Climbing Above for Foster Youth

Climbers about to set off on Mt. Shasta climb. 11:30 AM, July 21, 2012.

Ten climbers try to climb California’s 14,000-foot Mt. Shasta to raise funds for the nation’s most influential foster youth led advocacy group. 

“Rock! Rock!”

I look up the steep snowfield on Mt. Shasta’s southwest side, aptly dubbed Avalanche Gulch. Half of our party is fifty yards uphill, resting on an outcropping of rock. It is dawn, the sun somewhere hidden behind the 14,179-foot peak towering still thousands of feet above.

I hear a whizzing noise and then I see it: a rock, the size of a watermelon, hurtling past the other climbers and towards us. “Rock!” I yell. “Move!”

I step to my right. Lynette Cox, slight, and wearing a blue jacket turns her head, and before she can gasp, is struck in her arm. Standing no more than two feet away, I think I see the rock then slam into Kim Barone’s backside. Isis Keigwin made a fast move, slipped and is now sliding down the slope.

By the time she comes to rest the two other women are splayed out on the snow. The rock lays, stopped, ten feet below, all its momentum having been transferred into Lynette and Kim.

My stomach lurches.  How bad are they injured, I ask myself, worried, downright scared.

Daniel Heimpel tightens Kim Barone’s shoelaces just before a rock traveling at high velocity crashes into the group.

Isis is rattled but fine. Kim looks like she has seen a ghost and complains that her bottom hurts. Lynette is subdued, says she is okay, but ads in a murmur, “my arm hurts.” Later we would see the contusions painting her left arm like a talentless tattoo artist, but for now she and the two others are resolute; they aren’t going to give up. No, they are going to climb to the top of this mountain.

Thirteen of us assembled in the City of Mt. Shasta two days before as part of a climb I had organized to raise funds for the California Youth Connection (CYC), a foster youth led and run advocacy organization that has been at the heart of legislative change to California’s child welfare system for the past two decades.

The characters drawn to this endeavor could have come straight out of central casting.

We had Mike Jones, the director of a program called Courageous Connection, which helps hundreds of Sacramento foster youth navigate high school. His climb ended on day one, a thousand feet below base camp despite downing a 5-hour Energy drink before we set off.

CYC’s Executive Director Joseph Tietz and the organization’s highly capable administrative assistant, Angela Martin joined for moral and logistical support. Earnie Sherrard, who volunteers as an “adult supporter” for CYC’s Los Angeles chapter had driven one of the youth joining the climbing party ten hours from Southern California to the state’s northernmost reaches.

Orville Thomas, one of Fostering Media Connection’s summer fellows and a second year student at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, would make it a little past base camp, turning back in the dark of 3:30 AM while laboring up a snowfield.

Hunter Holcombe, a producer with Current TV and this adventure’s cameraman, came with a friend, Colin Murphy, who he had met while bartending in San Francisco’s rowdy Marina years before.

Somehow, I managed to convince my college friend Kim Barone to come up despite never having climbed anything close to this. Much like Kim, CYC’s accountant Lynette Cox readily agreed without any prior experience. Isis Keigwin, the Camellia Network’s strategist, would shake off the fearful rock fall and find a rhythm up the mountain.

Finally, two former foster youth and current CYC members also joined us: Kevin Clark and Crystal del Valle. Both would make it to the top.

Two thousand feet above where the rock slammed into Lynette and Kim, we reach the Red Banks, a wall of red volcanic rock that marks the top of Avalanche Gulch at 12,800-feet and the crux of the climb. Hunter, Colin and Kevin are all far above, having navigated the steep, icy gully leading through the Red Banks, which Crystal, Lynette, Isis and I now are looking up at.

Isis is directly behind me as I follow the women up. At the bottleneck of the gap, Crystal loses her footing. Kim grabs her from the back and I clutch her foot saving her from falling and sending the four of us down the steep slope and back down Avalanche Gulch. Shaken, Crystal gets up and moves forward.

