Winter 2001
Winter 2001
by Doreen Moreno
Remember waking up on your 18th birthday? For most of us it was a great day, our first as "official adults." We were free to enjoy a whole new world of opportunities, but with the security of family providing emotional support, financial assistance, and in most cases, continued housing.
Imagine, however, if you were suddenly completely on your own at 18. That is what happens to some 450 San Francisco Bay Area foster youth who "age out" from foster care each year. In the words of the state, at age 18 they are "emancipated" - free, that is, to find a job and pay for their own education, clothing, and place to live.
California is home to one out of every five of the nation's foster children with 104,000 leaving the system each year statewide. "Services to assist former foster youth are virtually non-existent," says Amy Lemley, director of the First Place Fund for Youth, a nonprofit organization with roots in UC Berkeley?s Goldman School of Public Policy. The program helps former foster youth ages 17-21 make a successful transition to independent living.
Deanne Pearn, director of The First Place Fund for Youth, leads a group of former foster youth in a community building "ice breaker" called the human knot.
"It's horrific to know these youth entered the foster care system because of a home life filled with physical and emotional abuse, severe neglect and abandonment," says Lemley. "When they leave the system at 18 they come back full circle to where they started from-abandoned without guidance and financial support, but this time as young adults."
The statistics are alarming. Females who are former foster youth are six times more likely to give birth before the age of 21. A high percentage of former foster youth do not graduate from high school, and many lack sufficient job skills to secure a decent paying job, often leading to involvement in illegal activities to make ends meet.
To help bridge the gap for these young adults, the two-year-old First Place program provides housing assistance, a peer-based micro-loan program, life skills training, budget management and goal setting workshops, and job and educational resources. On staff at First Place are a number of former foster youth who provide leadership and share their experience with newly emancipated youth.
The impact of the organization is evident. Within one year of joining the program, 95% of the youth participants were employed and 77% received a high school diploma or a Graduate Equivalency Diploma.
Lemley and Program Director Deanne Pearn founded The First Place Fund for Youth while graduate students at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP). "GSPP served as the incubator for the evolution of First Place in so many ways," says Lemley. Adds Pearn, "GSPP taught us to look at a system as a whole-institutionally, statistically and economically-helping us to develop approaches which cut across all levels of the issues." Campus administrators and faculty also supported the organization's infancy by providing temporary office space in the Goldman School basement, writing letters to potential donors, and hosting fundraisers that included East Bay philanthropists and community supporters. "It was great to see the diversity of people who are truly committed to helping other people," says Pearn.
In two short years, First Place Fund for Youth has generated $1.5 million in grant funding and has received national recognition. Recently, 29-year-old Amy Lemley was named one of America's Best Young Community Leaders by Do Something, a national organization founded by actor Andrew Shue to honor and financially support the nation's "best and brightest young leaders." Selected from among more than 400 applicants across the country, Lemley received the prestigious BRICK Award, a $10,000 grant recognizing community-building initiatives. Says Shue, "We believe in the power of young people to change the world by first building better communities brick by brick. The First Place Fund for Youth is doing just that."
Using the successful whole systems approach which worked for First Place, Lemley and Pearn have also launched the Alameda County Foster outh Alliance, a coalition of community-based organizations focusing on foster care service improvements and expansion. "The Alliance is a unique network of foster youth, foster parents and community groups joining together to share resources, expertise and energy to identify long-term solutions for the challenges facing our foster youth, " says Assembly member Dion Aroner (D-Berkeley).Despite the wide support that First Place has received, "We can always use financial help and volunteers," says Pearn, "and especially property owners willing to rent to young adults in our program."
For more information about The First Place Fund for Youth, call (510) 272-0979.
