Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) Pledge
“All students in Riverside County will graduate from high school well prepared for college and the workforce”
The event I attended was the Foster Youth and Homeless Summit on March 11th 2016. It took place at the Riverside Convention Center and was coordinated by the Riverside County Office of Education. The summit was sponsored by Moore Education Services, Chavez Educational Services, Reliable Workplace Solutions, and the City of Riverside Public Utilities. The event motto was a quote by Magic Johnson, “All kids need is a little help, a little hope and someone who believes in them.”
The fist resource I found that seemed very beneficial was a “Tips and Facts” handout on AB 1808 (in regards to homeless students) and AB167/216 (in regards to foster youth). The second beneficial resource I found was a handout on the Chafee Grant. The Chafee grant is available to any foster youth 22 and under showing a financial need. As long as you are enrolled in a public, private or technical school and going to school at least half time all year long you may qualify for up to $5000 a year. >>>>>>>>>>>>
I choose to participate in this summit because I feel foster youth are not discussed enough in school counseling circles. Data collected in 2014 shows there were 3,497 foster youth in San Diego alone (Kidsdata.org, 2014), and and over 600,000 nationwide (Voices For Children, 2013). More so, only 50% of foster youth graduate high school or obtain a GED and less than 3% earn a college degree (Voices for Children, 2013). As school counselors we will have the ability to work first hand with these students and help change their lives and the lives of their families forever.
To find out more about the Chaffee Grant you can go to https://www.chafee.csac.ca.gov/. For more foster youth college resources go to http://www.fosteryouthhelp.ca.gov/ and click "education."
The two keynote speakers for the day were Derek Clark and Kermit Alexander. Derek was raised in foster care and lived in many homes growing up. He told his story and inspired the audience to never give up on any student. He said he probably wouldn’t be alive today if he didn’t have one family and a group of people who never gave up on him. Now he is an inspiring motivational speaker, author, and YouTube rapper sensation with over a million views. You can check out his YouTube video HERE and his website HERE. Kermit Alexander is a former NFL star whose world came crashing down when a gang murdered his entire family. His story is one of redemption and hope. Today Kermit works endlessly to help advocate for foster youth and has adopted 4 children from Haiti. You can find a video of Kermit’s story HERE and his website HERE.
Everyone who attended was lucky enough to get a copy of both Derek and Kermit’s books.
There were many breakout session presenters including Opal Singleton (President and CEO of Million Kids), Ann Miller (SafeHouse Clinical Director), Kristen Dolan (Director, Anti-Human Trafficking Department), as well as many other foster youth coordinators, liaisons, and specialists. The two sessions I attended were: Obtaining and Sharing Foster Youth Data and Student Information, and Foster Youth Support Services From the Perspective of Two School Districts. Since my colleague wrote an amazing post on the latter (found HERE http://cspeeps.blogspot.com/2016/04/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html) and the other session wasn’t about much interventions I’ll use some of what I learned from Derek Clarks presentation to tell you about some ways to provide counseling services to foster youth.
It was refreshing to hear Derek’s amazing outlook on life despite his extremely traumatic childhood. He started off by telling his story about being homeless with his mom and siblings. His mother remarried a man but he abused Derek and since Derek’s mom despised his real dad she never treated him like a real son. His mom and step dad ended up dropping him off at a hospital and walking away. He was in and out of foster homes and group homes most of his childhood till he came upon a family that treated treated him like a real son and never gave up on him. Derek’s first hand experience has helped him know how to best serve foster youth. His techniques can be used with individuals or in group settings. They are mainly geared towards foster youth but could be used for any group. His techniques for working with foster youth are closely related to solution focused counseling because he talks a lot about how key players need to “disable the label.” Basically treat the child like a child, not a problem needing to be fixed. Derek also calls this “connection not correction.” Derek didn’t mention any of his techniques being evidence-based but he told many stories of how him mentoring has saved children’s lives.
One thing Derek suggests is when working with foster youth it is all about connections not corrections. I believe the principals below can be relative in different areas and contexts because most foster youth experience some sort of trauma whether it be the reason they were removed or the act of being removed in and of itself.
Derek said it is important for foster youth to recognize they have control. Often times they feel they have no control over life. We need to show them the seven things they CAN control:
1. Attitude
2. Thoughts
3. Actions
4. Reaction
5. Expectations
6. Effort
7. Self-Love (Self-Value)
Derek also said adults need to recognize what foster youth want most. They want be listened to, believed, acknowledged, made to feel important, treated fairly, respected, supported even after making you mad, and not judged.
Lastly, Derek said there are 5 things we should encourage our foster youth to give up.
1. Running from the problem
2. Dwelling on the past failures
3. Procrastinating
4. Ungratefulness
5. Other people’s opinions
In order to measure effectiveness of these techniques we can collect data on the foster youth population at a school one year and then implement some of the techniques and collect data again. Some of the data we can collect is 2 or more failing marks, participation in AVID, Participation in AP courses, GPA and behavior issues. One thing I need to consider when implementing these counseling techniques is that I am not Derek Clark. It is important to recognize the impact of having someone mentor you who has been in your shoes before. I do think these techniques would be very beneficial as long as we didn’t assume we knew how the foster youth was feeling. We can be open with the foster youth about this and not pretend to know what they are going through, but be willing to help them through it regardless. I learned a lot from Derek and the entire summit and I plan to implement some of what I learned at my school site one day. In order to do this, I will use notes I took on his presentation as well as his book which has many good resources. I will also try to find a way to put on an event for foster youth and ask Derek to come present to them. It would be so great for them so see someone who came from where they currently are and grew up to be a successful inspirational speaker and YouTube sensation!
Reference
www.KidsData.org
https://www.speakupnow.org/foster-care-statistics-resources/
-Cory Way, school counseling student.
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