Just a quick resource share for those of you doing program work in the social services: Here is the Vera Institute of Justice‘s guide to building an evidence-based practice. As part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change Initiative, “Measuring Success” was written in response to grantees in the juvenile Read more…
Longtime readers of this blog might remember that I am mildly fascinated with time perspective as it relates to young people setting goals and making decisions. I recently finished Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd’s book, The Time Paradox, which is chock full of facts and insights, both interesting and provocative. The Stanford Read more…
This has been a tough week for a lot of my friends and colleagues, but what is getting many of us through has been time spent in the company of like-minded, big-hearted people. Just as it’s vital for young people to have caring adults in their lives, it continues to Read more…
Artistic Noise gives youth in the juvenile justice system the opportunity to document their lives and express themselves through the visual arts. Their nine-month program includes life and job skills training, and culminates in an art show at a gallery. Right now Storytellers is on exhibit at the Commons Gallery. Its Read more…
As part of a broader effort to improve services for LGBTQ teens in the child welfare system, NYC ACS redesigned a portion of their website to make it easier for young people, professionals, and other caring adults to find resources for LGBTQ youth. Please take the time to visit and Read more…
One of my youth advisors gave me clever advice today on how to engage youth in care in conversations around race and identity, which she agrees are critical to discuss in a foster care setting. Here they are: 1. Use your personal experience to open a general discussion on a sensitive Read more…
I’m still making my way through the e-training portion of the Casey Family Program’s Knowing Who You Are curriculum, which is devoted to training social workers and other adults and professionals in the child welfare system in how to nurture the healthy racial/ethnic identities of children in foster care. The section on institutional racism identifies key points in the child welfare process where the cases of children of color seem to be handled differently than those of their white peers. These include investigation, child placement, service provision, and permanency planning. (more…)
Young people transitioning out of foster care lag behind their peers nationally on measures of employment and college enrollment.
The National Longitudinal Study of Youth (1997) finds that
By comparison, a multi-site evaluation of youth transitioning out of foster care finds that
In an attempt to establish a relationship between job preparation programs and employment, the Urban Institute recently put out a brief that tackles the question, Do youth in foster care accurately assess their preparation for work? Specifically, Marla McDaniel and Michael Pergamit want to know if the confidence a 17-year old has about her ability to apply, get, and keep a job is a good predictor for whether she will be employed and/or in college by age 19.
[Obligatory apologies for neglecting this blog.] I’ve been meaning to write about an idea coming out of the Adoptment program to bring more structure into their mentoring sessions. The group has recently handed over the planning of one session to each mentor/mentee pair. Aside from allowing young people to take more responsibility Read more…
As part of the Lean Startup for Social Enterprise course that I took through Be Social Change, I started conducting customer development interview with youth in care. This exercise forced me to step back from all the generally positive feedback I’ve had from social workers, child welfare administrators, and other adults in the youth development space to ask a more fundamental question: Will the youth themselves find my programs useful?
So far I’ve interviewed three young people either in care or recently aged out to determine how they set goals for themselves, what internal qualities they possess to help them along, and what other tools and supports they have to reach their goals.
My conversations with them tended to meander, but I was able to gather a lot of knowledge and insight from each young person I spoke to. Already there are some common themes emerging. Note that this is a totally unscientific study with a tiny sample size, but what I learned seemed worth sharing:
1. Young people in foster care develop systemic thinking skills early on. Because they are exposed to the workings of a massive bureaucracy that impacts their daily lives, youth in care know where the pain points are. They see exactly where all the moving parts fail to connect because a lack of communication and coordination. And they sense the irony of how a system meant to serve the interests of children can come woefully short of its goals. (more…)