Foster Kids Will Benefit From Donation to Making Kids Count

Making Kids Count, an organization in Ohio, received a much-needed donation to help foster children. Many children are taken from their families by CPS, Child Protective Services. In this situation the immediate goal is to get the children out of harm's way as

quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, this tactical "in and out" maneuver results in children being removed with only the clothes they are wearing. A child may have been sleeping in a t-shirt or pajamas. When these kids enter foster care, they still may not have much in the way of clothes and certainly no toys.

Worse, Martin Guggenheim, the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, wrote that "for a young enough child, it [the removal from their home] can be an experience akin to a kidnapping."

Making Kids Count plans to use the $4,000 donation to buy Comfort Kits, bags that may have a new, warm blanket or some toys to help foster children traumatized by being taken from their homes.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico

PS. Like and follow us on Facebook for more information about foster youths.

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New Foster Children Law Needs More Work

Many states have extended the age when foster kids are forced to leave from 18 to 21. Florida recently made a similar change, but both the state foster care agency as well as foster youth are identifying areas of concern.

Another way that foster kids can be helped is by foster care agencies working to locate relatives of these children so they have family support when they are forced out (age out) of foster care.

Extending the age to 21 is a positive move to help more foster kids be prepared for adult life even if the process isn't always smooth.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico

PS. Like and follow us on Facebook for more information about foster youths.

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Find Families In Mexico: U.S. Foster Kids Have Too Many Placements

Most of the public is unaware that foster children can spend years in foster care moving from one home to the next with disastrous results. April McWilliams, one such foster teen, remembers her four years in foster care that were spent between three different

homes.

When relatives of a foster child are located, these family members can provide the emotional support these children need to lead a better life.

"The stories of foster children like McWilliams, marked by uncertainty and impermanence — and, in some cases, even deaths — have prompted the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to redesign the state’s foster care system, increasing its reliance, in part, on partnerships with private contractors to find living arrangements for children in foster homes."

The state is now working to reduce these placements so more foster kids will have a better future.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico

PS. Like and follow us on Facebook for more information about foster youths.

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Keeping Foster Children with Relatives Should Be a Priority

While there is no one solution to help foster children, too often the overriding message from state agencies is "Adopt!" House Bill 54 would require an extensive relative search be completed during the first 30 days a child is removed from their home.

However, unless there is funding to support this law, county foster child agencies will continue to use a lack of funding as a reason not to perform this search. Find Families In Mexico has always advocated "family first" as the primary way to help foster kids. Agencies are able to get this in-depth search for relatives of U.S. foster youths still living in Mexico at no cost through our donor-supported services.

There is no reason why a foster child has to spend another year in a foster care institution just because their family members live in Mexico. For the sake of these children, connecting them with relatives must be a higher priority.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico

PS. Follow us on Facebook for more information about foster youths.

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Find Families In Mexico - High Pregnancy Rates for Foster Children

Medical experts have always said that teen pregnancy can have adverse effects in the body. It has been found that females foster kids in their teens are twice as likely to become pregnant than the ones who generally live with parents. More shocking is that statistics say that these foster teens even experience a repeat pregnancy before reaching the age of 19.

Such troublesome scenario is nothing but lack of awareness and information. In spite of child care agencies catering to the needs of female foster kids, very little has been done to ensure that they avoid pregnancy at such an early age.

You can learn more about how you can help these foster kids.

Distressing statistics reveal that around 33% of female foster teens become pregnancy by the time they reach the age of 17 or 18, compared to their peers in the general population, who average around a 14% pregnancy rate. Alarmingly, 51% of female foster youths become pregnant by the age of 19, whereas the number just reaches 20% for all female youths among the general population.

The statistics show a strong rise in the number of pregnant former foster children by the age of 23 with the percentage being as much as 77% while the pregnancy rates among their peers in the general population constitute about 40%.

Repeating pregnancy at such an adolescent age is extremely dangerous and can have harmful effects in the growth of the body. Here too, female foster youths surpass their counterparts in the general population where the percentage is 46 versus 34 respectively.

Teen pregnancy is an epidemic that continues to spread like wild fire, and the statistics paint a woeful picture for female foster children. It is high time that the appropriate agencies bolster their remedial activities with strong public awareness to find a long term solution.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico

PS. Follow us on Facebook for more information about foster kids.

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Foster Care Initiative: Extending Stay for Foster Fhildren

Recently an opt-ed piece came out in the Seattle Times where Jim Theofelis wrote about new legislation in Washington that would extend the age at which foster children are forced out of foster care. Presently foster children age out at age 18, but the new law would extend this period until their 21st birthday.

As commendable as this is, one area is being overlooked to help these children have healthy, successful lives once they age out. Chafee, formally called the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, provides funding to non-profits so they can help children prepare for a life on their own. In many states, foster children are forced out at age 18 so Chafee funds programs starting at age 15. For states with an age out of 21, the funding starts for foster children at age 18.