We soon make it out of the worst and are staring up another 500-foot snowfield after which stands Misery Hill, a long set of switchbacks that take climbers up to roughly 14,000-feet and the summit plateau.

“I don’t know how much more I’ve got,” Isis says matter of factly. Lynnette asks how far it is to the top. Kim is silent. Crystal presses the point end of her ice axe in the snow and rests her head on the top.

“Do you want to go down,” I ask Crystal.

“Now, I am just super tired.”

I give her water and an energy bar. She offers Isis a bite. Then one-by-one the four women find their inner strength. Lynette takes off for the top, quickly leaving the three of us behind. Kim extends her legs wide on each step, willing herself up the slope; and Isis carefully zigzags up, her feet perpendicular to the 30-degree incline. Crystal pushes on for ten feet, rests, repeats. I tie her shoelaces tighter and she moves on, stronger with each step.

In less than an hour we are at the base of Misery Hill, the sun now shining on our faces. The wind whips over the shoulder of the mountain, the air cold and thin above 13,000-feet.  I head up and the four women follow.

Crystal del Valle and Lynette Cox resting on Misery Hill close to 14,000-feet.

“You look like the walking dead,” I call back as they trudge through the scree, kicking up dust. I sit and wait. They catch up and the mood has changed. They are tired, but far from beaten.

Together we make it to the snowy summit plateau, the wind stronger now and the air colder still. Very near the top we cross paths with Hunter, Colin and Kevin on their way down. I ask them to wait for us below so that we can descend through the Red Banks together.

“I’ll go back up,” Kevin says. He wants to be with his “sister” from the foster care system, Crystal. I scurry up the last section, and wait for the group at the top. Crystal walks toward me. The wind is howling.

“How do you feel?” I yell.

“To all of you who thought I wouldn’t make it, who thought I’d be on drugs, wouldn’t go to

Kevin Clark and Crystal del Valle atop Mt. Shasta.

college, would have a bunch of babies… I made it to the top of mother f_cking Mt. Shasta,” she says defiantly.

I doubt she or Kevin will stop there.

The evening after the climb, I told my father about the rock and the adventure.

“There is always a story on Shasta,” he said.

Of all the stories I have from my four trips up that mountain, this one is the best. Members from three non-profit organizations focusing on foster youth – Fostering Media Connections, Camellia Network and Courageous Connection – banded together to support a fourth: CYC. In all, the climbers raised more than $7,500.00 for CYC. But most importantly, five novice climbers made it to the top. Two absorbed the brutal force of what could easily have been deadly rock fall; and two former foster youth who had to scale so many figurative mountains before this one made the arduous climb without a complaint.

That is a story worth telling.

Daniel Heimpel is the Executive Director of Fostering Media Connections and the Publisher of the Chronicle of Social Change. 

From Left to Right: Kim Barone, Crystal del Valle, Isis Keigwin, Kevin Clark, Daniel Heimpel
Fore: Lynette Cox

Dept. of Education Still Searching for Youth Voice

By Tasion Kwamilele

The U.S. Department of Education has extended the deadline to July 31^st 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

Sokhom Mao: Child First Leader

What makes a person so passionate about foster youth? In a series of interviews, the Chronicle of Social Change tells you what makes these people superstars in the world of child welfare services.

This week we talked to Sokhom Mao who is on the Board of Directors for California Youth Connection. Sokhom spoke of the challenges he faced as a foster you and how that’s shaped his passion to advocate policy change.

Video Script (Italics represents Sokhom Mao)

My job is to make sure that the legislature, not only in the state, but also in congress, understand that these are our, the nations children. We all have a stake in improving the lives of each and every one of these children lives to be better.

As a former foster youth, Sokhom Mao knows better than most what takes to improve the lives of those still in the system. From foster youth to youth advocate, Mao says his pursuit of better policy for the future is shaped by his past.

From the people that were around me back then when I was in foster care helped me, pushed me, and motivate me to continue to do the advocacy work and to help other foster youth realize their potential and their talents and skills as well.

