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Initiatives to involve youth with lived experience in foster care system improvements

1:54:36

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118 sec

Council Member Stevens asks about initiatives to involve youth with lived experience in improving the foster care system. Commissioner Dannhauser outlines several programs and efforts in this area.

ACS offers summer internship programs for youth in care to work on projects within the agency
Many foster care agencies have youth advocates on board to provide input and support
ACS works with youth advocacy committees to gather feedback and ideas
The agency is exploring a statewide hotline staffed by young people with lived experience in foster care
ACS is considering ways to incorporate youth voices more directly into case management and support services

Althea Stevens

1:54:36

And do you have a similar thing with young people?

1:54:38

I know we have, like, the youth advisory boards and those things, but would this be something that you wanna see also with, like, young people who've had, like, lived experiences being part of, like, case manage case management as well as young people are transitioning out?

1:54:51

And is that something or part of like on your list of 6,000,000,000 things that you're already working on?

Jess Dannhauser

1:54:57

I think it'd be wonderful.

1:54:58

I think there's a few things that are happening that are important in this.

1:55:02

We obviously we do it through SYEP.

1:55:06

We do a lot of summer internship programs, younger young people at the agency doing lots of projects, but also helping us.

1:55:15

Each agency, many of them have youth advocates on board.

1:55:19

We work with the youth advocacy committees that I was mentioning earlier.

1:55:23

In addition, we're following closely some of the work that the Brave Hearts are doing.

1:55:29

They're an organization.

1:55:30

They're actually connected in the FEC in your district.

1:55:34

They are also connected with Children's Village.

1:55:38

OCFS just started something that I think has a lot of promise and we're looking at whether we could support it, which is a hotline for young people in foster care statewide.

1:55:48

And so the Brave Hearts staff it, so they are young people who have been in care, some in the juvenile justice system, some in the foster care system.

1:55:59

They staff it.

1:55:59

They respond.

1:56:00

They get young people to the support that they need.

1:56:02

It's just launching and so we're meeting with them regularly to understand their success and I'd also like to see if at all possible we could find some resources for that kind of both centralized support but at the agencies

Althea Stevens

1:56:15

as well.

1:56:15

And this is like a phone number where they're so they would call.

1:56:18

Yeah.

1:56:18

We gotta get an app too because no one talks on the phone anymore.

1:56:21

These kids don't wanna talk, so we gotta get an app where they can have live chats with them as well.

Jess Dannhauser

1:56:25

They may.

1:56:26

It's also text that's that's available through that, I believe.

Althea Stevens

1:56:29

Text to you know, they don't wanna talk to nobody.

1:56:32

They wanna text you.

1:56:33

So

Jess Dannhauser

1:56:33

Yeah.

1:56:33

Let me triple check before I say

Althea Stevens

1:56:35

kinda holding dating ourselves, but, you know, I just have a couple more questions, then we'll wrap up.

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Transportation challenges for foster children and potential solutions