Authors describe book as a challenge to traditional approach to child welfare and a new way of thinking about decisions that must be made to reverse outcomes of homelessness, hopelessness and generational cycles of dependence
A group of mostly former foster kids published a book on what works in foster care and what doesn’t, as they share their stories and start a conversation on alternative ways to bring about positive outcomes.
“As awareness spreads about Just in Time for Foster Youth’s lasting impact, groups across the country are coming to San Diego to learn more about this innovative, community-based and youth-led approach that empowers young people leaving foster care to actually thrive, not just struggle to survive,” said Just in Time’s Chief Empowerment Officer Don Wells, one of the co-authors.
Martinez’s story begins when he was 7 years old and was forcibly removed from his home, late at night, along with his 3-year-old brother. “That experience was my entrance into the foster care system and traumatized me more than probably any other experience before or after,” said Martinez, who went on to work for Child Welfare Services as a young adult.
“We believe that a system forms a rigid bureaucracy which makes the pieces work together but also builds in constraints on what is allowed and what is possible. The systems-based approach of the Child Welfare System has a gravity that pulls everything back down towards the efficient and impersonal,” Martinez said.
In the chapter on choice No. 2, “Who are you serving?,” the reader is asked to consider how the system views foster youth and the families they come from. The book contends that foster youth have traditionally been viewed by the foster system as broken and in need of fixing.
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