The first episode is an introduction to the talk, and dives into the reasons why we need to speak with foster youth about sex, what youth in care think about talking about sex, and gives an example of how to start the conversation. Experts from A Home Within, the Children’s Law Center of California and former foster youth are featured in the episode.

Subsequent episodes or “webisodes” will be released throughout the year, and will focus on topics ranging from healthy relationships to improving aid for parenting youth in care. Along with the videos, resources and information will be available at this website to those interested nationwide.

Some in the San Francisco Bay area received a sneak peek of the first episode on May 14, when FMC help a launch party at the New Parkway theater in Oakland, CA. Following the viewing, panelists from the Children’s Law Center from California, A Home Within and the John Burton Foundation, along with youth, engaged in meaningful discussion with the audience about ways to increase and improve the conversation about sex.

For those interested in learning more about the web series or getting involved, contact ryann@fosteringmediaconnections.org.

-Ryann Blackshere

Nikki J

Who am I? I am Nikki J.  Christian, author of “The Pain in the Promise; Child Neglected, God Protected, Beauty Reflected,” founder of NikNak Nation Enterprise, friend, sister, entrepreneur, more than a survivor,  and also one of the hundreds of thousands of kids who was raised by the foster care system. I am strong, I am healed, and I am trying to help others.

I grew up in the foster care system. I can’t tell you exactly how many homes I’ve been in as some. I was just too young to remember or maybe they were just insignificant with all of the other changes I was to endure. I do know that from the ages of 14-15, I was in 13 different placements. That was the year that my 3 year adoption was reversed due to abuse from my ex-adoptive mom.

In my years of foster care I endured all kinds of abuse because unfortunately foster children are vulnerable and available to many types of predators out in the world. I was told that I would be just another statistic; a teenage neglectful mother, drug addict, in prison, abusive, a high school dropout, etc. The list could go on. I was told these things because those are the unfortunate statistics for foster children. However, what the statistics forget to mention is that there are foster children that defeat the odds; who push against everything society has predetermined they’d be, every obstacle of failure and become great. That’s what I decided to do.

I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t be bitter, that I wouldn’t let statistics tell me who I am supposed to be, and I wouldn’t let life’s circumstances dictate who I will be. I decided to embrace the vision that God has given me for my life and put myself in a position to help others, to be a role-model, to be a voice and to help inspire, heal, and give hope.  I decided to be that rare “rose in the concrete” that the late Tupac Shakur wrote about, and to find my promise through the pain. There is always promise, you just have to believe and fight through the pain to get to the promise.  I want to encourage the world that no matter what you go through, what circumstances look like, you can be great! You can shine, you can defy the odds. You just have to hold on, believe, dream, and never let someone else’s actions dictate the rest of your life. If you do, they win and you continue to lose. Don’t let anyone continue to victimize you, which is what you do when you let the actions of someone else control your life. It’s hard to do, but it’s so liberating, freeing, empowering, and attainable.

Who are you? What is the promise awaiting you throughout all of your pain? Listen to God, follow your dream, be great, and fight through the pain and grab ahold of your promise.  My promise? I will not hate. I will love, forgive, hope, encourage, mentor, and help the way Christ wants me to. I am a successful business woman on my way to owning a multi-million dollar establishment.  I will use my hurts and failures as opportunities to grow. I will not quit, I will not be a victim, and I will one day have a family of my own and be a great foster mom. What’s yours?

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Kevin

I am the Brand I say I am!- Kevin Y. Brown. This is the message that I travel the country sharing with audiences of my fellow foster care brothers and sisters, the professionals that help them and others. This is not a message specific to foster care children but one that emerged from my foster care experience. This quote means that a person is in control of their destiny, that he or she can become whomever or whatever they want to be. I went into the system at nine months and remained their until I emancipated at the age of eighteen. Yes, I was abandoned by my mother and later on my older sister, was drugged heavily, moved from place to place and lived in a mental institution. Told that I would be a failure or that I wouldn’t live to be an adult but I decided that I would write my life’s story instead of allowing others to.

In my presentations to audiences I state that, “There are two types of people in this world, those who are labeled and those who are branded. A person who is labeled lets the world tell them who they are and what they are going to do with their lives and a person who is BRANDED stands up and tells the world who they are and what they are going to do with their lives.”

Becoming a BRAND is not an overnight process. It took me a while to decide if I was going to be a label or if I was going to be a brand. Choosing to be a BRAND has been far more rewarding than if I would have chosen to be a label, but I must admit that the difference between being a label and a brand is the material that you are made up of.

