Policy and Supports to Facilitate the Transition to Adulthood Part 5

APPENDIX B: YOUTH ADVICE If you had one piece of advice you would like to give the governor and other leaders in Massachusetts about young people your age who were formally in foster care, what would you like to say? • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • I think that as far as the workers they need to have a lot more consistent help. There are times I never heard from anyone. Sometimes people are better off on their own to have some space. Instead of foster care try to get them a place on their own. Some people don’t need people reminding them of what to do. Let them try to live independently first to see if they can stay away from drugs and things. Try to make some facility that allows youth to live in apartments and there is one adult house leader in charge. They can have other people during the day to help the kids out if they need to talk or rides. They can be there for security in case something goes wrong. The kids there should get a time limit to see how they do. If they don’t get kicked out they can go back to foster care and live more positively. Grant more money to DSS so they can take care of youth. Give more money for financial aid so they can go to college. More assistance with housing. It’s hard to get on the list. Financial assistance for young parents. Make it so DSS is accessible to all kids who need it. That they will listen to these kids and find out why they are doing what they are doing. Money and clothes is not the only answer. They should also find out more about the foster parents also. They often think the problem is the kid but you never know. Don’t judge me! Don’t neglect education opportunities--funding for these programs. The system overall needs improvement. Funding should be increased to make more programs available. That support for kids and families is still needed regardless if kids have biological parents to go to. People our age need more respect for what we do. Nothing. You are doing a good job. Keep it up. Would like services for youth in the community who decide not to remain with DSS after turning 18. DSS helped me a lot. It is important and shouldn’t lose its funding. Focus on encouragement and approval because there is nothing worse than living with low selfesteem. Give them a chance to show their skill, to show their knowledge. Maybe they have something inside of us that can help the community. They should do better background checks on foster care families. Don’t just stick kids anywhere. Keep checking up on the households to make sure the child is not in danger while in child care. I would ask them to take some of the people in psych hospitals out because even though people think they are hearing voices, it’s not. It is really other people. There are no crazy people. There are reasons for people to act the way they do. The scientists should work harder to figure out things so people don’t get put in psych hospitals where they are mistreated just because people are scared of them. I would tell him that just because they are children their emotions, opinions should matter. Just because they are children doesn’t mean your decisions don’t affect them. It affects us 100% to the fullest so they should take that into consideration. He also shouldn’t buy a Cadillac. That’s • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • not cool. There are children without food or homes. Come on, be real! The money could have gone to DSS to help kids. I would like to have some way for it to be easier for foster kids to have resources to get back into school when they stopped skipping school. Put more money into education. Don’t keep separated from parents too long. If possible it is important to keep family and parents connected to their children. Just try to understand them and bear with them and make their life easier. Take into consideration it is very hard for us. There is pressure on us to do good. Not just a statistic. As young people that we go through same problems as older people, just getting help differently. Next generation we will lead by example. They need a lot more support than they are getting. Don’t just have anyone work with kids. Hire people who really care and not just anybody for a foster parent. People with suitable homes. I lived in a place with rats all over. Make sure they have the support and knowledge for when they turn 18. No matter what the situation is you don’t just throw them out on the streets unless the kid says they don’t want it. There are enough homeless on the street, don’t add to it. When DSS puts a kid in a house they just care most about the physical safety, not the kid. They should have to worry about the kid being happy too. The DSS people should care more about their job. It’s not just a 9-5. It’s more than that. More stuff out there like more opportunities for kids in care. Don’t look down on people that were in the same situation as you were and try to benefit them. No one will understand me until they are in my shoes. Need more state funding. Bigger buildings with different sections for people. More money to help kids in DSS. These kids need help, people to talk to and feel welcome in a place with lots of support. Kids like to know what is going on in their life and need to be able to contact their DSS worker. You should be able to sign back in to DSS. Before you place someone in foster care do a much more thorough background check, maybe have an undercover kid in the home. I had a foster parent who made me eat my own throw up from out of the trash. They act all nice for DSS. Then everything happens behind closed doors. You need to really double check how that house really is. My adoptive home (through DSS) was the worst. They beat me for no reason. She made me stay up all night cleaning. She took away my only picture of my biological parents. Her son tried to molest me. He hit me over the head with a glass bottle the first day. I was 6 or 7. Stick yourself in your favorite room in the house and all your favorite belongings and people. Now take it all away. Have it disappear. Tell me how you feel? Never give up on a child because if you stick with them they’ll succeed. Give the youth more support and really being there when they need it. Support is really a big thing. Kids my age transitioning out really don’t have support. If they ever need help they should feel confident to go to someone for advice and support. They need to pay more attention to who they let be foster care parents. They should listen to our stories. Didn’t they ever read A Child Called It? It’s crazy that so many kids have been hurt and molested by foster placements. So they don’t want to follow DSS rules because they have been hurt so much. They should start putting all kids in a safe transitional living program so they don’t get hurt and they have consistency in their lives. A schedule and a routine works so much better for kids. It’s horrible to pull up and pack all your stuff in a trash bag in the back of a social worker’s car and you’re dumped on someone’s porch. Imagine how stressful it is for an adult to move. They need a different system. