Wednesday night was the in-service for CASA volunteers. The topic was the Independent Living class for 16-18 year olds in foster care. Unlike people in regular families, these children have no support at all once they reach 18. (Or 19, if they can demonstrate that they will graduate from high school by their 19th birthday.)

In the whole state there are only 4 Foster Youth Services groups. They work in close partnership with American Ric\ver College. These groups serve grades K-12. Elk Grove's FYS does the most work with the Independent Living Program and tutoring. In Elk Grove a lot of the schools are overcrowded and siblings can end up in four or five different schools.

The Independent Living Program pushes for students to go on to college. This works for more students than you would expect. They help with financial aid forms for seniors and other children planning to fo to school. The ILP is the same for all the districts in the county including those who don't have Foster Youth Services. There is, therefore, consistency. They also work with kids on probabion. There is an ILP scholarship of $300 that almost everyone gets. Foster children with a MediCal card get their fees waived at community colleges. However, you have to re-apply for MediCal and they are bureaucracy at its worst, sending the whole packet again if one messes up on one line.

Unlike kids in a normal household, who often turn up back at home when things go sour a couple of times, foster care children have no home to go to. They found some years back that a huge percentage of New York City's homeless were former foster youth without skills. There are about 900 youths in Sacramento County in the program. 200 of them are emacnipated. The ILP makes sure they have their social security number, birth certificate, and a California ID. It used to be that they couldn't get a driver's license, but now that is allowed if the foster care provider OKs it. They have to have their own insurance.

They run a workshop, Independent City, where they learn to interact with a "roommate", "landlord", the people who provide utilities, etc.

The social worker is responsible for referrals but anyone can refer a youth. This is a voluntary program for them.

Then we heard from a graduate of ILP. She says she's in college, plans to run a culinary institute and then be President. She has 4 brothers and 2 sisters, 4 of whom are adopted. She's the oldest, 19. She says it was hard to learn to deal with bills and roommates. It's "really scary."

This girl belongs to the California Youth Connection, a lobbying group. They passed a sibling bill that says that once the children are adopted, they still get to see their siblings. They are trying to extend MediCal money to 22. They talk to AssemblyCritters.

It used to be that if foster teens had over $1000 in an account they had to pay rent to their foster parents. There is now no cap on this "emancipation account." The eligibility worker, not the social worker, had this information.

Someone asked this speaker what she missed from ILP? She said she had needed a cosigner to get her apartment, and a former foster parent had done that. She says she's lucky, and this former foster parent is good with advice, as is the ILP staff. She had to leave this placement when she turned 18 as she couldn't share a bedroom with her sister any more (adult in the same room! I know why they have these laws, but sometimes they are silly.)

M. found it hard to talk to an older foster parent, but had one in her 20s when she was a mid-teen to whom she related well. She stated that "a counsellor or therapist don't understand unless they have kids."

All in all, an interesting evening. Three of my classmates were there. One has a teen CASA kid, and found some useful information. The rest of us have younger children. It's always possible, though, that our kids will grow up in the system and we'll have to know this information.