In the same Op-ed piece, Jim reported that "500 children aged out of foster care in Washington. The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that one of every 11 youth from foster care will experience being homeless." Clearly foster children struggle to lead healthy, productive lives once they age out.

There has been so much written about the challenges that 90% of foster children face after aging out: homelessness, drug addiction, incarceration, or victims of crime. Fifty percentage drop out of education once they age out. It's these challenges that have prompted interest in extending the age from 18 to 21. 

One critical, but overlooked problem is that many foster children age out with no ties to family members. Chafee provides no funding for family finding so these children, who despite having relatives, end up on the street with no family connections. This is especially true of Hispanic foster children. State agencies often lack the training and resources to do effective family finding so biological parents and other adult relatives are not located and notified. There are options, but many agencies either push for adoption over family or by omission allow children in foster care to age out.

Despite the actual good that children derive from Chafee programs, no amount of preparation can counter balance the benefit to a child of having connections with family. This is especially true for Hispanic children whose culture revolves in large part around family. It's time that Chafee was amended to include funding for family finding. The cost is enormous for the children but also on society that has to pay for support systems when these children become homeless or, as in some cases, are put in jail. 

As Judge (Ret.) Leonard P. Edwards as eloquently wrote, "It is my dream that the expanded use of family finding will literally dry up the foster-care system." Foster children deserve whatever effort is required so when they age out, they have an anchor through their family to support them as they grown into adulthood. We can do better!      

Saludos,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Find Families In Mexico

Proud to be listed on the Child Welfare website.

PS. For more tips and advice about family finding in Mexico, follow us on Facebook at Family Finding MX. Click here if your agency or organization has a case requiring family finding services to identify and locate biological family members in Mexico.

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Family Finding Success in Mexico Using Internet Severely Limited Compared to U.S.

The Internet is not the best resource when doing family finding in Mexico. Family finding is about the identification and location of a biological parent, grandparent and other adult family members when a child is entering foster care. It's very important that these family members are notified so they can participate to help ensure the well-being of the child and, if necessary, provide a permanent, loving home.

Now one of the tools that state agencies, non-profits and attorneys use to do family finding is the Internet. Let's face it. Everyone in the U.S. is online. People are sharing stories on Facebook or tweeting about their weekends and what they had for lunch. Meanwhile kids and their grandparents are sharing photos and videos on YouTube and Flickr. All of this information is open to the public. If that isn't enough, many documents such as birth certificates and marriage licenses are just a few clicks away as long as you bring your plastic.

In fact, the guide "Making 'Relative Search' Happen" published by ChildFocus states, "Internet resources are a fast-growing part of the [family finding] search toolkit. The more details about possible relatives that have been obtained from personal contacts and other databases, the more effective internet searches are likely to be."

Now even though the Internet is a powerful tool that in part allows agencies and attorneys to successfully do family finding in the U.S., this doesn't mean the same results can be expected when doing family finding in Mexico. In fact, when it comes to Mexico, the number of people that can be found using the Internet is almost the complete opposite from the U.S. Whereas up to 80% of relatives can be identified using the Internet and online databases from companies such as LexisNexis and U.S. Search, less than 20% of personal information about people living in Mexico can be found online.

So why is this? One reason is the lack of information on people living in Mexico. For instance, years ago Telmex, the national phone company, had a website where you could search for people listed in the Mexico white pages. Now this didn’t by any means include all 110 million residents, but it did provide access to a significant portion of the population. However, this site has been gone for years.

Now there is no central website for Mexico where Child Welfare agencies and non-profits can do family finding. The same is true of online databases. There is no equivalent to online database companies such as U.S. Search or LexisNexis for Mexico. One of the key problems is the majority of information from legal documents such as birth certificates and marriage licenses haven't yet been digitized. It's been estimated that only about 15% of all information on Mexican residents is available online. The majority of personal information is still only in print and in file cabinets, boxes in some storage closet or in government warehouses.

The Internet is a powerful tool to do family finding. However, when it comes to Mexico the likelihood of finding information about a parent or family member is much lower compared to the U.S. It's important to remember that Mexico is not the U.S. and what works there doesn't automatically work in Mexico.

The solution is that state agencies and non-profits must look for additional resources to help them do family finding so they can identify and locate more parents and adult family members in Mexico of children entering U.S. foster care. Only then will more foster children be able to connect and form important bonds with their blood family and learn about where they come from. These same relatives may choose to care for the child. When this happens, one more boy or girl will now have permanency with a loving family while reducing the financial burden on state welfare agencies. That’s a win-win worth striving for.

Saludos,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Find Families In Mexico

Proud to be listed on the Child Welfare website.

PS. For more tips and advice about family finding in Mexico, follow us on Facebook at Family Finding MX. Click here if your agency or organization has a case requiring family finding services to identify and locate biological family members in Mexico.

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