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AB 12 Question of the Week
Q: I'm a county social worker and have a client who exited to adoption at age 16. The adoption has subsequently failed and the young woman has re-entered foster care as a non-minor dependent at the age of 19 through AB 2454.
When she exits foster care at age 21, will she be eligible for the THP-Plus housing program for former foster youth? For the answer, follow this LINK.
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Report Finds Over 40% of Youth in "Court Schools" Make No Progress or Lose Comprehension
The Youth Law Center has released a new report that examines the state of the education system for youth confined to detention facilities within California’s juvenile justice system.
The report, funded by The California Wellness Foundation details the fundamental ways in which the system has been failing for 47,655 youth spent some portion of their school year in a California court school in 2014. For example, one set of data examined indicates that more than 40% of youth in “court schools” make no progress in reading and math or, worse, shows a decline in their proficiency in these areas. Other data show dramatic numbers of youth not getting the support they need to re-enroll in their local schools as well as staggering drop-out rates.
The report goes on to highlight the deeper level problems that are leading to bleak outcomes for youth who exit the juvenile justice system and offers recommendations for improvement, including several programs and initiatives that attempt to engage youth and enable them to advance their educational outcomes. To read the full report, Click HERE. To read an executive summary of the report, click HERE and to read the press report, please click HERE.
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Assembly Human Services Hears Range of Foster Care Bills
The Assembly Human Services Committee met yesterday and took action on a number of bills dealing with the foster care system. These included AB 1984 (Linder) which would ensure that foster youth have the necessary resources to participate in enrichment and extracurricular activities as well as AB 2597 (Cooley), which would improve the Resource Family Approval process meets the needs of relative caregivers.
For a full list of bills heard, follow this LINK. To watch a video of the extensive hearing, follow this LINK.
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Report Finds 75 Percent of California’s Homeless Youth Unsheltered
The National Alliance to End Homelessness just released “The State of Homelessness in America 2016”, sixth in a series of reports charting progress in ending homelessness in the United States. The report presents national and state trends in homelessness, populations at risk of homelessness, and the types and utilization of homeless assistance. The most recent national estimate of homelessness in the U.S. is the January 2015 point-in-time count, which is only the third year that unaccompanied children and youth have been differentiated, providing more of a snapshot, rather than a complete picture, of unaccompanied children and youth homelessness in each state.
According to the point-it-time count data, in California there are 10,416 homeless unaccompanied children and youth, by far the highest in the nation. Homeless children and youth make up nine percent of the state’s homeless population. Of this group, 892 are minors, and 9,524 are youth ages 18 to 24.
The report indicates that the nation’s unaccompanied children and youth are at particularly high risk of being unsheltered; with 51.0 percent of unaccompanied minors and 45.6 percent of youth ages 18 to 24 unsheltered. In California, this phenomenon is even more significant with seventy-one percent of California’s homeless minors unsheltered, and 77 percent of California’s homeless youth unsheltered.
NAEH’s website includes summaries of each section of the report, along with interactive maps with state-level data, and the full report available for download.
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Effect of Homelessness Lingers for Students, According to NY Study
The Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness has released a new policy brief highlighting the negative impact of homelessness on the educational attainment of children. The brief examines the experiences of children in New York City’s public school system, where 83,413 children were homeless in the 2013-14 academic year, a 64 percent increase from 2007-08.
The brief highlights a considerable difference between children who are currently homeless, formerly homeless and those who have never been homeless. In both math and language arts, homeless children performed far worse than those who were formerly homeless or never homeless. Interestingly, however, the academic performance of those who were formerly homeless was more similar to those who were currently homeless than those who have never been homelessness, highlighting the lingering effect of homelessness on children. To read the full report, including a breakdown of homelessness by age, follow this LINK.
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