May is National Foster Care Month…How WE Can Help!

Today across the nation there are over 400,000 children in foster care, over 20,00 of these youth are “legal orphans” awaiting adoption and 25,000 of these children will age out this year. During the month of May hundreds of community events are being planned across the country to help retain, recruit and support critically needed foster parents as well as provide support and advocacy for foster youth and assist children aging out of the system.

We can get involved now to Change a Life one child at a time or pay the cost of our failure later. According to the latest statistics for vulnerable children aging out of the system this is the price we are already paying today for our failure:

Only 54% earn a high school diploma
Only 10% of those go on to college
Only 2% of those obtain a Bachelor’s degree or higher
84% become parents prior to a marriage
51% will experience unemployment due to lack of skills
30% have no health insurance
25% will at one time be homeless
30% receive some type of public assistance
37% become incarcerated
Over 40% will become involved with drugs or are alcoholics

May is an opportune time to highlight the hundreds of ways individuals, churches, schools, libraries, scout troops, civic and social organizations, businesses and government can help support these children, youth and families. I hope it will encourage you to Change a Life by:

Sharing your hearts
Opening your homes as foster parents
Offering your help youth in foster care.
Declare May as “Foster Care Month”

How You May Participate in Foster Care Month:

Wear a “Blue Ribbon” during May in support of National Foster Care Month and help organize or attend a ribbon tying ceremony to advocate on behalf of children in foster care in your community or state.

Write your Governor and Mayor requesting they proclaim May as “Foster Care Month” in your state and community.

Organize a Candlelight Vigil in remembrance of those children who have been abused, neglected or died while in out of home care.

Collect “Teddy Bears” to donate to your local police and fire departments as well as social services departments to soothe children in a time a crisis.

Create “Love Packs” for children living in foster care homes, group homes or other institutional care. (IE: hygiene items, and age appropriate toys, school supplies, story books and a teddy bear)

Organize a drive to collect suitcases and duffel bags as many foster children are moved a number of times while in care, usually their possessions in black plastic garbage bags donate suitcases & duffel bags to foster care agencies so children might move with a little bit of dignity.

Conduct a drive for goods that will assist a youth aging out of the system to get started in life on their own. (IE: alarm clocks, bedding, tools, towels and basic house wares)

Have an “Event Day” for children in foster care (IE: Sports, Zoo, Picnic or Museum Day).

Conduct a creative writing/poster campaign for school children on the subject of Children in Foster Care.

Learn more about how policy, legislative and budget priorities affect children and youth in foster care. Learn the facts about foster care and gain a better understanding of the needs of those touched by foster care. Advocate for reform of the child welfare system so “in the best interest of the child” becomes a reality to the children and youth in care.

Have a “Capital Day” in your state to educate legislatures of the need to reform the child welfare system as many children should NOT be in care in the first place.

Conduct a letter writing campaign to the news media, government officials and others of the plight of children living without parents.

Organize a “Step Out for Kids Walkathon” to raise awareness and funds to assist those children and youth in care. Sometimes, tangible items can have tremendous impact on a young life. Foster youth often lack the funds to pay for an after-school computer class, musical instruments, sports participation or art supplies. Items that most of us would consider basics, such as school backpacks or supplies for a science fair entry, also may be out of reach. Cost of donating to nonprofits benefiting foster youth: A tax-deductible contribution to fit your budget.

Become a “Mentor” or “Tutor” to a child or youth in foster care. By becoming a mentor or tutor you will give foster youth reliable support from someone who holds high expectations for them and encourages them to see a better life for themselves. To mentor or tutor a foster youth not only benefits the recipient, but it is also one of the most rewarding endeavors in life, showing a young person that you care and can be relied upon, even through challenging times. Cost of mentoring or tutoring youth: An hour or two of your time each week. Research shows that children and youth with mentors earn higher grades and improve relationships with friends and families. They also have a better opportunity of success when they age out of the system.