As a member of California Youth Connection, Mao has played a big role in the push for extending foster care services until the age of 21. And even though the California legislature has passed the legislation…Mao says counties can still push for further foster care improvements.

We need to make sure that counties are not only embracing this but taking the next step and to making sure that when foster youth decide that they want to remain in care not only to let them to remain in care but also say why don’t you try this, maybe college, vocational training, you want ot move to your own place, give them options

And as the fight for funding foster care extensions continue in California with assembly bill 1712, Sokhom says the fight for foster youth nationwide still needs a spark. Mao says there are still plenty of people who don’t understand that the foster care system needs to be fixed.

At this current time I don’t think or I don’t even know if people understand what foster youth is all about. You hear about foster youth all the time but do people understand. Do they understand fundamentals of foster care?

 

Local Former Foster Youth: Life Without AB 12

Leandralynn Dunson, 20, lives in Oakland. She says her experiences in foster care only made her a stronger woman.

By. Tasion Kwamilele

In 2010, California, a state with one eighth of the country’s foster care population, set the tone for the nation by passing legislation to extend foster care to age 21. Two years later,  the law is being implemented. As child welfare administrators and social workers scramble to help this new cohort of California foster youth receive the benefits they now deserve, thousands of others tackle the challenge of transitioning into adulthood on their own.

In this piece The Chronicle of Social Change explores what life is like for those former foster youth on the cusp, who are ineligible to participate in extended care services.

Twenty year-old Oakland resident Leandralynn Dunson grew up in the foster care system.  Throughout her time in care,  she says she lacked support and security. With numerous placements and failing grades, she had to rely on self-motivation to make it through.

Dunson was seven years old when she entered the system with her younger sister.  Her mother was addicted to drugs, she says, and after teachers and neighbors noticed the young girls being sent to school in dirty clothing, someone reported Dunson’s mother to Child Protective Services.

“They sent us to a lady in Oakland. She bought us new clothes, took us on trips, and she was a good support system,” Dunson says.

But she and her younger sister only stayed there for a year before she was moved. An aunt, who was already taking care two of Dunson’s brothers, wanted the two young girls to move in with her. Since they regularly visited the family on the weekends, Dunson thought it was going to be the perfect foster care placement.

“We thought because it was family, everything was going to be peaches and cream. But it wasn’t,” she says.

When she moved in the social workers stopped checking on her and her sister, Dunson says. The relative beat her often, she says, and the woman’s husband molested her. Dunson kept quiet about what was happening for three years before she could finally tell someone about the abuse. “I told my teacher, and the same night I was picked up and moved back into a foster home.”

In 2011, there were 1,421 allegations of sexual abuse in children between the ages of 0-17 in Alameda County’s child welfare system compared to the 2,629 sexual abuse allegations in 2001, according to the Center for Social Services Research (CSSR).

Dunson’s little sister moved back and forth between family members and never made a formal complaint of abuse. So Dunson found herself alone in foster care. She desperately wanted to be with her family, and after a few months, she moved in with one of her cousin’s to give it another try. But that relative also beat her, Dunson said, and after three months she was back with a foster family.

From then on, it was like musical chairs. Every few months she was in a new city, in a new foster home. She rarely completed a semester at any school.

“When I was in the seventh grade, I got straight F’s. I just stopped caring, and they didn’t care,” she says.  “They didn’t have to make me learn, they just had to make sure I was at school.”

She remembers attending Jesse Bethel School in Vallejo, where she went three months without having a textbook for a class.  She says it wasn’t until she was in her late teens, and solely responsible for her wellbeing, that she was able to succeed in school. Until then it did not bother her because she knew the social worker might come to move her at any time.

“Everywhere you go you never plan to stay in one spot.  The social workers will always tell you they are looking for another place for you.”

She says her worst foster home experience was when she moved to the small city of Newman, California when she was 13. The foster family was considered to be “cool parents” by other foster kids because of the freedom they gave they gave and the stores where they were allowed to shop.

