Articles

J4 Social Change End of Semester Celebration

Big Foster Care Stories in 2012

While the news media’s coverage of California’s foster care system is generally driven by isolated cases of tragedy and systemic failings, another narrative exists.

Over the past twenty years, the numbers of children entering the system has been halved while lengths of stay for those that do enter foster care have also been reduced. California has led the nation in legislation that addresses the educational needs of foster youth and has built an incomplete but promising infrastructure to help foster youth transition to adulthood including the passage of landmark legislation to extend foster care in 2010.

But for all the … Read more

Kids First; David Kirp at J4 Social Change, Monday April 16

In these cynical times is it possible to expect a political movement predicated on children’s rights? Despite the moral imperative and the proven fiscal benefits of giving children of all socioeconomic strata a fairer chance at a successful future, “Washington is often long on love and short on cash.”

Those words were written by Monday’s Journalism for Social Change guest and Goldman School of Public Policy Professor David Kirp. Whether as a newspaper editor, a policy consultant to the President, an author or an academic, Kirp has been steadfast in his assertion that while it may not yet be … Read more

The “Story” Behind Extending Foster Care Past 18

In 2008, during the waning days of his Presidency, George W. Bush signed the landmark Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act into law. This sweeping change to federal child welfare policy created a host of provisions and mandates intended to improve the lives of foster children across the country.

One of the key provisions offered states that opted into extending foster care to age 21 matching federal dollars, a long time goal of many advocates perennially frustrated with the callous practice of leaving foster children to themselves at 18. The story behind this momentous step forward in how … Read more

Mediums of Change — Mon. March 12: 6-7:30 PM

How to translate foster care data, policy and practice into Journalism for Social Change.

Over the semester, Journalism for Social Change has explored the reasons why children enter the foster care system and what happens to them once they do. Our speakers have provided students with fodder for deep analysis of what is going wrong — and right — for children through presentations of research, policy, practice and journalism.

On Monday March 12^th, we are proud to have four guests representing four different mediums that can be used to shed light on issues facing foster youth.  These are: … Read more

In the System

Journalism for Social Change takes students and guests into the foster care system. 

During this semester of Journalism for Social Change, we have set up each of the speaker sessions to provide examples of the interplay of journalism, public policy and social welfare in the lives of foster children. Last week we explored juvenile dependency courts; the last stop before a child is cast into the tumultuous current of the foster care system.

This week, the class and its subject matter, will move exclusively into the realm of what happens to children once in foster care.

Please join Ken … Read more

The Media and Juvenile Dependency Courts

How can the news media promote the transparency necessary to improve foster care while protecting the best interests of vulnerable children?

Once a child is removed from his or her biological home because of suspected abuse or neglect, the most important decisions about his or her future become the responsibility of the juvenile dependency court. If that child is re-unified with parents or is sent into foster care is only the first of a series of decisions that sets the course of that child’s life.

Across the country, the media’s role in covering these important proceedings has been hotly debated. … Read more

Removal: J4 Social Change Session 4

The Fourth Session of Journalism for Social Change explores the toughest decision a social worker will ever make: when to take a child out of his or her home and into the foster care system.

It’s a little after after 4 PM on an average Wednesday at Command Post, the nerve center of the Los Angeles County Department and Children and Family Services’ (DCFS) effort to cope with the relentless tide of child abuse and neglect. Jennifer Lopez, the Acting Executive Deputy Director of the Department, scans an email sent from one of her workers on the front line of … Read more

No Foster Child Left Behind

Momentous developments for a national movement bent on improving educational outcomes for all students, starting with those in foster care. 

This week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will commence the long awaited overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), otherwise known as No Child Left Behind. Media coverage has already latched onto buzzwords like “continuous improvement,” codification of “Race to the Top” and “college-and-career readiness” standards.

But somewhere amidst the attention grabbing banner headlines is an amendment to ESEA of monumental importance to one group of vulnerable students, those in foster care.

This blog … Read more