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Youth Permanence: Making the Case with State Legislators and the Media

Nationally, the news media and politicians are focused on the terrible uncertainty roiling the nation’s economic scene. But when attention shifts to you, your state budget, and your agency’s work, how will you make the case for programs that connect young people in foster care with families?

You’ll need a plan to tell legislators, community leaders, and the news media why youth permanence is important. Before you plan:

• Know your story. What is the most compelling reason youth permanence must be a priority for your state, tribe, or agency?
• Gather anecdotes and data. Are there one or two young people and families who will share their permanency story – how the young person struggled without family, or has flourished with it? (Be sure to get permission for minors and adults ahead of time and always get signed releases.) What facts can you share to underscore the need for family among older youth in foster care? Be sure to prepare young people to share their stories appropriately.
• Have experts primed and ready. Share the names of experts – who can speak to the pressing need to connect young people with family – with legislators and the media. Experts can paint a picture of where the mandate for permanence came from, and why programs that successfully connect young people with family are a necessary state investment. Community collaborators (including experts in mental and physical health, economic and career development, and education) can help, as can another, crucial kind of expert–alumni of foster care.
• Underscore the use of evidence-based and promising practices. Legislators and the media want to know a program or approach will work, so make sure to emphasize the research base for your efforts to connect young people with family, reduce re-entry rates, and improve outcomes for young people who leave the child welfare system.
• Provide compelling words and pictures. Whether your plan calls for testimony before a legislative committee or radio, print, or TV coverage (or all four!), think about ways you can help media and legislators see and hear the young people and families whose stories make the need for permanence come alive.

Once you’ve rallied your facts, advocates, and experts, it’s time to plan. The focus of your plan: Determining who needs to hear about youth permanence and providing them with appropriately framed facts and stories that explain why states have a mandate to connect young people with families.

A compelling need

When a child is removed from his or her family, the state takes on responsibility for making sure a young person has what’s needed to thrive as an adult.

Research is clear: Being safe is not enough. To become productive adults, young people require a support system that focuses on their well-being (especially education and access to physical and mental health care). More than that, they require family connections.

In the same way that children can’t learn when they’re hungry, most can’t thrive without the emotional and material supports of family–parents who set boundaries, encourage progress in school and career paths, and provide a safety net when times are tough.

If young people leave foster care without family connections, they are more likely to become pregnant, be incarcerated, and struggle mightily for economic and mental stability. This is devastating to them as individuals. It indicates the child welfare system has not met its obligations. And it shortchanges communities that, now more than ever, need educated, stable adults ready to work and raise strong families.

Selected resources

To tell the story of why youth permanence is a pressing need in your state, tribe, or agency, examine available local data on youth at risk of emancipation. Review data on programs that connect young people with family. Compare your results with state, regional, or national surveys of former foster youth and compare the needs and outcomes of your youth with those in the larger population. Some sources of information on youth permanence:

• materials at www.youthpermanence.org. In particular, see fact sheets in the "News" section, and the essay, "Young People Need Families."
• AFCARS data for 2006. For state and national data through 2005, see CWLA’s NDAS system at ndas.cwla.org.
• Time for Reform: Aging Out and On Their Own. Includes national numbers for youth aging out between 1998 and 2005, and state numbers for 2000-2004.

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