Youth in Transition-Foster care alumni program https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/proposals-2010/youth-in-transition-foster-care-alumni-program https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/@@site-logo/sitelogo-75x75.png

Youth in Transition-Foster care alumni program

Additional Information
Used for	Funding will be used to support 2010 programming of Youth in Transition (YTP). (YTP)began the first five week, performing and visual arts, 30 hour, training on January 23, 2010. The four, five-week workshops, will give the youth an opportunity to discuss the experience of living apart from their birth families, living in non-traditional family settings, stereotyping, understanding diversity and leadership skills.
Benefits	The funding will support educating young adults about transitioning from foster care to become healthy, proactive adults and citizens. The program focuses on giving back to society, participants focus on being leaders rather than victims. Finally, SCFFAA believes that by supporting these young adults to make positive choices in their lives, we are planting the seeds for healthy families, communities and the world.
Proposal Description	SCFFAA recognizes the importance of preparing youth to leave the foster care system, i.e. emancipate, by learning to implement their “transitional tools” long before the change is presented. The need for the Youth in Transition program becomes clear when examining recent studies of youth who have left the foster care system: • 65% of youth leaving foster care in California do so without a place to live. • As many as 50% of former foster/probation youth become homeless within the first 18 months of emancipation. • 40% of young people who emancipate from foster care will be incarcerated or on welfare within 2-4 years of emancipation, and 70% of all state penitentiary inmates have spent time in the foster care system • Less than half of former foster youth are employed 2-1/2 to 4 years after leaving foster care, and only 38% have maintained employment for at least one year. • 60% of young women who emancipate from foster care become parents within 2.5-4 years after exiting care (girls in foster care are six times more likely to give birth before the age of 21 than the general population). • Parents with a history of foster care are almost twice as likely as parents with no such history to see their own children placed in foster care or become homeless. • There will always be a need for teen transitional support because often, others who have assisted youth when they are younger are unwilling or unable to continue to do so when the youth are older. • There is no safety net to protect teens who age out of the foster care system. • Over the past few years, DCFS funding priorities have shifted, resulting in insufficient funds to support programs for youth transitioning out of the foster care system. Although SCFFAA has always encouraged young people to stay connected after emancipation, Youth in Transition works specifically to ensure that the teens stay involved with the agency as long as they need support and finally as peer mentors or facilitators for other youth. As the program expands, the plan is to incorporate some of the young people as program coordinators to manage a teen transition center. • At least half of the teens in the care of SCFFAA will participate in the program. • All of the participants will graduate from high school or obtain a G.E.D. • All of the teens graduating from the program will be confident in presenting themselves and advocating for what they need, e.g.: jobs; education; housing. • The teens will develop at least one strong, supportive relationship, which may be a peer relationship. • The program will provide a model that may be replicated in Los Angeles and other communities. Youth in Transition is designed to assist foster teens in acquiring skills to improve their sense of self, create better interpersonal relationships, and increase their sense of responsibility for themselves and others. The ultimate goal is to enhance their understanding of their life choices through reflection, to be comfortable advocating for their needs and to prepare for the transition that occurs when emancipating from the foster care system. The program uses experiential workshops that prepare the teens to be leaders and contributing members of the community. They develop essential life skills through the integration of an arts model that provides a safe space within which they rehearse their response to life’s “endings.” This experiential model insures full integration of the learning. The program utilizes a two-phase ( 20 week) curriculum as follows: Youth in Transition runs a series of workshops as described on the attached chart Throughout the program year, facilitators guide the teens through the process where they can address the changes and inherent conflicts currently present in their lives. This process allows the participants to encounter peers facing similar problems and discover their similarities, as well as to increase their sense of self as they discover that they are not alone in the challenges that they face. The rehearsal of outcomes to their conflicts provides a framework for conflict resolution skills and community building as they work together to find solutions. One of the goals in phase 1 is to create a core group of youth who will be able to assist other foster youth who will be experiencing the same issues. Phase II will utilize teens who have completed the program. The teens will have the opportunity to assist younger peers by applying the skills they have learned in continuing workshops. While the younger teens benefit from early opportunities to do, reflect, and apply principles of