On March 11th, 2016, I attended the annual
Riverside County Office of Education Foster Youth and Homeless Summit in
Riverside, CA. One of the breakout sessions I attended was a presentation by
Beth Bartholomew, foster youth liaison coordinator for the Moreno Valley
Unified School District (MVUSD). As a scholar on the Culturally Affirming and
Responsive Education Specialist (CARES) grant, a CASA, and a passionate
advocate for the needs of foster youth, I attended this breakout session
because I was eager to learn how LCAP funding could be utilized effectively to
provide resources to foster youth through schools.
For the current school year of 2015-2016, $50,000 of
LCAP/LCFF funds for MVUSD were allocated specifically to provide resources,
services, and school supplies to foster youth in the district. With this
funding, a variety of projects have started through the tireless efforts of
Beth Bartholomew and many other individuals within the schools. College tours
have been facilitated, a senior sendoff has been planned, school supplies are being
provided, and bus passes have been given. In addition to these projects, three
major services have been established this year that are quite unique and have
been found to have a major impact on the students.
This school year, there is a designated foster youth
liaison at each school site; a school counselor who is assigned the cases of
all foster youth who attend the school. This counselor is responsible for
meeting monthly with each of the foster youth, closely monitoring their grades,
and helping to connect them to services within and outside of the school. One
school’s counseling team even established a club with their foster youth, the “Failure
is Not an Option (FINAO)” Club. Having an individual designated to be
responsible for all foster youth enrolled in the school assures that someone is
closely monitoring these student’s needs, assisting in the frequent
transitions between schools that many foster youth endure, and providing these
students with the additional support they may need to be successful.
In addition, a tutoring/mentoring program has been
established to connect middle school, high school, and college foster youth.
High school foster youth students are paid through LCAP funds to be tutors to
middle school students, and transportation and training is provided by the
district. The program also works with Moreno Valley College, the local
community college, to pay for their Guardian Scholars (college-attending foster
youth) to tutor the high school foster youth students. This innovating
partnership not only provides foster youth in the district with the additional
academic support that many of them need, but also allows for youth to connect
with others in similar life situations, and hopefully form a close mentoring
relationship that they can rely on for years to come.
The largest project of the school year, however, has
been the first ever Foster Youth Summit for the district. All 10th
through 12th grade foster youth students in the district were
invited to attend the day-long event, where students attended grade-level
focused breakout sessions about college and career readiness, heard from an inspirational
speaker who was formerly in foster care, received a catered lunch and won
raffle prizes, and were given a foster youth handbook with a great deal of
information about graduation requirements, district policies for foster youth,
and resources the students could utilize. Beth gave us all our own foster youth
handbooks, identical to what she gave the students, and I have attached some of
the pages below as examples of information you can provide to your foster youth
students. The kids were even given leftovers to take home from the event,
because some of the students struggle with food insecurity in their living situation; they really thought of everything when planning this event.
Sections of the handbook:
-What is AB 490?
-General Info.
-AB 216
-AB 12
-Credits
-Independent Living Programs (ILPs)
-Guardian Scholars
-21 Topics (21 subjects you should know; your rights, dealing with courts, money for college, housing, health care, etc.)
-Ombudsman (California Ombudsman for Foster Care; avenue for youth to file complains regarding their placement, care, or services)
-Tips
-School Discipline Policies
-Transition to Independence
-Phone Numbers
Credits:
21 Topics:
Phone Numbers:
One of the most genius, yet simple ideas from the
Foster Youth Summit was that every student who attended was given their own
flash drive to keep with their transcripts, test scores, immunization record,
etc. pre-loaded onto it. For so many kids in care, it is very difficult to keep
track of these documents through each placement, and they need these documents
to be able to get a job or attend college. Giving these students a thumb drive
with every document they need to succeed gives them the independence to use
those documents as they move forward into their adult years. She also
recommended for the students to save their best projects and papers on this
flash drive to use in the future for college applications or class waivers.
Attending this presentation was more than just inspirational,
it was motivational. Seeing how many simple, yet important services, programs,
and events had been planned in one year by this district, mainly by this one
individual, made me believe that as a counselor or psychologist, we can make amazing things
happen for our students if we have the drive to do it. After hearing that not
even a fully school year after implementation, suspension rates for foster
youth have decreased by 10% in this district, I believe that what this district
has executed has already begun to change the trajectory for youth in foster
care. If we can all as future school counselors and psychologists take just one
idea from this district and implement it in our schools, think of how many
foster youths we can impact!
Want to know more? Check out these two information sheets.
Educational outcomes for youth in foster care: http://www.fc2success.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/National-Fact-Sheet-on-the-Educational-Outcomes-of-Children-in-Foster-Care-Jan-2014.pdf
California Foster Care Education Laws (those AB #s from the handbook): http://www.cfyetf.org/publications_11_3259084835.pdf
~ Colleen Chalmers,
school counseling student
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