Make a financial contribution to programs and agencies attempting to enrich the lives of children and youth in care.

Have a “Speakers Campaign” to make presentations to your faith-based congregation, civic group, school, PTA and other associations to educate and encourage your community to come together to find families and resources that help young people in foster care thrive.

Businesses have the ability to offer foster youth a life-changing opportunity as well. By hiring young people living in foster care and training them for successful careers, employers provide foster youth with a critical start toward a lifetime of self-sufficiency. Cost of offering and promoting jobs or internships for youth in foster care: Insignificant!

Most important of all, for those children who may not be able to remain with or return safely to their birth families, thousands are needed to open their homes and their hearts and become full-time foster or adoptive parents. The lasting commitment that results from creating a new home is one that can be pursued by couples, married or unmarried, single people and partners. Cost of creating a new, loving family by parenting abused, abandoned and neglected children: Priceless! Contact your local private or state child care agency to see how you may become a foster or adoptive parent.

Many people have asked me how they can become involved in making the foster care system a better one for the children and youth as well as for the foster parents since I was once a foster child. The snapshot of ideas above gives everyone an opportunity to do exactly that.

Yes, the ideas may take time, effort and funds, however, remember these children and youth are our future. As said early in this article; “We can Change a Life NOW one at a time or we will pay the price of their and our failure later.

It is up to US!

Give foster youth full access to Affordable Care Act

Anyone working with youth who may be aging out of care should be supportive on this issue as it greatly concerns health care being available to youth aging out of the system:

 

By REP. KAREN BASS and REP. JIM MCDERMOTT | 3/19/13 9:51 PM  EDT

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) serve as  co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth.

This month marks the third anniversary since the Affordable Care Act was  signed into law by President Barack Obama. Despite the ongoing partisan rancor  surrounding the bill’s implementation, there is at least one provision Congress  should be able to find common ground around: making sure we protect the ability  of young adults to remain on their parents’ health care plans until they reach  age 26. Millions of young adults already are benefiting from this provision as  they work to get themselves established either through continuing their  educations or landing a job.

But when it comes to the thousands of foster youth who age out of the  foster-care system each year, the guarantee of affordable health insurance until  they are able to get on their feet with gainful employment could be in jeopardy  if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid doesn’t take the broadest  interpretation of the law and ensure all states cover former foster youth until  age 26.

Almost 30,000 young people age out of foster care every year,  having never been adopted or reunified with their birth parents. The fact that  they age out is our failure as a government, and we should not compound that  problem by inadvertently denying them access to the same health care  opportunities as any other young adult would receive under the Affordable Care  Act.

Foster youth who age out are statistically more likely to experience  homelessness and incarceration and to lack health care. They face higher rates  of physical and mental health challenges, sometimes due in part to trauma early  in life. These facts make it all the more important that we guarantee all  eligible foster-care alumni access to quality health coverage.

Foster youth shouldn’t be treated any differently as they transition from the  foster-care system into adulthood — but if we aren’t careful, that’s exactly  what could happen.

The CMS proposed regulation requires states to enroll eligible foster youth  in Medicaid to age 26 only if they remain living in the state where they were in  foster care and enrolled in Medicaid. Although the draft regulation provides  states with the option of extending Medicaid to youth who move to their state,  it does not require it. That may leave foster youth in limbo when it comes to  their ability to access these benefits under the Affordable Care Act.

While CMS should be applauded for striving to achieve health parity for  foster youth, requiring those youth to remain living in the state where they  were in foster care presents an unnecessary burden on the backs of those already  carrying the heaviest load.

After years of separation, 32-year-old man to be adopted

This story on CNN.COM impacted me quite a bit as I read it. I know how he felt over those years of separation from the family he wanted so much.

Unless you have experienced you do not know the impact such as his experience can impact you.

