Brad: 0:10

Welcome to Make the Leap, a podcast focused on the many economic hurdles facing college students, lower income individuals and those striving to move up the social ladder. I'm Brad.

George: 0:33

Constant. Here is my fellow host, george Graham. George, how are you today? I am good, brad. Thank you for the opportunity to get restarted. We took a break as a result of our move and now we're back, ready to go. Result of our move and now we're back, ready to go. Today's topic is the invisible children, or what I call the expendable kids in foster care. Almost 400,000 kids live in foster care in the US. For the most part, they are totally invisible, unless there is a lawsuit or there's an accident or some tragic event that makes the media or hit the news. To be sure, many foster parents are loving and supporting, but being a foster child in America means something completely different and, for the most part, sometimes painfully different. So our guest today is Kristen. Kristen works at Ross, but to give you a little bit more background on Kristen, I will turn it over to Brad.

Brad: 1:25

Thanks, George. Yeah, Kristen is the director of training. She designs and facilitates engaging learning experiences for Ross. Her interest in foster care began when she was finishing her master's in instructional design. Her capstone was focused on creating units of instruction on emotional skill building for felony one and felony two juvenile offenders in the state of Ohio. In the analysis phase of her project she learned that nearly all of the young men who volunteered to participate in her research project had been moved around in the state's foster system. Shortly thereafter, while working as a violence prevention educator, she was a member of Delaware Peace Collaborative and here she began to see how, as a society, we could do better for our kids and their future. Kristen is currently a board member for Friends of CASA, which is Court Appointed Special Advocates Program of Delaware and Union Counties, which recruits, screens, trains and supports community volunteers to advocate in court for child victims of abuse and neglect. Kristen, thanks for joining us today.

Kristen: 2:20

Well hi, thank you for inviting me. I'm very appreciative.

George: 2:24

So, kristen, I know Brad gave us a little bit of a background, but you know, with over 400,000 kids and, depending on what numbers you use, sometimes almost half a million kids in foster care, how did that get on your radar, even to begin through your studies and your work?

Kristen: 2:39

It really began, as Brad mentioned, when I began working on my master's in instructional design and I had the really interesting experience of working with 60 men 20 men at each of the three Ohio youth facilities where my task was to work with a faith-based group that had a prison ministry was to work with a faith-based group that had a prison ministry and their programming focused on transitioning youth but to transition them from release from prison to life. And I first got interested in it when we had to have the kids fill out a survey questionnaire and the participants in the survey were age 16 to 21. And almost all of them had been through the foster system. So my eyes were really wide open at that part because when I began designing some social emotional skill building, I realized the piece that a caring adult, a parent, a foster, gives to those kids at the front end of their youth and these kids might have missed or never ever had. So my eyes were open then.

Brad: 3:55

So, kristen, that led you, as we mentioned, to the Delaware Peace Collaborative and then into CASA. How does CASA support the foster system?

Kristen: 4:08

and then into CASA. How does CASA support the foster system? Oh, it's wonderful. So I'll speak about the state of Ohio, but not all counties. There's 88 counties in Ohio and not all of them have a CASA office. Some counties will share or coordinate together their assignments and they are managed or administered out of the juvenile courts in each county.

Kristen: 4:28

So CASA itself, on a national level was founded by a judge and then now the judges in these counties are trained on how to administer the CASA or GAL Guardian Ad Litem programs, administer the CASA or GAL Guardian Ad Litem programs, and they're designed then to appoint somebody who, a volunteer, who works with an abused or neglected kid.

Kristen: 4:54

So it could be a kiddo like young, it could be a kiddo that's maybe in high school. It could be somebody that's in a kinship situation where a family member is caring for a child in the system, or it's a true or working with a foster family, and this volunteer goes in front of the courts and in the kid's life like teacher who is the guardian right now? At the time of that, the judges, the guidance counselor, doctors, therapists, and they'll kind of tag team it and then that volunteer will make a recommendation about what's in the best interest of the child. So when I first became familiar with CASA, I was introduced to the Fostering Futures program, which is then a fostering experience for older teens, so kids that are getting close to that transition age.

George: 6:09

So the transition age, Kristen, I'm assuming this is the aging out. Is that what you're referring to?

Kristen: 6:14

That's exactly right.

