Video

Think about it: You are taken from your parents, dropped off at someone else’s home, usually with a garbage bag filled with your clothes, told that this is your new home, and these are your new parents and often, this is your new school.

“I wasn’t allowed to talk about anything, the way I found I could talk about what was happening in my life was through these surrealistic drawings and paintings that I’d create.

In the system since he was an infant, at 18 Walter was ready to go. While he had lived with this same foster mother most of his life, he was done with foster care and wanted to age out.

“I told them we were being taken and I didn’t know where we were going and when we were coming back.” That’s how Kaysie, then 14, recalls telling her friends about the fact that she and her siblings were headed to foster care.

On February 28th, 2017, Fatima Avelica witnessed and captured on video her father being detained by immigration officers while on her way to school. As immigration arrests rise under the Trump Administration, more families risk enduring traumatic and destabilizing experiences like Fatima’s.

Martha Ryan, Founder & Executive Director of the Homeless Prenatal Program, shares the incredible genesis of the program that was born from her observation of a population of pregnant, homeless women and families in need of resources for a better future.

In the last entry in our series on the policy recommendations of California foster youth, we hear from California Youth Connection (CYC) advocates Trinity Lott and Bailey Villarreal about the need to find ways to help social workers be more responsive to the needs of foster youth.

Across the state, foster parent recruitment has been a hot topic. As California pursues an ambitious slate of congregate-care reforms, many counties are looking for ways to increase the number and quality of foster homes.

In 2010, California passed Assembly Bill 12 (Fostering Connections to Success Act), which extended foster-care benefits from age 18 to 21. California was one of the first states in the country to pass legislation that made it possible for transition-age youth to receive federal funds as long as they met work or school requirements.