I was in care from the day of my birth until I aged out at 18. During those years I was moved 15 times. Three of those times was being returned to one particular family for periods of 6 months, 2 years & 4 1/2 years. This family attempted to adopt me each time I was placed with them. First they were denied because it felt their being in their 40s was too old. Second, their bio son & his wife attemoted to adopt but were denied because he was Catholic & she Lutheran ( was was with Cathoilic Chairities). The parents attemoted to then adopted me when placed with them for 4 plus years but were denied with no reason ever given. A few weeks later I was removed from them for the final time.

Despite being moved the final time I continued to stay in contact with them and always considered them Mom & Dad no matter what the system said. Dad died in 1975 and Mom in 1983.

I always yearned for a family I could call my own but it was never to be, however all these years later I still call them my Mom & Dad.

 

Here is the story from CNN.COM:

 

(CNN) – A boyhood wish is finally about to come true. But Maurice Griffin had to wait until he was a man for it to happen.

At age 32, the California man is about to be adopted.

“It has to happen,” Griffin said. “I didn’t fight for all those years for no reason.”

Adopting the burly, muscular, mohawk-sporting man is Lisa Godbold, his one-time foster mother.

“I just feel like this makes it official,” Godbold said. “And we don’t have to keep explaining it now.”

Good time

The story dates to the early 1980s, when Godbold and her husband saw Griffin at an orphanage near their Sacramento home. The smiling child seemed to fit perfectly with their family.

“Interracial relationships weren’t as common or accepted as they are today and the fact that Maurice was biracial. And we were a biracial family made us a great profile. So to speak,” Godbold said.

In addition, Griffin got along well with the couple’s other children, two boys younger than him.

“We were best friends,” Griffin said. “We’d run around, we did mischievous things and fun things. It was a good time.”

The good time lasted for years — until Griffin was 13 — and was two months away from being officially adopted by the family.

Family ripped apart

One day, foster care officials took Griffin away, saying he could not live with Godbold’s family anymore.

The whole issue came from a dispute over whether they could spank him, according to Godbold.

“You can’t spank foster children. Maurice very much wanted that,” Godbold said. “We wanted him to feel like the rest of our kids. And there was a difference of opinion with some of the (child welfare) supervisors.”

Godbold said she fought to keep Griffin and was told she could lose her biological children.

CNN contacted the state agency responsible for the case, but its officials would not comment because it’s still considered a juvenile case.

So she had to let go. And as time moved on Griffin, says he lost touch with what he felt was his only family.

“It was just an emptiness,” he said. “I couldn’t talk to anybody about it because nobody was there. I couldn’t call somebody; there was just a void in me.”

Searching for each other

Despite several obstacles, they never stopped searching for one another.

Godbold’s husband died in 1998. She remarried and changed her last name, and moved. Griffin bounced from one foster home to another, never finding what he lost.

“I didn’t let anybody get close to me again,” Griffin said, holding back tears. “I hurt a lot of people. It was a rough road.”

But six years ago, Godbold found Griffin on social media. They communicated online and then one day she called him.

“She said, ‘hey baby,’ and I said I got to call you back,” Griffin said, trying to explain how overwhelmed he was by the reunion.

And now the two are heading to a San Diego courtroom Friday, to put their family back together.

A juvenile court.

What is Foster Care Like?

I don’t think I need say anymore!Click on photo to get the full picture and words.

 

Daughter finds biological mother a few days before Christmas

A heartwarming Christmas story for those who have searched for their birth family:

By: Tracy Frank, Fargo Forum December 25, 2012

Pam Miller, of Fargo, spent more than 30 years looking for her biological mother before she finally found her, three days before Christmas in 2010.

“It was truly a Christmas miracle,” said Laura Faye Bobo, Miller’s mother, who lives in Ohio.

Miller, now 52, endured a difficult childhood, even after her adoption at birth.

Her adoptive mother died when Miller was 5 years old.

When her adoptive father couldn’t take care of her, her adoptive mother’s sister took over custody until she was 15 years old, when Miller went into foster care until age 18.

