adoption counseling and post-placement support.
 
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Important Questions You Should Ask Before Adoption
"Parents need to take a major role in the decision making process. I think it's a message of responsibility, a lifelong responsibility. I'm not just looking at providing shelter and the hierarchy of needs for this child. I'm looking at adopting a child and all the dreams, expectations, and lifelong care that goes into having another family member. So it's not like, 'Well this is the person that we're going to provide to you at the selection.' It's like no, I think we're major decision-makers in that process."
-From a Prospective Adoptive Parent
MAP
QUESTIONS TO ASK
The following is a list of questions to ask prior to adopting a child. Don't be afraid to ask these questions. It is important to know if your family is able to provide the necessary support for the child. These questions will help you get an idea of what your responsibilities will be, along with an idea as to if the child is a good fit for your family. Have these questions ahead of time and try to keep notes.
1. Name, sex, age?
2. Child's medical history and current medical needs:
a. Medical diagnosis?
b. Psychological diagnosis?
c. Current medication?
d. Neurological diagnosis?
e. Dental?
3. Siblings?
4. Visitation?
a. Who?
b. Where?
c. Monitored?
5. How do they get along with other children in the household?
a. Younger
b. Older

6. Developmental level?

7. Is the child in therapy?
a. Where?
b. How often?
c. Transportation?
8. School last attended? Grade?
a. Learning disorders?
b. Special Education?
c. IEP (Individualized Education Program)?
9. Known or suspected dangerous propensities:
a. Gang affiliations?
b. Fire setter?
c. Liar?
d. Sexually acting out?
e. Steals?
10. Legal status?
11. Is religion a concern?
12. Does child have any unusual habits? Likes? Dislikes?
13. Do they have a sensitivity to pets?
Preparation on your part is important in making an informed decision. You can have a degree of control and ownership in the matching process if you identify upfront what you want, what you can accept, and what is not acceptable. The more invested you are, the more likely it will be a successful match.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Eliminating barriers to adoption

Jeff Katz is executive director of Listening to Parents, a national organization designed to eliminate barriers that prevent children in foster care from being adopted.
Why is it easier for an American family to adopt a child from across the world than adopt a foster child across a state line? State Department data show that in fiscal 2010, Americans adopted 11,058 children from other countries. By contrast, according to data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, Americans adopted just 527 children from foster care across state lines that same year.
To lend perspective, according to the National Weather Service, twice as many Americans are struck by lightning each year.

The primary reason it is so hard to adopt across state lines is that the United States does not have a national adoption system. Instead, there is a different system in each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each jurisdiction has its own criteria for adoption eligibility and process for recruitment, approval and training of adoptive families.
Worse, our multitude of systems has created profound disincentives for states to allow residents to adopt children from other states. If, for example, a Maryland family adopts a Virginia child, Maryland has essentially wasted thousands of dollars to recruit and prepare a family, with no benefit to any Maryland child. In return, Maryland will receive a child who may well have expensive medical and educational needs. Meanwhile, Virginia is likely to receive a bonus of as much as $8,000 for placing the child in an adoptive family. Maryland will get nothing.
Since interstate adoption effectively has a “winner” (the state that sends the child) and a “loser” (the state that receives the child), states tend to hoard their families, greatly limiting matches for children and families across jurisdictions.
Ironically, this is particularly true when a family is interested in adopting the children who are hardest to place. If, for example, a family in Indiana is interested in adopting a large sibling group, the temptation is strong for Indiana to keep them waiting, in case an in-state group were to become available, instead of matching them immediately with children just over the border, say, in Chicago. This issue is particularly significant in large metropolitan areas that straddle state lines, such as New York, Philadelphia and Washington.
A group of child welfare experts who have studied programs nationwide for many years has identified a number of barriers that slow or prevent children from being adopted, including those that inhibit interstate adoption. Our forthcoming “No Barriers” report recommends common-sense and inexpensive ways to eliminate these issues, such as standardizing the certification process so that adoption home studies are accepted in all 50 states (just like your driver’s license) and changing federal funding programs so that both states share the benefit in an interstate adoption.
Finding parents to adopt children is not the problem. Far more people want to adopt children from foster care than there are children available. Data from the most recent National Survey of Family Growth, released in 2008, indicated that almost 600,000 women in the United States were actively trying to adopt. Most would adopt older children, minorities or sibling groups, the very children in foster care that need families and are considered “hard to place.”
Removing disincentives to interstate adoption could dramatically increase the number of children in foster care who become part of loving families. In 1997 Congress passed, with bipartisan support, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which included strong financial incentives for states to increase the number of adoptions for their kids in foster care. Within three years, the number of children annually adopted from foster care doubled, from 25,000 to 50,000.
It has remained at that level for a decade. Incentives work.
There are more than 100,000 children in foster care waiting to be adopted. These children have been abused or neglected. They have no family and move from foster home to foster home, often carrying all their worldly possessions in a garbage bag. Fewer than half of these children will be adopted this year. The rest will grow another year older as they wait, wondering why no one wants them.
The shame is that thousands of willing parents do want them. But they are unable to adopt because of unnecessary barriers. If children can cross oceans to be adopted in the United States, surely they can cross state lines.