George: 6:16

Yeah, and I think that the age out in general is around 22 years old. Right, when they have to exit the foster care system, that's right. When you sent me your note on foster kids, I have to admit I knew very, very little, and so when I have to exit the foster care system, that's right. When you sent me your note on foster kids, I have to admit I knew very, very little, and so when I started to do some homework and I always look at it from the eyes of our students and from the areas that impact our students at Ross you know the three elements.

George: 6:39

You know that I'd like to touch base on today, time allowing. One is the issue of race, and I'm going to come back to that for a little bit. Two aging out and how many of these kids ultimately end up having an encounter with the justice system in some form or another. And then the third one is the effort to try to keep families together, and we'll probably try to spend a little bit more time on that if we can. But I want to start with race. So when I pulled the data, you know one quarter of kids in foster care are African-American kids, when African-American represents somewhere between 13 to 14 percent of our population, so you know they're definitely overrepresented in the foster care system. So in and I have my own theory based on some of the stuff that I've looked at, but maybe let you talk about why our minorities tend to be have a bigger presence in terms of kids in the foster care system in the US.

Kristen: 7:44

I don't have additional statistics on this. However, I could address this with a topic called adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs as they call them, and I have gone through lots of research, but I just don't have data right now with me. But the research talks about how frequently a child experiences these adverse conditions or traumatic episodes in their life and how it affects the rest of their childhood and then into their adulthood, as well as their health, income, potential, earning, potential, housing access, all things like that, because of the how the child is affected by ACEs.

George: 8:31

So, kristen, let me kind of break it another way. So when I looked at why kids end up in the foster care system, it's like three big buckets right. One is neglect like three out of four end up there due to neglect. The other 25% is split between physical abuse, sexual abuse, abandonment and some other issues in keeping families together and trying to get families to function as a family unit, versus the foster system that is sometimes overburdened. Foster parents tend to be deal with burnout. They're in and out of the system. Kids are bouncing around. So talk to me a little bit about race and the quickness sometimes to pull kids from families and what efforts sometimes we need to that's an interesting question.

Kristen: 9:35

I was actually looking at it this time when you asked it, this time in a different fashion. So I was looking at the demographics, perhaps, of the county where I live and where I work with the CASA team. So the demographics might even be different than in some of the areas where or the counties where we have students, and so my perspective might be skewed as well. However, I know that nowadays the foster system is driven towards unification and so they created this like a CASA group out of the juvenile court as a way to have a non-biased person make all of these introductions and conduct all these interviews to determine what's best, instead of relying on the kinship as a solution or relying on a single parent solution, but rather focusing on what was best for the child, but rather focusing on what was best for the child. So, as a part of the court-ordered services, then if a parent is trying to get their child back, they may be required to complete certain assignments before they could get their kids back and out of foster. So if we're working for reunification, then we would provide the services that they would need in order to meet those guidelines established by the judge in juvenile court family juvenile court?

Kristen: 11:02

So it might be. Do you have employment? Do you have housing? Is it a safe place? Have you taken parenting classes? And that CASA that I talked about earlier is also going to have a part and a voice in each one of those components too. And it's as simple as the CASA would be attending a supervised visit with parent and foster child, their own child who's in foster care, their own child who's in foster care. And so when we see all of those components that are required for the judge to say here, here's the reunification process at in action, um, that casa would be a part of each one of those pieces. So always towards reunification. Sometimes casas are very, uh, stressed or disappointed in whatever decision the the judge might make about what's best for the child, and so we kind of work in all of those pieces to at least advocate for them in each one, each category.

Brad: 12:10

So, kristen, hearing that, it actually brings me back to a personal experience that my wife and I had. We went through the whole process of getting certified for refugee foster care and it was almost step by step what you just described. We had to attend classes, then we had to make sure that our home was safe and they had to come and like certify it. So it's for me, it's really positive here that this is happening. Now. I also want to take a look at. You sent over some stats that for me, were pretty startling about when kids leave the foster care system 40% were homeless, 40% were receiving public assistance or were incarcerated, 40% experienced drug or alcohol abuse. I mean, these numbers are staggering and it just leads me to wonder if you could possibly shed some more insight on what are some of the challenges that a kid coming out of foster care faces, compared to a kid that's coming out of the family environment.