As an adult, Miller spent countless hours in libraries looking at newspapers and phone books for any clues that might lead to her biological family.

All Miller knew was that her mother’s first name was Faye, her last name might have been something like Clemens, and she lived somewhere in Ohio.

She spent a lot of time calling people who would just hang up.

Eventually she stopped.

“I came to peace with myself that it probably would never happen,” Miller said. “I had spent years looking, and I just figured it would never happen, so I just moved on.”

But after she had a family of her own and her daughter, Presley, who is now 20, developed medical problems, Miller started looking again, this time needing information on her medical background in addition to wanting to find her parents.

She contacted the hospital in St. Louis where she’d been born and the courthouse to try to get the adoption records opened.

Both resulted in dead ends.

She started and stopped her search a few times over the years.

Then a couple of years ago when Miller was looking for Presley’s birth certificate, she came across a box of get well cards addressed to her first adoptive mother.

She started searching the cards, looking for clues and decided on a whim to type her first adoptive mother’s name into Google to see what popped up.

It was late on Dec. 21, 2010, when Miller came across a notice on adopteeconnect.com that said: “I am searching for my birth daughter, her name was Pamela Jean Hubbs, adoptive parents were John and Viola Hubbs of St. Louis, Missouri.”

It had been posted Oct. 20 of that year, the day after Miller’s 50th birthday.

“I was crying,” Miller said. “I was a wreck and didn’t know what to do.”

She immediately called her oldest daughter, who was at a friend’s house.

“I got a phone call from my mom and she was bawling,” Presley Wanner said. “My stomach just dropped.”

When Miller told her daughter that she had found her mother, Wanner started crying, too.

“I was just blown away,” Wanner said.

Miller clicked on the reply button on the notice and wrote: “My name is Pamela Jean Miller Hubbs. I know that I’m your daughter,” she said.

She added where she was born and her adoptive parents’ names and hit send.

“I was sick to my stomach,” she said. “I was nervous, excited, but apprehensive. I didn’t know what to think.”

Miller said she didn’t sleep all night, and when she checked her email at 6 the next morning, she had a message from her sister, Karen, whom she didn’t know existed until that moment.

Karen had posted the notice to help her mother find Miller.

“It was the most wonderful thing that happened,” Bobo said. “I had been trying to find her for about 50 years.”

Bobo, who said she never wanted to give her daughter up for adoption, said she wrote letters and never got answers back. She said the court told her they would release all of the adoption information when her daughter turned 18, but they never did.

“You don’t know how much I suffered in those 50 years,” Bobo said. “I cried all the time. I always cried on her birthday.”

“There was a piece of my heart that was missing,” Bobo said. “After we found her, I felt like my heart was back. I can’t really explain it. When I left St. Louis and left her there, I left a piece of my heart there. I’m very excited and happy that she’s in our lives. I didn’t think we could ever find her.”

It took Miller a little while before she could call her mom, she said.

“I don’t know why,” she said. “These people were like total strangers, but yet, they were my family.”

Miller and her sister emailed back and forth, exchanging information and family photos.

“It was like we’d always been sisters,” Miller said.

She learned she had seven siblings, and she flew to Ohio to meet them and her mom a few weeks later.

When she arrived, there was a huge party at her mother’s house with a big cake that read, “Welcome home.”

“I hugged her and we were crying,” Bobo said. “She just acted like she was at home. It was amazing. I just felt like I knew her.”

Miller stayed about a week, spending time getting to know the family she never knew she had.

Her mother also identified Miller’s father, a man with which Bobo was no longer in contact. Several months later, Miller started looking for him.

She found two listings for a Dewey White in Arkansas. She guessed which one was likely her father and called the number.

When a man answered, Miller asked if he had ever known a woman named Faye Cremeans.

“He said, ‘I most certainly did,’ ” Miller said.

She then told him she was his daughter.

“She said, well thank God, I found my father,” White said. “I didn’t know what to think.”