Dunson stayed there for a month, left briefly to live with one of her relatives again, then was moved back to Newman by her social worker. But this time it was not “cool,” she said. The mood had changed. She was not welcomed, she says, and her foster father molested her. “Our foster mother knew what was happening, but she ignored it by getting on the phone when it was happening.”

Scared and fed up, Dunson and a foster sister ran away to a friend’s house, where they called police to report what was happening at the foster placement.

But, she says, instead of helping the children, the police took them back the same night to the foster family. A few days later, Dunson came home from school to find all of her belongings in a bag at the door.

Dunson says it is “scandalous” to know that her family was in close proximity and watched her struggle but did nothing to help.  “I even told one of my uncles who is a pastor and has his own church.”

Dunson again went willingly to live with family members at 17 but she did not worry about building a family connection, instead she focused on preparing herself to be completely on her own.

Alameda County’s Independent Living Skills Program (ILSP), helped her find housing near downtown Oakland.ILSP provides life skills training, housing, health care and education to young adults transitioning from foster care to independent living.

Dunson said ILSP gave her bus passes for travel, helped her transition into her first apartment, and gave her the necessary support for school and work. It was this sense of stability that allowed Dunson to focus on her education.

She wanted her sister to stay in school and to be diligent to her studies but she knew she couldn’t advise her sister to do something that she wasn’t even doing. With the help of ILSP Dunson got back on course, finished her studies, and got her diploma. But she knew she wanted to continue her education to ensure stability in her life.

“I want us to do more than just make it,” Dunson said.  She gives credit to ILSP and knows that their support helped her develop into the young woman that she is today. Once she finished school, she even began building a relationship with her estranged father, who had been addicted to drugs, she said.  She says the relationship was not easy, but he made sure to bring her to church every Sunday.

At this stage in her life, the only time she saw her social worker was when she came to her house for her to sign the papers to be emancipated from the system.  California’s Fostering Connection to Success Act (AB 12), which aims to extend foster care services for California foster youth until age 21, had recently passed, but because of her age, Dunson was not eligible to opt-in. Dunson signed the papers and just that quick she was on her own.

Dunson cradling her 9-month old son, Eddie Brinson Jr.

At 19, Dunson became pregnant with her son and looked forward to continually build the relationship with her father but when she was in the seventh month of her pregnancy, her father was shot and killed.

Dunson is now focused on taking care of her small son and going to school. She has enrolled in nursing training at Merritt College in Oakland for the summer semester.  She is excited about getting the training and skills to do what she loves: help others.

She also hopes to continue learning more about her new passion: photography. She was recently showcased at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland.  Dunson’s piece “From My Roof Top” was featured in the “Emancipated Hearts” Exhibit. She says her work told the story that whether she is alone or with another, she can face her fears and overcome adversity.

Dunson does not complain because growing up in the foster care system taught her the true meaning of forgiveness and selflessness.  Her mother now has six aneurysms and has been hospitalized for two years.

“I have to take on the trials and tribulations from her decisions for the rest of her life,” Dunson said. “I still have to take it on because she is still my mother.

And that’s how Dunson chooses to live her life, working to make each life decision, regardless of her difficult childhood, count for something.

CORRECTION: When this story first ran on June 13, 2012 the author wrote that Dunson “had the option of participating in California’s Fostering Connection to Success Act (AB 12).” While Dunson had asserted this was the case, the way the law was written excludes her from eligibility. The story has been corrected to reflect the facts.  

Bubble Bill on Way to CA State Senate

Assm. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) adresses foster youth on the Capitol steps in Sacramento in run-up to AB 1712′s passage in the State Assembly.

By. Amabelle Ocampo

On May 30^th a bill that would clarify how foster care is extended in California passed the State Assembly with a unanimous 76-0 vote.

“This bill is a lifeline for foster youth caught in the trenches of transition,” said Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) in a statement given the Chronicle of Social Change.

“It could make the difference between finding safe housing instead of homelessness.”