George: 13:09

Before maybe you answer that Kristen is maybe also add to that in terms of what Brad said, is what burdens a system? Why can't they deal better, you know, with? I mean, these are really difficult outcomes for a system that hosts 400,000 kids to know that so many of these kids can end up in harm's way. So what's burgeoning the system that leads to what Brad asked? Sure.

Kristen: 13:36

The staffing at the agencies that deliver those social services. That's down. I don't know if that's cost-cutting measures or what that is Like. The custom programs or the juvenile court system same thing. Staffing is an issue they also have. You know, if there's that many people in the system, that many families in the system, there's court dates that are multiple court dates for each child. And if you have I don't know 15 000 students, like my county my casa program supports, you know, like 200 children, individual children, and in my mind I now multiply that times almost 90 for the state of Ohio, that'll just give you those students that have been or those children who have been assigned a CASA. That doesn't even include all the ones that have been assigned. So if there's a volunteer shortages at those county offices, they don't even have somebody that's specifically advocating for the child, but rather attorneys who are advocating for each party, so that might be parents that are divorced or separated and the child's living with one. So rather than hearing the legal ease of an attorney, the CASA or the juvenile courts family juvenile courts system then has a CASA that is making the I'm going to say my term common sense recommendations for what's best for the child, instead of arguing to beat one side or the other. So staffing at the state level, staffing at the county level, staffing at the volunteer side, we give, even at CASA when we raise money. We're raising money to give those volunteers gas cards so that they can drive to go help these people.

Kristen: 15:33

I would never have thought that. How do you come, how do you help somebody volunteer when it's a could be a sizable chunk of their wages, especially when you have a lot of retired people that are the ones who serve in that capacity. So it really is. I feel sorry for those kids. It's from every direction of their life, it's. It's there, is stuck in the middle, maybe, of arguments, or they know a lot of things that they shouldn't know. They know offenses that their parents have committed. They they know that about money problems and I just think sometimes they hear things that they're not ready to hear or to act on and somebody like a volunteer who's advocating for them can draw the line and say enough, they don't need to know. That part my heart breaks. It's just every direction for them.

George: 16:29

It's really somewhat startling that when you or maybe to a certain extent, difficult to absorb when you think about that, there are many parents out there looking to adopt, there's many parents who are really looking to bring kids from China or whatever country that they want to go to, and then we have 400,000 kids. Maybe some do get reunited with parents, many do not. Many age out of the system and we'll talk about that in a minute. A good chunk of them are minorities. Do you, do you think the current system works? It just seems like majority of these kids are going to have an unhappy ending.

Kristen: 17:08

I think it's a motivation piece too. I know and have heard of Brad's motivations to become a you know, become a foster for refugees. I think that's absolutely wonderful. But sometimes motivation for those caregivers is financial, not necessarily how they're advocating or helping a child, but rather how much money can they get per child. And then the trauma that those kids face in a foster home. Where someone's motivation is financial, then it compounds because of other problems in the household, even though they have to. I think, brad, you can probably elaborate on this where they have to meet certain requirements to be a foster parent, including being certified as a foster parent, but not everybody continues to behave in that fashion if they have a financial motivation for it.

Brad: 17:59

Yeah, I I'm not sure of what it takes to be certified outside of the refugee system, but I can attest that in the refugee system, like we're going through or we had to go through, like income records, bank records, all of these things Cause, yes, there is a financial support aspect that you get for each child, but they're going through and doing everything they can to vet that. That's not the reason why you're doing it. And what was a positive is in our cohort some of the parents were people who had come as refugees, as children, and gone through the same system, but everyone was in it for the child. How can they help? And the ultimate goal in the refugee foster care system is reunification. Like you're not bringing this child to be your child, you're bringing this child to care for it until mom and dad get through the system.

George: 18:52

So if we, if we kind of take it so, when again you look at the data, you see that foster parents seems to be more happy to have kids who are under five years old. Like 40% of kids in foster care are under five. And it seems, as the kids get older, foster parents seem to either lose interest or maybe it's easier to make money fostering kids who are young versus as they get into their teenage, teenage years. And knowing that 70 percent of those who age out end up in some form of encounter with the, with the justice system, what do you think should be done on the tail end of the foster care system in America, like, what should we do differently if we cannot reunite the family? You know, what should we do differently to make sure these kids are not being bounced from home to home and when they age out they have a college degree, they have a trade, trade, skill, they have something to lean on, you know, versus going on going to prison or spending time in jail?

