By Tasion Kwamilele
The U.S. Department of Education has extended the deadline to July 31st for its Request For Information (RFI) on strategies for improving outcomes for disconnected youth.
Annie Blackledge is on Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignment from Casey Family Projects with the Department of Education. Blackledge said “the response has been good” but the deadline has been extended to give people more time to respond.
“We will be in a better position in mid-August to report out with more details,” Blackledge wrote.
President Obama’s proposed budget for Fiscal 2013 Budget included a request to implement “Performance Partnerships Pilots” that would improve outcomes for disconnected youth by working across federal, state, and local community programs and systems that provide services to this population.
As written in a previous Fostering Media Connections blog, “disconnected youth” refers to young people ages 14 to 24 that are homeless, involved in foster care or the juvenile justice system, unemployed or not enrolled in school. This RFI looks to gather input from the public on ways to effectively approach shaping and molding laws that consider this population of youth.
California Youth Connection (CYC), a youth-led organization comprised of current and former foster youth, called on its youth members to flood the Department of Education with suggestions.
Theophilus Fowles, social media coordinator for CYC, spread the word digitally about the information being requested.
“Nearly 700 unique people viewed the campaign once it was posted to the California Youth Connection Fan Page on Facebook and 40 percent of those people shared the campaign with their friends,” Fowles said. “While not everyone may have taken action to send an e-mail to the White House, the amount of exposure to foster youth issues certainly increased and that in itself is a success.”
To submit comments to the Depart of Education’s RFI, visit the link below:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=ED-2012-OVAE-0014-0001