One of the overlooked advantages of being a foster kid is that you will probably never face a harder time in your life and if you can survive and keep your head during care everything after is manageable. In order to survive the system successfully we have to seek out positive outlets for our emotions and also seek out positive supportive adults to help us grow. As a foster kid I believe that we are some of the strongest and most resilient people on the planet and we represent only 500,000 of the 73.9 million children from ages 0-17 in the United States.  (http://1.usa.gov/aKGGnt)

The interpretation of the foster care experience has to be flipped on its axis and looked at as if we (foster care children) are/were put in this situation because we were the only children or people strong enough to handle it. Often times we only hear about the bad statistics of foster care instead of the GREATS like Steve Jobs, Coco Chanel, Jamie Foxx, and many many other everyday heroes who were foster care children or orphans.

Foster care is hard, will be hard and will always be a part of me. There are challenges that I still must overcome as a result of the experience but the decision for my life and any foster care child’s life to be happy and joyous versus miserable and unhappy is within them. The decision is ours.

Simply put, “I AM THE BRAND I SAY I AM” and SO ARE YOU!

I have also written the book 10 Ways Anyone Can Graduate College DEBT-FREE From my debt-free college experience. Be sure to pick up a copy at  http://amzn.to/15RKbxa so that you can avoid student loan debt and be free to live your dreams after college.

For more information about me, visit the sites below:

www.kevbrown1.com and www.mydebtfreecollege.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owclO6J4fp8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgGojFXMz_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnXm9IvIwmQ

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Valena

Growing up in foster care from the age of 3 to 17, I don’t know where to start. There were 40 placements, so I was told. I may correct that number later. I can remember everything like it was yesterday; people, names, faces, placements, group homes. I am half Native-American and African-American. I am enrolled in the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska. I also am the youngest of 4 siblings.

For almost 14 years I was lost. It was a tug of war with the Tribe and the State of Nebraska, and I was the rope. In the late 80′s early 90′s, I don’t think they knew what to do with children that were abused, hurt, alone and lost. By the time I was 8, I was in 12 different homes. Some state and some by the Tribe.

I was never stable. I just got used to hearing, “You’re going to meet a new family today Valena”. So I put on my cute smile and charm on, packed my bags and wished to myself this time they would like me or keep me.” Not knowing the smile would always fade. I wasn’t getting the right treatment and help to deal with all that I been through. I was able to create a fake mask that was not me at all. It was just to please everyone. It was like I was on the market.

I was in group homes that I felt like a guinea pig. Drugs were given to me to see if it controlled any of my feelings or problems. I lost 3 years of my life being drugged up. During these first 8 yrs of my life I met some of my family. My real family. But I always remembered times with my Grandfather and seeing my mother on short visits.

During this time I met more family. It was good and scary to know where I came from. But what hurt the most was growing up meeting all these new people. Most of all getting close and loving so many that were ripped from my life. Hurt and broken all over again made me just shut down. I didn’t care anymore.

To make a long long story short, I raised myself. I learned to live in the day, in just the moment, because I didn’t know what was going to happen the next day. I became a mother at the age of 14. And had a few more after that that the state took because of my past. I am 30 now, still trying to find my path. But God showed me that everything I’ve been through is for a reason. So I can share and relate and help.

I’ve been down the drug path, living on the streets, was abused every way you can imagine. And I have every story and situation locked in my head and heart. I am writing a book about my tears as a minor. I have the story of every home, person, who, what, where and how…but could never answer why? I am hoping to help and heal other children who are feeling everything I’ve lived and I want them to know you can survive. I love them without knowing them because I know every tear, every fear. I was them at one time. I want to let other younger foster children know don’t give up. God has a plan.

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Youth of Courageous Connection

Mike Jones, a teacher in Elk Grove, Ca, co-founded Courageous Connection as a way to help the foster youth in the school district. Each week he asks some of the students assisted by the foundation to answer one question anonymously, as a way of expressing their emotions about their experience of the foster care system.

Here are their responses to the question, “If you had the power to give someone in your life one thing, what would you give and who would you give it to?”

1. “My sister passed away nine years ago, and if I had the power to do anything I would bring her back.”

2. “I would give my mom her life back.”

3. “I think I would give my parents the soberness they need in order for me to be able to live with them again. I miss living with them. It sucks.”

4. “If I could give someone in my life one thing…I would give my little sister a good childhood.”

5. “I would give it to my biological mom and the will would be to give my mom her child back…which is me.”

