: Just in Time for Foster Youth
: Life Changing Choices The 7 Essential Choices at the Heart of Transformational Change for Foster Youth and Your Community
: BookBaby
: 9781667894355
: 1
: CHF 10.50
:
: Sonstiges
: English
: 194
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
For 20 years, Just in Time for Foster Youth (JIT) has created a reliable, responsive and real Community for young people, ages 18-26, as they transition from the foster care system into adulthood. The majority of JIT staff have lived experience in foster care and hundreds of volunteers help connect over 2,000 youth to the critical resources and lasting relationships needed to become Confident, Capable and Connected, breaking the cycle of foster care. After all the resources and effort dedicated to improving child welfare systems, with little significant change in positive outcomes, we invite exploration of an alternative. A different approach to resources for children and families struggling to thrive that might ultimately replace what isn't working today. We wrote this book because we've continued to see a stubborn truth over the last two decades about the critical necessity of Community and Connection. A truth reinforced by history and our own experience about why systems will resist change and are unlikely to be empowering, healthy places for young people or families, despite our best intentions. This book is not a lecture but a challenge for all of us to consider a different point of view. A mindset and model that has empowered our efforts at Just in Time and might do the same for people in any community who are frustrated by the persistent trauma that seems built into the current experience of our children in care. And we believe that all the young people impacted by foster care are our children. We wrote this book so you can hear their voices, as we have. So that you can get to know their stories as we have. Once you do, we hope you seek out their stories in your community and ask others to join and listen. Most of all, we want this book to start your own crucial conversations about the old Assumptions and the Choices we can change, replacing historically negative outcomes with lasting positive Empowerment.
Let s talk aboutThe System.
So where do we start? At this moment, there are about 400,000 foster youth in the child welfare system nationwide and the number of children touched by foster care is increasing.
This, despite efforts to havefewer children removed from their parents and homes to enter foster care. There are signs that a host of factors including economic insecurity, opioid addiction, mental health challenges, and the pandemic areincreasing the number of children and young adults impacted by foster care.(Scientific American)
Our Children. With a median age of 7 years.(AFCARS)
Imagine the huge impact a separation like this would have onany first grader you know, especially if they werenot cared for in their new surroundings with an intentional investment in their long-term well-being.
And the numbers speak volumes on how The Systemunderinvests in these children, committing less than 50% of what an average family spends to raise a child from birth to 17 years of age.(iFoster)
Without the necessary support, why would we expect young people in care to be empowered to thrive? And the story continues
Roughly, 20,000 youth age out of the foster care system between the ages of 18 21 annually. Within four years of aging out, 50% will have no earnings and those who do will make an average annual income of $7,500(NFYI National Foster Youth Institute).
There s less than a 3% chance for those who age out of foster care to earn a college degree at any point in their life.(NFYI)
Homelessness and unemployment become a huge issue. After reaching the age of 18, 20% of those in foster care will become instantly homeless(NFYI) and 29% report being homeless from age 19-21(Annie E. Casey Foundation - AECF).
Just 57% of foster youth who age out of the system report being employed full- or part-time at age 21 (AECF).
Within two years of leaving care, 25% of males will be in prison, and 70% of females who age out of the foster care will become pregnant before the age of 21.(NFYI)
It s a tragic loss. For the children, for our society, and for our future.
That s where we are. Let s explore how we got here.
Origins& Inevitable Failures of the Foster Care System
The Orphan Train Brought Us Here.
The firstorphanage in the United States was reportedly established in Mississippi in 1729, but institutional orphanages were uncommon before the early 19th century. Back then, relatives or neighbors raised children who had lost their parents. Arrangements were informal and rarely involved courts.
Around 1830, the number of American homeless children in large Eastern cities exploded. By 1850, an estimated 10,000-30,000 homeless children were among the population of 500,000 living in New York City.
Some children were orphaned when their parents died in epidemics of typhoid, yellow fever or the flu. Others were abandoned due to poverty, illness, or addiction. For protection against street violence, they banded together and formed gangs.
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