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • They need to look out for young people, it’s mostly young kids on the street who need help, there’s not enough support in general. One main thing is that they just want people to listen to them. To connect. I just wanted to be understood and treated the same as everybody else. Make sure that teenagers are more than words. Every time I read abuse victims and they label DYS youth more than other youth, I disagree. There needs to be more funding. We’re losing kids or setting them up for failure. They need to work on the funding! Provide more services when you age out. Choose foster homes more wisely. Make sure education is a top priority. I would like to tell them that the program overall is good but young people we can be hard headed and things really need to be stressed to us about what we need to be successful. They need to break it down so we can understand. A lot of things are not stressed like they should! Biggest problem is with money. Need more financial aid- only real complaint. Before they make any decisions about a foster kid they should really interact with the youth and see what they want and like. They would have less problems. Communicate with DSS kids. For youth: be careful what your choices are; take advantage of services offered. For Governor: more services for teen parents. Most of kids in DSS want to leave and go home. Spend more money on people who really need it with serious problems (like they’ve been abused) not for kids who’ve been arrested. Tax break for foster care youth, at least for first 5 years. I’d tell them that they are enabling us by not allowing us to work or get job experience. They need to make sure we get a job and experience. Keep on trying to help young adults find places to live. Treat them right. Get things done on time. Kids in DSS or DYS need a little more attention so they can get through life. There should be more jobs available. Give the kids more benefits, increases in clothing checks and spending money as well as better and more homes. Ask them about their life experiences and if they have any ideas about how to help their peers. Kids need more time with their biological family for visits, more opportunities to be around real family if possible. DSS and foster homes are awful, the government is doing a terrible job. Wasn’t allowed to eat in one home, had to take care of kids and do all the work in another home, wasn’t supposed to be other kids but there were five kids in one bedroom. I hated being in DSS. They need to allow gay people to have foster kids and adopt because gay couples should be allowed to have that. They need to work harder to get these kids an education. Give young people more funds and better DSS workers who pay attention and listen and give them better services than I got, because I hated DSS. Legalize marijuana, the only drug that can’t kill you, least harmful drug out there and the government could make so much profit off of it. Be careful with your actions because you never know who they may hurt. Treat them as if they were you. The foster system needs to be totally redone. I think foster parents need to be better qualified for it. They need to be investigated often because me and the other girls were afraid to say anything. When I was there, there was emotional abuse, isolation, my social security card and $20,000 that I earned was stolen by my foster mother. Postal fraud, identity theft. I didn’t have my own opinion on anything. What she said went or I was punished. One of the foster girls got all of her clothes taken away, except what she came with, as punishment. My foster mother was an • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • alcoholic. She drank a bottle of wine everyday. She also abused and isolated her husband. DSS itself needs to be completely investigated. They ignore everything. Everything gets brushed under the rug and there is no way to control them. There’s a lot of problems and no one is doing anything. Something needs to be done. Everything DSS does needs to be looked into. There is so many things. I want to meet with the Governor with statements from me and the other girls about what has been done to them. If anybody wants to know more about what has been done to me, they can give me a call. There should be a better way to help kids or youth 18 and older with housing assistance. Really. I’m really struggling. Whether it be funds that would help, someone get started. I think workers need to be more involved with the children they are supposed to be helping. Pay attention to the kids’ needs, provide more help with kids without families. The main thing is funding – they need to figure out budget to help people especially with school and housing. To listen to the young adults – do more for them than self-interest. Take what you can get and learn from your experiences. DSS needs to communicate with kids in the system. More time should be spent on the kids who aren’t in residential. Need to focus on the transition. Not allow kids to be tossed around. Focus on the outpatient kids and help them stay out. More community service. They do have supports but they need to have more support for independent living situations. I am 20 years old, but in the shelter I have to live with the rules for 15 year-olds. They need to supervise more the people they hire to be foster parents. They should pay more attention to what foster kids have to say. We should have the right to say whatever we want. Foster parents should be trained in how to teach us independent living skills. The workers should help us out