Foster youths recommend system changes - California

[MadelineB]

Foster youths recommend system changes
By Michele Willer-Allred
Posted August 7, 2012 at 3:58 p.m., updated August 7, 2012 at 7:28 p.m.

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/aug/07/foster-youths-recommend-system-changes/#ixzz22w6aYznS

About 200 foster youths from California and across the country gathered at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks to discuss the foster care system [and] recommend policies they hope state legislatures will take seriously.

The participants were California Youth Connection members representing 33 counties in the state and foster youths from states including Indiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Oregon. They were at the university for a leadership and policy conference.

One issue discussed last weekend was better support for foster youths who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

About 18 percent of youths in foster care fit into one of these categories, according to Child Protective Services. Seventy-eight percent of them run away or are removed from their first foster placement because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

"My foster parent found out I was a lesbian, and she became distant toward me. She said I would have to pay for my own prom, and she stopped providing things for me such as clothes and food. I tried to commit suicide," said one youth speaking Monday.

The youths recommended the state implement more intensive training for foster parents or other housing providers...

[suzifrommd]

I think rejecting a child because he/she is gay or transgendered should be a crime on the same level as other types of child abuse.

Anybody with me?

[MadelineB]

That is one of the tragedies of the situation. So many children end up on the streets and don't get the help they need because they are labeled "runaways" when in fact they have been abandoned by their families.

But this article adds to that picture because even the "lucky" ones who get help and protection from the foster care system, may then face the same terrible abuse or abandonment from the professional parents paid for by the state!

Abandonment and endangerment are very serious forms of child abuse under the law; unfortunately foster children are in an even weaker position than children in their original homes are when it comes to being believed about abuse or neglect allegations, so prosecutions are very rare.

I know when I was trained as a foster parent in Oregon over a decade ago, there was no mention of gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation even in the advanced special needs parenting classes, despite the very high number of LGBT kids in the system. I don't know if there have been improvements or not since then.

At the very least, case workers and foster parents should both be intensively trained on LGBT awareness and the special needs of LGBT kids; bigots who cannot love and protect an LGBT child should be screened out from serving as foster parents; and LGBT foster parents should be actively recruited (like New York has recently started to do.)