The bill would remedy a gap in funding for those foster youth whose 19^th birthday falls in 2012. When lawmakers passed the landmark California Fostering Connections to Success Act (AB 12) in 2010 and took advantage of matching federal funds to extend foster care to age 20, they phased in implementation to save money. For youth who turn 19, the way that the law was written meant that counties were left holding the bag, ultimately deciding whether or not to keep youth in without state or federal funding.

As the Chronicle reported in a slew of stories in the run-up to the State Assembly Committee on Appropriations hearing earlier in May, 2,166 foster youth find themselves in this situation. While some counties like Los Angeles and San Francisco have opted to keep these youth in, others have not, often saying that the price tag is too high.

An analysis submitted to the Assembly after the bill made it through the Appropriations Committee said that the eliminating the funding bubble would cost $1.6 million in 2012-13 and $260,000 in 2013-14.  But this cost would be more than offset by a savings of up to $15 million by 2016-17 in “federal financial participation” associated with a separate foster care program.

“The next step will be a hearing once the Senate Rules decides which committee, likely Health and Human Services,” said Kenton Stanhope, a staff member for Assembly member Jim Beall (D-San Jose) in a phone interview.

A Tale of Two Fridays

And the gap for California foster youth that lies in between.

It is Friday May 4^th, at the Richmond Courthouse. Sun spills into the trash-strewn courtyard as the immediate future of soon-to-be 19-year-old foster youth David C. is decided within.

On Sunday, David will turn 19, throwing into question his eligibility for benefits provided through a celebrated California law that extends foster care to age 20. His story encapsulates a dilemma facing more than 2,000 similar foster youth throughout the state. 

In 2010, California passed Assembly Bill 12 (AB 12), which is geared to take advantage of matching federal funds to extend foster care. In the fraught negotiations to get the bill passed, legislators opted to save money by phasing the law in year by year to age 19 in 2012, 20 in 2013 and 21 in 2014 if the legislature approves. The phase-in strategy has created a funding bubble wherein the state relinquishes funding for the 2,166 foster youth who turn 19 in 2012.

For youths like David, the decision whether or not they benefit from the stability of extended foster care past their 19^th birthday now rests in the hands of three institutions: the juvenile dependency courts, the Boards of Supervisors in each of California’s 58 counties, and the State Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

In the span of three weeks — ironically falling during National Foster Care Month — the level of each institution’s commitment to foster youth will be tested by a legal challenge, media scrutiny and direct political action by foster youth themselves. Through it all emerges the possibility that this “bubble” may in fact burst; and the portrait of a frayed social services safety net wherein foster youth like David are often the ones left paying the cost. 

David’s challenge to County Counsel’s attempt to cut off services was the first such case to come to public light, and its outcome will have a direct impact on the fates of the 2,000 “bubble” foster youth who will turn 19 this year. 

This reporter and another, Theresa Harrington of the Contra Costa Times, had been briefly admitted into the hearing room that particular Friday –the day that the court would determine whether or not to terminate David’s case. David had requested our presence, but just as quickly as we entered the still courtroom, Deputy County Counsel Patricia Lowe objected and we were told to get out.

Code Section 346 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code, likely behind Lowe’s objection, states that while the public generally should not be admitted to cases involving minors, “the judge or referee may nevertheless admit such persons as he deems to have a direct and legitimate interest in the particular case or the work of the court.”

In a 1991 appellate court case, San Bernardino County Department of Social Services v. Superior Court, the court said that while the child’s best interests should be the primary concern, the “important social values” advanced by the press are also important. It added that lower courts should grant the media access, “unless there is a reasonable likelihood that such access will be harmful to the child’s or children’s best interest in the case.”  

In January of this year, the Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, Michael Nash, issued a blanket order presumptively opening that court to the media. Under the order, members of the press may attend hearings and can only be excluded if a party objects and the court determines that there is a reasonable likelihood that press access will be harmful to the child’s best interest, based on the factors listed in the San Bernardino County case.