successful transition and conflict resolution, the older teens benefit from valuable mentoring experiences that allow them to apply their learning while developing responsibilities essential to becoming successfully independent adults. They will be encouraged to maintain involvement with the program as peer mentors and will be trained as youth leaders. Working in collaboration with their adult mentors, the ultimate goal will be to create a youth led teen drop in center. Phase One (Two five-week workshops) Date Activity Jan. 23, 2010 Introduction to YTP Jan. 31, 2010 Discussion about youth-led programming Feb. 07, 2010 Discovering the Future Through Art Feb. 21, 2010 Looking at personal transitions; role playing Feb. 28, 2010 “The Me Nobody Knows",mask making workshop (who I am inside/ how this relates to my public persona) June 05, 2010 “Planning for Life’s Transitions” -- creative workshop using theater and improvisation June 12, 2010 Visual arts project based on “Planning for Life’s Transitions” June 19, 2010 Attend a performance by teens from City at Peace-Los Angeles addressing youth advocacy June 26, 2010 “Visioning the Future” -- using scene work, visual art and improvisation in the form of a “vision board” July 10, 2010 Workshop at Finance Park- program for teens created by Junior League of Los Angeles. Phase Two( Two five-week workshops) Leadership training workshops A key component of the Youth in Transition Program is the leadership training workshops. Each workshop consists of 2 five-week sessions. Groups are closed (group members cannot be added after groups have begun) in order to promote group cohesiveness, team building, and personal growth. Groups are only open to program participants who are age-eligible, so that group members have the necessary cognitive and maturity development to understand and explore the concepts being delivered. The first training session focuses on the inward traits (or assets) young people need to develop in order to become successful leaders. The second training session focuses on the outward skills (or assets) youth need to develop. Cultural competency, communication skills, and managing change/transition are themes interwoven throughout both modules. An important aspect of leadership is helping young people understand what leadership is and what it means to them personally.Trainings help youth look inwardly at the traits and characteristics they already possess that they can access and add to as they begin this journey.The workshops help youth examine themselves, their past experiences, their biases, their outlooks, and helps them to understand themselves even better. Week One: Managing Change, September 4, 2010 - Introduce the concept of personal change - Explore each individual’s personal pattern(s) when reacting to change (unhealthy & healthy reactions to change). - Discuss the changes everyone is currently going through and how non-stop change impacts our lives. Week Two: Managing Transition, September 11, 2010 - Provide participants with a basic understanding of the transitions framework and the difference between change and transition; - The importance of attending to “endings” - The concept of transformation; - The concepts of resonance and resistance. - Explores why we seem to resist change. Week Three: Decision Making, September 18, 2010 - Explore personal decision-making and the impact of our decisions on others. - Discuss what the basis is for good decisions and how looking to the future can help us - Explore what responsibility we have to ourselves in decision making. - Week Four: Discovering the Future, September 25, 2010 - Discuss the concepts of power and control over the future and self-empowerment. - Ends with a letting go activity that asks participants to identify those traits, attitudes or behaviors they need to let go of in order to move into the future they desire – what no long serves them and what needs to be relinquished in order to move on. - Week Five: Joshua Tree National Park 3- day Retreat Importance of Planning, October 2, 2010 - Discuss how to create step-by-step plans - How to break down a vision into attainable and measurable goals and objectives. - Uses the example of “becoming a leader” in relation to planning. The final trainings help focus the young person’s attention on others, their community, and their environment. The workshops address the leadership skills and issues young people need when supporting and leading others and prepares them to participate in outreach, community awareness, lobbying efforts, activism, and advocacy events. Week One: Leadership, November 6, 2010 - Overview of leadership - Reach a shared definition of what leadership is - Explores the dynamic of power and responsibility to self and others - Focuses on expected or anticipated feelings related to adopting new skills or behave differently. - Week Two: Creating Support Systems, November 13, 2010 - Support systems needed to become leaders - Support systems to discard when they no longer serve well - Week Three: Youth –Led Programming, November 20, 2010 - Addressing Community Issues/Shared Problem Solving - Begin to analyze the issues facing their communities and what their role as leaders is to respond to those issues - How to be fully informed about all aspects of a problem’s origins and scope through -research and information gathering - How one’s personal values impact the view and judgment of social issues Week Four: Community Service, November 27, 2010 - What it means to give back to the community, the concept of social responsibility - The impact of personal decisions and actions - The leader’s role and responsibility in the community. Week Five: Public Performance, December 4, 2010 - Final performance - Program feedback - Evaluation