White said he was shocked, but he was happy. He knew he had a daughter somewhere, but never knew where to look or how to find her, he said.

Miller then visited him, too. They got along well and have a close relationship now, White said.

“I just love her a whole lot,” he said. “It seems like I’ve known her forever.”

Miller still keeps in close contact with both sides of her new-found family and says she feels a sense of peace.

“I have that feeling that I belong somewhere now,” she said.

Justice & Maybe Healing Can Begin

Last November when the Penn State Scandal first erupted I wrote a blog stating my feelings on the case, a link to it is below:

http://prairieguy.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/a-response-to-penn-state-scandal/

Last evening I attended the Arizona Diamondbacks vs Chicago baseball game. Because of this I did not hear the initial reports of the outcome of the Jerry Sandusky trial.

While driving home from the game I was listening to a news radio station; the story came on of the finding of guilty on 45 of 48 charges. I had to pull over to the side of the road as tears began to well up in my eyes. As I approached the side of the road the tears became a full blown cry.

I cried because it was a feeling that justice had finally became a reality for the 10 identified victims of this predator. The tears began with the joy that this happened but soon turned to tears of sorrow.

It took  courage far beyond what many would be able to muster to overcome fear and state before the world what happened to them and how it has affected their lives. I cried for the pain they had endured for so many years. I cried because people did not believe them when in some cases they told those whom they trusted about the abuse but it turned out it fell on deaf ears or an unwillingness to hear and believe. And folks wonder why it can take so many years before one comes forward.

I cried with hope that maybe, just maybe, healing may begin for those 10 young men as well as those who were unable to overcome their fears, shame, grief to come forward. Yes, I believe there are more victims out there. Sandusky did not begin his predatory actions when he began his non profit where he trolled for his potential prey; I believe he had been doing it for years!

Sandusky’s conviction is not the end of this case. Others still face trial for perjury, investigations are still going on as to who knew what and when. Other victims I believe because of the results of trial and the fact that 12 jurors believed the story of those who testified others will overcome their fears, shame and grief and come forward. A young man of 30 as well as Matt Sandusky, Sandusk’y adopted son whom he adopted after he aged out of the foster are system, came forward before the trial even ended.

It took me over 40 years after I was sexually abused, for which no one was ever held accountable, to overcome and finally share with others what happened to me. Though it is now over 50 years since it happened there are times, like last night, when all of it comes back to me as though it happened yesterday. It is something that will remain, to some degree, a part of me until my last breath.

It is my great hope and prayer that Sandusky’s conviction will be the start of the healing process for his victims. It is my hope that their community will not just move on to other things now that this trial is over but rather will be available to these young men & others as help is needed. The 8 men who testified took their fist steps in healing by overcoming fears and having that courage to testify against their predator but they will have many more miles to walk before they can say healing has happened.

Hopefully folks will realize total healing  never occurs; their experiences will always be a part of their lives but the healing will allow them to move forward with their lives allowing them to be in control rather than the experience controlling them. I know how my life has been all these years from the experience.

Because of his conviction Sandusky faces a minimum of 60 years in prison and a maximum of over 400 years. It means he will die in prison…rightfully where he belongs  and where he deserves to die! He will never be able to abuse child and steal their youth again!

Now I await others that need to be held accountable for their actions or lack thereof have there day to be held accountable.

Removing the Barriers to Higher Education for Homeless and Foster Youth

This is an article written by Sam Bracken on June 14, 20012 for the Huffington Post, Sam is a former foster youth. His story s inspiring how he overcame and how he is now helping other:

At this time of year we hear heartwarming stories about homeless kids who manage to graduate from college. Those kids are few and far between.

Although many states have programs in place where youth in foster care who graduate on time and with decent grades are supposed receive support to go on to college, fewer than 3 percent of kids who have been in foster care make it into college. Of those who do manage to get accepted into college, only about 3 percent successfully graduate with degrees.