But Contra Costa County’s stance on transparency in the courts is much more restrictive than that of Los Angeles County. Unsurprisingly, the differences between counties don’t stop there and emphasize the wider variance in support for transition-aged youth across the state. Los Angeles County intends to keep its 853 “bubble” youth in care, while Contra Costa County is terminating the cases of the 43, who — like David — turn 19 this year. While both the County Welfare Director’s Association and the California Department of Social Services said they hadn’t surveyed counties to understand their policies in regards to bubble youth, research conducted by Fostering Media Connections and the Contra Costa Times found that San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and San Mateo Counties will keep youth like David in care.

David walks out of the courthouse with his attorney Darren Kessler and Shawn Nunn, a private social worker with a non-profit organization called Triad Family Services that subcontracts casework with the county.

The presiding judge, Joni Hiramoto, terminated David’s case, but granted a 90-day stay so that David could file his appeal.  David, who according to court documents tested positive for methamphetamine at birth and was subsequently diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder, is concerned about the judge’s order.

At first he thinks he will have to pack up and leave his foster home that day, but Kessler re-assures him that the stay means he can remain in his Contra Costa County placement until August 3^rd, nearly two months after his high school graduation.

“At the end of the day she is splitting the baby,” Kessler says of Hiromoto’s decision. “She is giving him what he needs in the meantime.”

David is relieved that he won’t have to move out before graduation. He looks forward to starting at UC Berkeley in the fall to study physics, but remains perplexed about the fate of the other kids in his situation. “It is hard, very hard, tricky,” he says.

But the fight for David’s short-term stability isn’t over yet. On Wednesday May 9, Triad social worker Shawn Nunn says that David’s county social worker, Christopher Johnson, called with some startling news. According to Nunn, Johnson told him that the county would not pay the foster care rate, and would instead cover the costs through special education payments offered through AB 490 – a law that provides support for foster youth from the Department of Education’s budget.

Nunn immediately called Kessler and David’s sister Lily C., a first-year law student at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. The same day, he received a call from Deputy County Counsel Lowe, who said that she would look into it.

Later that day, Nunn received a call from Johnson’s district manager, who informed him that they would now cover David for the next five weeks – through high school graduation – and then offer up the AB 490 money.

If Nunn’s story — corroborated by Lily — is accurate, the county would be acting contrary to the stay order Kessler says Judge Hiramoto issued on May 4^th. An attorney with close knowledge of the case who asked to speak on condition of anonymity says that, “depending on the wording of the order, the county is violating the stay and the next thing someone needs to do is file a contempt motion.”

Lois Rutten, acting director of the Contra Costa County Department of Children and Family Services, says, “as long as the case is on appeal we are paying. I have already authorized the payment.”

Last week, Kessler sent a notice of appeal to the court. The case will then be sent the First District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The First District Appellate Project, a non-profit organization that provides appeal attorneys, will then take on the case.

Kessler hopes the attorney who does, files a writ of supersedeas that, if approved at the appellate level, will stay the case until resolution. That could be six-to-eight months from now, plenty of time for David to make the transition to Berkeley.

But what of the 42 other youth in Contra Costa County and the 2,100-plus others scattered throughout the state?

Along with the courts, the other county-level lever to tackle the issues facing David and other youth in his situation is the Board of Supervisors. Before becoming Contra Costa County’s District 4 Supervisor, Karen Mitchoff worked as a fiscal and legislative analyst for the County Employment and Human Services Department, which oversees foster care.

“When I saw this in the paper, I immediately called the staff to see what we are doing about these bubble kids,” Mitchoff says. “If they are living in a foster home nobody is being kicked out. Nobody in our county is going to end up on the streets.”

She argues that the county’s Independent Living Skills Program (ILSP) is working to ensure that all Contra Costa County youth have supports through their transition into adulthood.

But successive waves of budget cuts have made the ILSP program’s already difficult task of coping with the rising tide of youth in need even more difficult, according to Program Coordinator Don Graves.

Graves says that he has only been able to maintain services through aggressive grant writing, solicitations for private donations, and community awareness. “We are always trying to pick up the pieces, so we got good at that.”

Supervisor Mitchoff admits that the ILSP program is overburdened and underfunded like the rest of the foster care system and this ultimately ties the county’s hands as to what services they can provide.