Kristen: 19:57

going to prison or spending time in jail. There's a lot that we can do from a societal perspective. All the way down to the average Joe like you or I can do a lot, and it does not have to be something profound and of great significance. I'll start with just some simple things. But when I did that capstone project in the prisons, I found them very interested in participating because it was a reward so even in the prison system for them to come and participate in my project and then the subsequent training that followed. They had to have good behavior in order to be rewarded with the time to go to class, have good behavior in order to be rewarded with the time to go to class. So recognizing that learning is kind of the you know, the pillar of progress. Really, once you're learning, you're preparing the way for a different direction or a new direction, and so I think that's something that's really good. I also can refer on a societal level where we recognize that there are things that we do that we take like I I'll speak for myself take for granted, and that is that I feel like I have access to education and learning in all format and I love to do it, so I am all the time seeking out opportunities. However, many of those kids have a really difficult time just getting through high school and don't graduate. I want to say like close to half of them don't even graduate from high school. So that's heartbreaking and part of the things that I saw.

Kristen: 21:29

In another situation I had a young man who was. I worked with a young man who was a junior in high school and he was only reading at a first grade level. So from a societal perspective the outcomes that perhaps that we seek in high school he did not benefit from that at all. They just kept pushing him or moving him through. So you know, when I worked with him, it was to get him at a reading level where he could begin to apply for, fill out job applications. So it doesn't have to be anything big. But I also gave that young man books to read that were at a fourth grade level, so that he had something to aspire to, so that if he could read those books he could fill out a job application or read the paper or whatever. So those are some simple things.

Kristen: 22:21

There's also oodles of programs available like oh, what's it called? Job Corps? Job Corps is a terrific opportunity for these young adults who could have the opportunity to get some skill building with some trades. Many of them will qualify for free lunches and SNAP benefits if they're homeless or in the foster system. Three words with one stone here in our discussion, where homelessness is rampant in these aging out young adults, learning is void, not finishing high school. And I think then, as long as the school system and our country supports this um social, emotional skill building in the school system which in ohio they actually do have those in their, you know, in their state testing, they're required to demonstrate learning that shows that then they can begin to build upon that.

Kristen: 23:31

But my, from kristin beal's perspective, being the one adult that cares enough to want to work with them, just one will give them enough hope to keep going and then tell somebody else what they experienced. So I just recently had a wonderful opportunity to teach some life skill classes at a transitional housing facility just for this age group. Uh, young, old, older teens, young 20s and I taught crockpot cooking. They don't all know that. So around that, that whole curriculum that they are exposed to when they're in this transitional housing is to give them skills to start their own home, with or without a foster parent, with or without a guardian ad litem. So budgeting, menu planning, transportation, getting your driver's license, going to the doctor, things that they just are not exposed to.

George: 24:36

So if all these resources are available right, they can get clinical help, they can get mental health help, they can get Job Corps. They can get so many resources to try to get them through this, why do you think they don't have access to it? Like, where is it that these kids are not given every opportunity, whether access to access to mental health or access to Job Corps, or access to support in high school? Where are we off here? Where do you think Are we off on the system side? Are we off on the foster parent side? And I know many of them are wonderful people who probably do a great job, but somewhere we're missing the mark.

Kristen: 25:14

I think it's both the foster system and the foster parents' knowledge or preparation. But I'll give you an example where the collaboration made it work and that was in that young man I was telling you about that read at a very low level. His foster mom is who called me to ask for tutoring and she connected me to his county foster, our children's services, child and family services, and when I connected with him, I was able to get him to pay for the learning that he needed to get this young man up in his reading level by you know, three or four levels. So the county actually paid for it. But it really took somebody like her to advocate for him and to know what he needed. And she was very tearful and she was very scared when she first talked to me. But once she connected me to the county office that could help him and that county office saw the advocacy and the kind of championing that we had to do for this young man, it all seemed to work together.