Saturday, June 9, 2012


Newton: What dependency court delays do


In the weeks since Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash opened this county's dependency proceedings to the press, there have been a number of revelations about a system that, until now, has been largely shielded from scrutiny. For the first time, the public is getting a broad look at the consequences of sloppy social work, the defensiveness of lawyers used to operating in secret, the agonizing decisions of judges, even the occasional happy outcome in which a family, once torn apart, is successfully reunited.
But one overarching fact of the dependency courts, where judges supervise the lives of children in foster care, is the high and hidden cost of delay. Some cases drag on for months, even years, while children lose their chance to begin their lives in secure, safe families.
Over the last two months, I have watched one such case drag on. Judge Tim Saito presided as birth parents challenged foster parents for custody of a 2-year-old girl taken from her birth parents when she was just a few days old because they had a previous record of abuse.

The girl was placed with a caring and quiet couple (I'm not naming them here because doing so might identify the little girl). Indeed, the decency of these foster parents is about the only uncontested fact in the case. They decided to build their family by coming to the aid of children who needed a home; just over two years ago, the county delivered them an infant girl.
The girl's birth parents, however, were unwilling to let go so easily. Though they had been forced to give up their other children after the county accused them of abuse — one infant girl suffered a broken femur, allegedly at her father's hand — they appealed for the return of their baby.
A judge could have heard evidence and decided the matter then; instead, the case kicked around the courts for more than a year, as the birth parents underwent counseling and dismissed lawyer after lawyer, each time forcing delays. Early this year, the county formally recommended that efforts at reunification be ended and that the foster parents be given custody.
Even then, the case dragged on. Time after time, the foster parents would be asked by Saito to appear in court. The foster father would miss a day of work — and, with it, wages. And then the day would slip away with barely any progress. One of the days I attended, Saito had asked the parties to be ready at 1:45 p.m. He didn't actually call the case until 3:55 p.m. Once inside the courtroom, the birth father again asked for a new lawyer, so the judge had to hear that matter. Ruling against that request this time, Saito resumed the trial. It lasted 20 minutes before Saito called it a day.
One afternoon, it looked as though a lot might get done. The parties were told their case would be up early because a social worker had been pulled off her job to testify. Nope. More than two hours passed without word. The social worker, who had recently undergone back surgery, squirmed uncomfortably in the waiting area.
Speaking with me, the foster parents did not criticize Saito, but their frustration with the process almost visibly tears at them. Interrupted testimony and repeated court appearances don't harm the lawyers or social workers, the father noted; they're paid to be there. "They don't have any problem continuing," he grimly told me one afternoon while the case was yet again on hold. "They don't have any problem delaying."
But it has harmed his family in myriad ways. It costs money: The foster parents estimate they have spent the equivalent of a year's worth of college tuition on legal bills. It has cost time: They have spent more than 20 days in court since the beginning of this year alone. Most heartbreakingly, it has added another element of stress in the young life of their foster daughter. While the case has been underway, the birth parents have had visitation rights; the girl is now at an age when it's threatening to become confusing to have another set of parents to call "Mommy" and "Daddy." She could have been nestled in a loving and secure foster family months ago. Instead, she faces conflict.
Last month, Saito finally concluded that efforts at reunification should cease and that the girl should remain with the foster parents. But the birth parents are still pressing, and are allowed visits while they're appealing.
Deborah Dentler is the lawyer for the foster parents, and she's exasperated by the ordeal her clients have endured. Dentler doesn't want to discourage potential foster parents from signing up, but she's worried about a system that effectively punishes those who do. Indeed, her hope is that the press coverage allowed by Nash's order opening the courts will encourage judges and others in the system to be more mindful of those whose lives are at stake.
As Dentler noted, "Justice delayed is justice denied to families and children." In dependency court, that injustice has been inflicted all too commonly, without any accountability for those responsible.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Helping Foster Kids Transition to Adulthood


