The National Foster Youth Institute and the Right Way Foundation co-sponsored a roundtable discussion in Leimert Park on Sept. 21 regarding improving policies in foster care.
Nearly 100 foster youth and community advocates attended the discussion co-chaired by Rep. Karen Bass (CA-37) and Eighth District Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson. Also on the panel were filmmaker Juan Carlos Pinero Escoriaza, Los Angeles Community College District Trustee Sydney Kamlager, Youth Law Center Executive Director Jennifer Rodriguez and actress Lee Jimenez.
Statistics for foster youth are grim: according to a 2010 study by Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago, only 50 percent of foster youth will complete high school or acquire a GED after aging out of foster care. Sixty percent will be convicted of a crime, and 75 percent will receive public assistance. Only 6 percent will complete a degree program.
“We live in the U.S, one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and we can’t figure out how to take care of a half million children (in foster care)?” said Bass, who is a longtime advocate for foster youth. “Shame on us. There should not be a reason why we cannot give foster children everything they need. It should be the right of every youth to have a family.”
“The government has the attitude of one size fits all,” Harris-Dawson observed. “If you don’t have a personality that fits the foster home, the relationship is not going to work. Foster kids should have choices and their choices should be supported in a robust way,” he said. “We need to find out what’s the best situation for each particular child.”
Donna Brown Guillaume, program director of the National Foster Youth Institute, said that the goal of NFYI is to build grassroots support nationwide. “We want to transform the child welfare system to greatly improve the outcome for foster youth,” said Guiillaume.
Bass, who supported HR 4980 in Congress, which supports foster care youth to engage in developmentally appropriate activities, pointed out that comprehensive, long-term support services for foster youth is needed, but that child welfare reform has yet to attract a national groundswell of support.
“There is no push in D. C. to make the system do what it is supposed to do,” she pointed out. “We have to have protests and marches, but it takes a great movement of people to bring about change, to make sure the movement will stick.”
One of the concerns discussed was the over-prescription of psychotropic drugs given to foster youth.
“If the youth is acting depressed or can’t sit still, they are given psychotropic drugs and the foster parents get paid extra money,” said former foster youth Jasmine Morgan, an attendee who spent most of her youth in foster care. Morgan said that many times youths are administered the drugs without receiving an explanation.
“We think that if we medicate youth out of their trauma, they will be okay, and that’s not true,” Kamlager pointed out.
Bass, who helped introduced a bill in Congress to curtail psychotropic drugs from being administered to foster youth, said, “Lots of people are making decisions that psychotropic drugs are needed—and work with a financial incentive. We need to financially support foster care parents without this being a small business.”
“As a society, we are quick to put people on drugs,” said Jimenez, who said she was drugged while she was in foster care. “Kids can’t understand what drugs are or why they are being put in their bodies. Drugs are making folks turn into zombies. The system doesn’t focus on the issues young people may have such as ADHD and schizophrenia. We need to do something to help (foster youth) rather than to medicate them.”
Many youths were victims of the “revolving door” of the foster care system where they are placed in a succession of foster homes which contribute to a sense of instability.
Several foster youth expressed concern over a “7-day-notice” that forces them to vacate the home if they acquired bad grades, got into a fight or came home late. Several foster youth commented that if the social worker is unable to find another foster home before the notice expired, the foster youth could be placed in a group home or juvenile hall. They felt that the 7-day-notice was unfair and should be amended.
“I was in 19 foster homes and one group home,” said attendee Leo Jimenez. “I went through a lot in foster care.”
“Federal and state outcomes are important, but it’s important to live in a home with people who love you, who think that you have potential and promise,” said Rodriguez, a former foster youth. “Kids should have input about what happens in their care. That feeling of not being in control leads to trauma,” she said.
Rodriguez felt strongly that more stringent recruitment methods should be enforced when selecting foster parents. “We don’t recruit in the right way. We need people who really like kids and who enjoy the company of children and who can deal with every young person as an individual. There’s a lot more we could do to renovate the system.”
“We need long-term, ongoing commitment to reform foster care,” said Kamlager.
Morgan, who has since “aged out” of the foster care system, recalls, “If I got into a fight in school or if I got bad grades, they (foster parents) kicked me out.” She said that foster youth yearn for unconditional love and acceptance from their foster parents, especially if they make a “mistake.” She felt foster parents should treat foster youth as if they were their own children. “If you have kids, you don’t kick your kids out,” Morgan pointed out. “You stay with them and you love them, even if they mess up.”
After the discussion, the attendees watched “Know How,” a gritty, eye-opening film written and acted by foster youth. Directed by filmmaker Escoriaza, the critically acclaimed film, which is currently airing on Netflix, depicted youths’ harrowing experiences in the foster care system.