Kristen: 26:25

And I know that's not the constant, I know that's not the real experience, I know that's an outlier. However, I feel that if people were more exposed, like listening to a podcast like this where they can find out how they can share these things with people, like I can share things with volunteers that will help them help kids. I can share things with kids that can help them with or without foster parents. And I can share things like I did with that county employee who was he was just so excited to finally have something that could give that kid hope and it gave him hope to the county guy. So it's it's just somebody that wants to influence and somebody that wants to advocate, that has, I guess, like a big mouth like me, but who really wants to fight for somebody to have additional opportunities really wants to fight for somebody to have additional opportunities To maybe.

George: 27:26

To wrap up, kristen, we go back to the last thing you said. You know somebody that was willing to fight for them. You know it's not a topic that really catches on in the news, it's not something that there is this big, massive advocacy for these kids. They're literally again, I called this podcast the Expendables, but they're literally invisible. They're literally. I again I called, I called this podcast the expendables, but they're literally invisible. Uh, they're really not on our radar and it wasn't on mine. And I've known you for 20 years, uh, and I didn't even really know that this is was you know on your heart. But so, like what? What do we? I mean, what do you think as a society we have to do better to bring these kids kind of front and center.

Kristen: 28:02

I would say some faith-based organizations are really inclined to fly that flag because it includes in their ministries. It can be a part of their ministries as well. Then in schools, both in higher ed and in public schools, or so secondary schools, perhaps in the post-secondary schools, having this discussion, maybe in I don't know I'm thinking maybe at least discussing funding that might be available, scholarships that might be available or to increase their access to education or job opportunities are amazing. Like I saw a recommendation for someone that said they're looking for foster kids employment, so they're hiring managers, are posting jobs, but asking for these young people that they can work with and nurture and hopefully then be kind of joining together with their loyalties and then acting as a mentor. Somebody like me, someone like you doesn't have to be my age, could be someone that's younger or similarly, who was in the foster system, who also can share their experience. Down to another one.

Kristen: 29:22

There are several trends, like I did a Google search just for transitional housing for young adults, which can connect you then to that agency that administers it, and that's how I got connected. To do the Crock-Pot cooking class was through a county agency who administers the funding for that transitional housing. But you know, if it falls on your heart, I think you're being called to go act on it. And when you go to act on it you should find the place that could act as a conduit to allow you to to make that happen. And for me it was just finding the agency and the community partners that I could. I could kind of jump in, yeah.

George: 30:10

So, kristen, we're going to wrap up. It would be really nice, when Brad publishes this podcast, that we can provide a couple of links that goes with it, that can provide people information on the foster kid system in America where they can volunteer or maybe even just where they can learn more. I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot in preparation to talking to you today. I've learned a lot through what you sent me a couple of weeks ago. I truly appreciate your time, kristen, and it's really really great to see you today, truly appreciate your time, kristen, and it's really, really great to see you today.

Kristen: 30:41

Well, thank you very much, and you know, just to give you an idea on how you can volunteer, but we have every year we do a teddy bear trot, a 5K run for Friends of Casa, and it's just a 5K. But the money that we raise pays to train those volunteers and to give them more learning opportunities so they can be better, more supportive.

George: 31:07

But and then the remainder that's left to buy teddy bears for the younger foster kids so that they have a possession when they first get into the system. Okay, so is that in every county, or do I have to come and stay with you to run?

Kristen: 31:13

for the five down.

Brad: 31:14

I'm happy to have you looks like we're going to ohio. George, we're going to Ohio.

George: 31:22

It's a road trip to Christi.

Kristen: 31:24

I would like that, and you know what it really makes you feel good, because when you see that the volunteers are of all ages, of course, but the younger moms wheel their kids in the stroller to go through the 5K, the older people are walking and then the middle ones are running and they're the ones that are timing themselves and you know all that kind of stuff. So it's nice to see that variety of people interested in fosters and abused and neglected kids.

George: 31:53

Thank you so much, kristen, really appreciate your time today.

Brad: 32:17

Thanks for listening to Make the Leap. If you'd like to learn more about foster care, then please visit our site, rosspodcastcom, and click on the links in the episode description. You can also visit our site or the podcast platform of your choice to listen to past episodes, as well as subscribe, so you never miss future episodes. We hope you join us two weeks from now for our next episode as we dive into domestic violence and, trying not to be a spoiler, we will introduce the newest member of our hosting team. See you then, thank you.