”The bottom line is that we are going to have to deal with this on a case-by-case basis because we don’t have the money,” Mitchoff said.  “It is another example of how the state messed up and we are going to have to pick up the slack, but it is hard when we don’t have any slack to pick up.”

On Friday May 25^th the California State Assembly Committee on Appropriations will have a chance to pick up the aforementioned “slack.” The committee will vote on Assembly Bill 1712, which is the second attempt to clean up the inconsistencies found in AB 12.

Under the new legislation, foster care would cover all who were “younger than 19 years of age as of January 1, 2012,” effectively closing the gap that faces foster youth like David C. and allowing them to stay in foster care to age 21.

The California Youth Connection (CYC), a youth-led advocacy organization, will hold a rally and press conference advocating for the passage of AB 1712 on the steps of the Capitol on Thursday May 24.  CYC Legislative and Policy Coordinator Chantel Johnson sees this is an opportunity for state legislators to fulfill the promise they made to the counties and the youth they serve when they passed AB 12 back in 2010.  “The youth have lived up to their end up the deal,” Johnson says in reference to the eligibility requirements of AB 12. “But the government hasn’t lived up to theirs.”

Two thousand foster youth, 58 counties and scores of juvenile dependency judges and referees are left waiting to see if the state will fill the gap it created. This Friday, they will find out.

Daniel Heimpel is the director of Fostering Media Connections and the publisher of the Chronicle of Social Change. FMC intern and Harvard Law Student Jamie Kapalko contributed to this story. 

Youth and Organizations Work to Help Kids in System Gap

As the Chronicle has reported, thousands of California teens face a disruption in foster services because of the way a key law extended foster care to 21.  A number of youth-serving organizations throughout California are creating programs and advocating policy to plug leak.

California Youth Connection (CYC) is already on the job. As a statewide youth-led organization advocating for the rights of foster youth, they have helped draft AB 1712, which will change the terms of the bill to allow those youth who were 18 on January 1, 2012 to now be eligible until they turn 21.

“AB 12 was used to prevent difficult outcomes for foster youth,” said Chantel Johnson, Legislative and Policy Director for CYC. “AB 12 was meant to rectify that and this oversight in the law makes that harder because it gives youth false hope.”

AB 1712 passed the Human Services committee, and now awaits  approval from the State Assembly appropriations committee. CYC is holding a rally on May 24^th at the State capitol to testify in support of the bill.

The committee will vote that day and, if they approve the bill, will pass it to the state senate for approval.

While youth focus on state policy to make a change for these kids in the gap, others are focusing their efforts on the community level.

Youth leaders of the San Francisco Independent Living Skills Program (ILSP) have been holding AB 12 focus groups in order to inform youth of their options as they emancipate from care. In April they held a focus group with the Statewide Youth Council to educate youth on post-emancipation resources such as housing.

The ILSP program also hosts Friday social events called “TGIF,” during which they watch movies and discuss available resources in the county. During these weekly discussions, youth leaders of the event talk to others about AB 12 and what options they have.

“We’re preparing them for what’s going to happen with AB 12, and in particular, housing options,” said Ka’Tina Jackson, 21, AB 12 Youth Ambassador for the County of San Francisco. “We’re going at them from a youth perspective, instead of hearing it from an adult or authority figure. It’s easier to listen to a peer.”

Over in Alameda County, social workers are mandated to organize emancipation conferences with each youth to help them figure out their plan post-foster care. Those kids in the gap who will be forced to exit soon can speak with a social worker, foster parent, and whomever else they’d like to attend the conference in order to help them decide what their next option will be.

Ken Shaw, child welfare supervisor for the Alameda County Independent Living Skills Program, says the county will be using funds to keep all youth in care until 21, regardless of the rolling out process. He says he has heard from colleagues in other counties that aren’t following suit.

“It’s going to make it tougher on those kids if the county doesn’t pay to care for them,” said Shaw. It could make them fall into the gap and lose housing and other resources.”

-Ryann Blackshere