6. “The wish is for me to make my favorite person proud of me and to prove to her that she can leave me alone and not worry about me cooking and burning down the house.”

7. “My one wish would be to give my aunt the cure for cancer.”

8. “If I had a power to give someone something it would be my mother. I’d give her a good childhood so she wouldn’t be so cruel and evil towards me.”

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Sixto

For the past few months I have been traveling the country telling people about Rising Tides and why this organization is important.  Recently I realized that it is important to share my story, so you can understand why this means so much to me, and why foster care youth need your support.

I was 11 months old when the state took me away from a home where my mother used heroin and strange men paid the bills. How could a woman struggling with drug addiction possibly care for the fifth of her eight children? The state decided I would have a better life in foster care. They scattered my siblings. One brother was soon after buried, felled by a bullet to the chest when the streets became more of his home than school.

By age 9, I had been shuffled through seven foster homes, and landed in the home of a woman named Gladys. She adopted me, yet seemed to hate me. She called me “Nigger” and “Faggot.” She dressed me in donated clothes, shoes that didn’t fit, and bruises. By the time I turned 13, the sight of me made her “sick.” She would lock me out of the house for days at a time. I slept on the occasional couch or floor. Other times I slept in the street.

Two years passed like this. So did several unsuccessful investigations by child services and the police. Then one day Gladys moved. I came home after school to find the house empty. I landed back in foster care.

Imagine a childhood like mine. One in which you cannot touch the refrigerator; you sleep in a filthy room and are treated like a servant in a home where the family wants you only for the $875.44 you bring in. I was screamed at, beaten with a belt, and with fists. I have been choked, slapped and starved. How easily I could have slipped into the same life my mother lead.

But for some reason I didn’t. In spite of attending some of our nation’s worst schools, I learned that an education was my only way out. Last year I was accepted into Virginia Commonwealth University. But that was just the beginning of my journey.

I was unprepared for college. An adult mentor took me to Target and grabbed two shopping carts. Two carts turned into 11 by the time we had assembled everything I would need: a book bag, sheets, towels, laundry bag, paper, pens, dishes, a pillow, a lamp, etc). I didn’t want a handout. I wanted to stand on my own two feet.  But what kid at 17 is asked to stand alone? I realized how much this person believed in me. I was not a charity case. This family was investing in my future. They were providing me with the basic tools that I need to start college right. In addition to the shopping spree, they had pooled their money and gave me a $1,500 to rent a moving truck for the trip from Connecticut to my little apartment near campus. I was able to focus on my grades and adjust more quickly to my new environment.

I became a leader in campus organizations and still managed to get A’s and B’s. I may not have parents to answer to, but I found myself feeling accountable to those people who invested their time, trust and money in my success. When I did not feel like going to class or messed up on a test, I thought about the group of adults who went out of their way to help me build a better life.

Every young person in foster care needs support. When we don’t have the proper support – we are being set up to fail. I was lucky. A group of adults cared enough to help me grow. I know if my older brother had found a similar group of caring adults, his story might have ended up differently. He may have been alive.  The smallest gestures have the power to knock down the highest, thickest barriers.

I am asking you to make difference today. I am not asking you to give to charity. I am asking you to make an investment in a young person like me. Please visit www.Rising-Tides.org. You have the power to change a life.

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Lydia

I was put into foster care when I was seven years old with my cousin. My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic, addicted to drugs, and also prostituted. Not just herself might I add. There were three chaotic days which led to a police chase and my mother running into the emergency barefoot and naked screaming, “the mafia blew my car up and I only survived because of God.”  My mother was baker acted, meaning she was taken to a receiving facility for involuntary examination because of mental illness. Shortly later she committed suicide.
My cousin and I were separated in foster care. We had a journal that we wrote to each other back and forth in. We always had plans to escape and wrote our secrets, hopes, and dreams in that journal.

Our foster homes were not that great. I had over 25 social workers and I can’t keep count of the homes.

When I was 16 years old I was living on my own in my car attending high school and working two jobs. I graduated on my own and started to work in tv/film. I have been doing it for ten years now. I finally decided to pull out the six banker boxes of abuse about my life and go through them. It was horrifying. It re-traumatized me to a place I’d never been before. But with love and therapy I made it through..I wrote my screenplay of my experiences as a child and my most beautiful relationship with my cousin.

I now am in the middle of the biggest fundraiser of my life. I am on indiegogo raising the funds to put my life story on film. I am also directing it.

