normalcy

In my 15 years of advocacy experience, nothing has had such urgency as normalcy for children and youth in foster care. The term itself might not be used by participants for a foster youth survey, or in a focus group, but the feeling from youth and alumni is the same.

When you’re a parent, you call the shots. It’s about everyday routines like scheduling bedtime and planning what’s for dinner, and long-term goals like what school they will attend or how old they have to be before they can start dating.

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships.

Of the myriad issues in child welfare, The Imprint has recently chosen to devote five articles to one issue: California’s failure to implement federal provisions regarding educational stability for foster youth.

A federal law that went into effect last year promotes the idea that foster youth need to be engaged in the everyday activities that all other young people enjoy to improve their outcomes as adults.

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 12 former foster youths who completed congressional internships.

In the past, the trauma of being placed in foster care was often intensified by placement in a new school. But in 2008, Congress passed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act, which required that a child who is placed in foster care (or in a new foster home) remain in the same school unless it is not in his or her best interest.

by Lexie Gruber Simply by virtue of their state involvement, thousands of foster children are deprived the right to a normal life. A myriad of bizarre restrictions are instated in policy under the guise of protecting children.

During the perpetual polar vortex of congressional cooperation that marked 2013, it looked like both chambers and parties had come to some consensus on a few legislative changes to adoption, foster care, and child support enforcement.