     Finally a long-term study is being done on “aging-out” and the effects or abilities of transitional programs to ease the dangers and problems associated with aging-out or being left on one’s own.

     The study is being performed by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation and the University of Chicago with the help of Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The study will follow “1,300 Tennessee kids and young adults who are either aging out of foster care or leaving juvenile justice facilities” (Walters). 

     The goal is to determine just how effective intensive transitional living programs are.  The goal is of these programs is to reduce the likelihood of youth experiencing “mental health problems, substance abuse, criminal justice involvement, unemployment, poverty, housing instability, and homelessness” (Walters).  The control group will be naturally occurring as youth are left to find their own social services throughout the rest of the country already.  The study also apparently has a very diverse group of participants (males, females, many cultures/races, and many different educational backgrounds). 

     This study should produce a great deal of much needed data for all states and local programs.  However, an interim study will not be available until 2013, with a final report coming in 2015.  This data will help organizations like ours better understand the aging-out process and learn what transitional programs work.  This will then allow us to adjust our own programs or create new ones to better serve the youth and the community.  Hopefully this study will also prompt larger, more involved studies from the federal government and/or the Department of Human Services.      

Read the full article by                                           
By Jonathan Walters

Monday, June 4, 2012

Best Bloggers We've found... so far :)

Here are a list of some of the best bloggers we've found in each category. We love hearing about and following new blogs so let us know if there's any blogs we've missed and need to add to the lists!


Adoption Blogs:

Adoption: Share the Love

Adoption blog from Adoption.com

Rita's Blog this blog is written by the Foundation president and CEO for Dave Thomas's Foundation for Adoption.



Mommy Blogs:

Never A Dull Moment written by an adoption matching specialist and adoption worker who is also a mom to 12 children.

Adoption and Foster Care: My Personal Experiences written by a mom who, along with her husband, has adopted children and is currently a foster care provider.

Rage Against the Minivan is the personal experiences of a mom of four children through birth and adoption.


Foster Care Blogs:

Attempting Agape is a blog written by a single foster mom and chronicles here life as a foster parent.

Always Room For More shares the experiences of a foster family of almost two years.

Out of the Foster Care Box is Judy Cockerton's blog which is dedicated to changing the way we care for children who experience foster care in America.



Adoption/Foster Care agencies:

Families Supporting Adoption

The Adoption Exchange

Child Welfare Blogger

One True Gift



Thank you all for all the great blog posts and information.