I know firsthand many of the barriers homeless kids and youth from foster care face in education. I was one of those invisible kids — sexually abused, randomly beaten by my parents and stepsiblings. My role models were mobsters and motorcycle gang members in Las Vegas. I suffered every kind of abuse imaginable at the hands of those charged with keeping me safe. I was wrongly in special education classes until a caring teacher figured out when I was 13 that I just needed glasses.

By age 15, I was homeless. Worried about losing my spot on the football team, I kept my homelessness a secret from my high school and couch surfed. I juggled football and track practices, jobs and homework and graduated number 11 out of a class of 700 students.

Then a miracle happened.

I earned a full-ride football scholarship to Georgia Institute of Technology where Coach Bill Curry was in his first year as head coach. When I flew from Las Vegas to Atlanta, everything I owned fit in an orange duffel bag. Georgia Tech officials had no idea they were getting a homeless teen. Lucky for me, the university had instituted its “total person program,” which meant that athletes got training on every aspect of being a well-rounded individual.

Even with the support that came with being a student athlete, I often struggled. During every college break, I had to contend with the possibility of being homeless again and worry about where I would eat and sleep since the dorms and cafeteria were closed. I had no one to turn to pay for incidentals, and NCAA rules made it illegal for me to get help from alums. No one in my family had graduated from college, so being in school was like landing in a foreign country where I didn’t understand the language or the currency.

After a very successful freshman year on the field and in the classroom, I had what I was told were career-ending shoulder injuries. When I woke up from surgery, Coach Curry was by my bedside, and told me he didn’t care whether I played football again — my scholarship was safe. Then he said words I’ll never forget: “I care about you, Sam.”

That was the first time in my life I had ever felt loved. I re-earned a starting position on the team, and contributed to one of Georgia Tech’s most winning teams. When I hit an emotional wall my junior year stemming from my traumatic past, the coaching staff made sure I got professional help. Thanks to academic tutoring, I was on academic scholarships my last two years at Georgia Tech.

Despite the obstacles and thanks to many mentors, I graduated with honors.

More than 30 years later, I am saddened that shockingly little has changed in terms of helping our most vulnerable teens gain access to higher education. They face all kinds of barriers–from an outdated paper voucher system that allows them to take the ACT/SAT or waive college application fees to contending with homelessness during school breaks to being suspended from classes because the state fails to pay a tuition bill on time. Homeless teens and those in foster care rarely graduate on time from high school, because their high school transcripts get so fouled up from being moved so often.

Among youth in foster care nationally, fewer than 50 percent graduate high school. The rate among homeless teens hasn’t been measured, but I suspect it’s worse than that. Yet a recent survey showed that 90 percent of all jobs now require a high school diploma or GED.

I know all of this from working with kids as co-founder and national spokesperson of the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation (ODBF), a 501c3 nonprofit that does professional coaching on life plans with at-risk kids ages 12-24. I recently met a 15-year-old who has been through 39 placements, including 17 different foster homes. He’s an A student, but I can only imagine what his transcripts must look like. Another young man in Columbus, Ohio, found out he was one-half credit shy of graduating. His caseworker failed to submit his application in time for the full-ride he would have had at Ohio State University. His caseworker dropped him at the local men’s homeless shelter the day after he was supposed to graduate.

A staggering 70 percent of the people in our prisons report having been in foster care or homeless shelters as children. Ironically, the cost of incarcerating a youth for a year equals the amount it would take for a year of education at many of our best colleges and universities.

We cannot afford as a nation to overlook the educational needs of our most vulnerable young people. As part of the Atlanta-based Community Youth Opportunity Initiative designed to help youth in foster care, ODBF recently met with the leadership committee of the Georgia Board of Regents to present ideas about how to help break down the barriers that are currently preventing them from scaling the ivy walls. Most expressed shock and concern about the labyrinth these young people, who frequently don’t have one single caring adult to advocate for them, are expected to navigate.

Let’s tear down some walls and break the cycle of generational poverty that many of our young people face.