with more things. When you go to a supervisor about something, the problem should be fixed. We should get more support. We have a right to know where our family is! Foster parents should be watched more carefully too. Many people have problems with the [DSS office] in [city]. They need to do their job. When we sign into DSS, we think they are going to take care of things, but they don’t. I would say walk a mile in my shoes. I wish they didn’t focus so much on the finance aspect of everything. It seems like they care more about the money than the people in foster care. I wish the public knew more about the way DSS runs than just having stereotypes and assumptions. What DSS does, does really help. There is always room for improvement but DSS should keep doing what they are doing. We need more opportunities to view our options of college and the real world. DSS has basically been my parents. Like parents they should sit down and talk to us about college and our other options in this world. Shut down MTV, destroy Ebonics, and get everyone out of foster care that doesn’t really need it. Try to help them a little more financially. Be more cautious with who kids are placed with. We need more help than anybody else. All kinds of help for us to have a better life. Show people in DSS custody respect. Talk to foster home parents. In my foster home, they kicked me outside everyday at 7:30 in the morning. Explain to us where we should go if we are kicked out during the day. DSS needs to give more in the allowance checks. Find them good foster homes. Get more parents involved, so many foster parents aren’t good enough – they’re in it for the money and don’t pay attention to the kids. I had a hard time getting into foster care. I initiated it and had to really push and say a lot to get people to understand what’s going on. If kids are abused, they won’t speak about it. I’m making it known that I need help and how many kids need help and are too afraid to ask for help. Kids need to be believed. Police were coming to my house and my mom would use it as leverage – policemen need training • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • to recognize what abuse is versus a child simply acting out. My sister and I were both running away, there was physical damage to the house. I had to go to court and say I wouldn’t hit my mother – but it was the other way around. It’s so disturbing to me that it wasn’t recognized. I wish that people could’ve recognized it earlier. If there aren’t the resources and the people to do so, we really need that. The system itself has too many restrictions, the parents need more, they had to pull strings to get into it. Teachers also need training to recognize abuse and they need skills on what to do. They need to know what to do. Be honest with them. Tell them what’s going on. Stop lying to them. I think it was an all right program – keeping kids off the street. It’s not for everybody but it’ll help some people. It’s about as dirty and corrupt as it is in Beacon Hill. DSS and politics go hand in hand. DSS is horrible. They abused me in foster care and stole clothes. Give them as many benefits as they can. DSS really screwed up my life, it was horrible. There needs to be effective job training programs. There needs to be more affordable housing options available. Provide foster parents with less kids in the home. There should be a limit on how many total they can have in the home. I don’t think my foster mom had the ability to handle so many kids. Provide more housing options before and after you turn 18. To give free college tuition to clients in foster care who have done things to earn it. My advice is that children are young and they don’t know what life is supposed to be like. They are also afraid to speak because they don’t know if it is just them or if it is life, what they are going through. So I think they should ask the kids a lot more questions without the foster parents around. Like a lot of questions, what they do and don’t like and give them options. Never let a foster parent be a payee. Never make them have family therapists. Always make them one-onone. Find out if the foster parents are judging the kids or making them feel uncomfortable. Make sure the foster parent is using their compassion, not looking for the perfect daughter and son. Especially when the kid is grown and not family oriented or mushy. Ask questions to the kids!! Alone!! Get rid of foster care or make foster care better. Let the kids speak their mind and stop making them feel like shit. Especially when they just got taken away from their parents. Help kids my age so they can become who they are. I hope that they do good (the kids) so they can change themselves and become important people. Some social workers get mad because teenagers are punks, but they should take into consideration that we have been though a lot, life sucks, life is hard. They should be more openminded. They should listen rather than preach to us. They might learn something from us. Please help the children. I don’t know what other way to put it. Try to do the best for the families so they can help their kids. Have visits where kids are away from foster parents so they’re at liberty to be honest, be more attuned to what’s going on in the foster home. Housing would be great – I’ll need help to be on my own someday. It’s great that DSS gives us a start but I also need a safe place and help finding a spot. Don’t judge us just because we were in foster care. Don’t think we’re less of a person. We all come out of it okay. They don’t have a lot of places to go after age 18. If you lose your apartment they send you to a shelter. They don’t have other options. They should set them up in temporary homes or something. • • • • I think it is important to keep families together. It was bad enough losing my dad from cancer, but to lose my sisters (they were taken by DSS). It was like my whole world came crashing down. It should be mandatory to keep siblings in the same foster home. I know foster homes are limited but they shouldn’t separate families. They need age appropriate rules. I shouldn’t be treated like a young kid to get the benefits I need. Don’t give up on us so easy. Keep telling us to reach for our goals. Give us more money. DSS should see if foster parents are actually good people who don’t abuse. They should look out for foster parents more.