Help us add to the list, and our blog roll, by letting us know about your favorite blogs!
Berry family opens hearts to more
Article published on Monday, June 4, 2012









CLEARWATER - While most couples face their “golden years” with dreams of traveling the world, Esther and Chris Berry had a different dream. One that involved starting a school for exceptional students and later evolved into an exceptional story of adoption.

Empty nesters with five biological children and four grandchildren, the Berrys started a school for exceptional students known simply as “Esther’s School.” They discovered that several students attending their school were living in foster care, featured on the Heart Gallery and waiting to be adopted. They knew they weren’t finished being parents, so the Berrys took steps to adopt.

First to join the Berry family was the sibling group of Melissa, 16, and Willie, 17. They were adopted in 2011.

In a May 31 ceremony at the Criminal Justice Center on 49th Street in Clearwater, the Berry's adopted their second brother-sister pair from Eckerd’s foster care system – Stephan, 17, and Dajah, 10. The Berrys also plan to adopt another foster teen living in their home, Christopher, 17, later this year.

The youth, many of them older foster teens who risked “aging out” of foster care when they turned 18 without a forever family, had lived together in foster care and already knew each other before coming to stay with the Berrys. Even more ironic is that Stephan and Willie have known each other since kindergarten – before they were ever placed into foster care.

Esther and Chris had always dreamed of having a big family and their once empty nest is filling up again.

As Esther believes, “We were put on this earth to parent children who need our love and attention.”

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Bill will help Foster youth with school records


MIAMI (AP) — Federal lawmakers proposed a bill Thursday that would give social workers better access to school records in an effort to improve education for foster children.
A federal law requires social workers to get a court order to access a foster child's school records, and it was meant to protect the child's privacy. But advocates said the extra red tape has made it extremely difficult for social workers because foster youths change schools frequently as they move between different homes. Some end up taking the same classes over because credits are lost or don't transfer.
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said that extra red tape was a perfect example of unintended consequences of well-meaning legislation. She sponsored the bill with Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn.; Tom Marino, R-Pa.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash.
"The consequence is that a lot of times foster workers end up operating blindly. If you can't get your school records to travel with you, that student goes to another school and repeats course they've already had or immunizations they've already had," said Bass, who said the group is trying to capitalize on bipartisan support for the bill.
The proposed law would give child welfare workers access to school records and pave the way for better data sharing between education and child welfare agencies. The bill would also allow child welfare agencies to use education records to study how well foster kids are measuring up to federal education mandates.
Bass has been traveling the country discussing foster care issues. She met with officials in Florida in March.
The group of sponsors has centered on education issues, noting that 50 percent of the nation's more than 400,000 foster kids won't graduate from high school. Nearly 94 percent of those who do make it through high school do not finish college, according to a 2010 study from Chapin Hall, the University of Chicago's research arm.
Advocates say it's been difficult to coordinate policies and data sharing among multiple government agencies.
Last fall, federal child welfare officials sent a letter advising education and child welfare to state officials of a 2008 law that requires the children to remain at the same school after they are placed in a new foster home. It is routinely ignored by state and local officials who say it's impractical and too expensive.
About 40 foster youths from around the country attended press conference to announce the legislation in Washington. They were also shadowing lawmakers, and to share their stories at policy briefings. A 22-year-old former foster year shadowed Bass for the day.
"You're just in awe of the circumstances that some of these kids have survived and the progress that they've made in spite of those," Bass said.
Former Florida foster youth Breon Callins shadowed Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., for the day and said he was inspired by the Florida congressman's passion for policy issues.
Callins, who was in foster care from ages 9 to 12 years old, is now 20 and working on a degree in forensic accounting. He also works with an organization that helps foster youths who age out of the system without being adopted. He spoke to lawmakers Thursday about the importance of funding programs in every state that help older foster youths get into college, find an apartment and transition into adulthood.
"Anything you need they can help you with. They keep you on their radar like if they were an aunt or uncle or something," Callins said. He said many of the foster youths he's talked to tend to take a bit longer to land on their feet in the real world because of the trauma of coming into foster care.