People always ask me how did you do it? Why continue on with the tragedy and the lack of hope? I always answer the same.

I know what it’s like to walk around blinded with heavy fog and not know whether your coming or going. Once I was able to look through the fog, I saw my full potential. It is my mission to help others do the same. It allows a happier life with deeper compassion. I want to raise our abused kids and adults voices, and I want us to allow our ears to hear it. Talking and listening brings awareness and also brings less suffering. I want no more silence.

You can see my campaign and interview here: www.indiegogo.com/sunnylanemovie

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Danita

My journey through the foster care system began at 11 months old and continued through my teen years as I shared time and space with four foster families and their children. At age 18, Frances and Ezra Meshack, the owners and operators of the Young Women’s Group Home of Los Angeles, California, adopted me as their own.

In spite of this blessed event, I still lacked a sense of purpose, power and worth in life. As a foster kid who grew up in Southwest Los Angeles during the 60′s and 70′s, I daydreamed about becoming a concert violinist, track and field star, Top R & B artist, or famous author. But my foster parents did not support my interests or encourage the pursuit of my passions as they intuitively did with the greatest of ease when the topic of conversation was one of their own.

But through it all, I never abandoned the vision of someday creating a better life for myself by leveraging my strengths and talents. With the passage of time, I began to receive confirmation that I was greater than my life circumstances.

The first person to affirm my purpose in life was Mr. Eric Jones, a Lawyer and Sunday School Teacher. Mr. Jones inspired a love for learning, which overflowed into a passion for serving others by sharing insight and knowledge. Frances Willette Meshack, my deceased adopted mother, affirmed my potential as an encourager, facilitator, and teacher by igniting a fire within to be the best I could be at all times. My worth as human being found substance and meaning in the word’s of Dr.  Martin Luther King Jr. who inspired me to pursue love for self above all things because he said, “Love is the most durable power in the World”.

The life lessons taught by Mr. Jones, Frances Meshack and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the foundation for rising above the mediocrity, obscurity, and musings of life as a foster child. My mentors inspired me to cultivate a mindset that embraces my strengths, talents and gifts amid the chaos, confusion and war with self that often arises with placement in foster care.

The inner strength and self-love generated from time spent with my mentors, literally and figuratively, led to the pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice, a Juris Doctorate Degree in law, and more recently graduation from a Certified Teen Life Coaching Program.

As the founder of Point of Power Teen Life Coaching, I support teen girls, foster youth and young women through love, encouragement and experiential guidance offered to help them discover a path for realization of their full potential in every area of life. By igniting purpose with passion, I empower others to become the architect and designer of the future they desire, as I did with my life.

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Sharon

January 10, 2012 will mark the 40^th anniversary of my second entrance into foster care. January 10, 1972 is a date I will never forget. This is the day a social worker came to the house and took us away. I was nine years old and the oldest of 5 children. We all went in different directions but in pairs. I remember being dropped off by the social worker; my bag of clothes in one hand and my hockey stick in the other, with my younger brother in tow. It was hard not being with all my siblings, my mother was emotionally unavailable so I was the mother to my siblings. However, I was happy that I was placed with one of my brothers.  I did get to visit with my sister while in foster care. Sometimes the visits were planned and sometimes they weren’t. I remember one time, my sister ran away from her foster home to where my brother and I lived. No one was home when she got there so she waited on the steps for us. She wanted to stay with me and my brother but couldn’t so we brought her back to her foster home.

Years later my brother and sister went home and my youngest brother was adopted. My other brother and I remained in our foster home. Our file got buried on someone’s desk at the department of social services and we remained in our foster home for 4 years. This is when it was decided that my younger brother would go home.  I was 13 years old at the time and got to decide where I wanted to go, I chose to stay. I got to see my siblings every Saturday as we lived in the same town, but as we got older we drifted apart. Currently, my siblings and I are not in contact with each other; we know where each other live but that’s about it. We tried many years ago to reconnect but we’ve all had different life experiences and hold some resentment toward each other. So for now it’s for the best that we don’t have contact. I do miss them and miss the relationships we could have had; maybe someday we can try again.

What I want people to know is just how important it is to keep siblings together when they enter into foster care. Often when children are placed in foster care they come from abusive or neglectful families and siblings can provide support to each other. If children can’t be placed together they should be able to visit each other. Siblings need time to be together; just to be kids or to talk about what is happening in their life.

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Kimberly

As the social worker dropped me off, I was standing there with a black trash bag in my left hand looking blankly into my mother’s eyes wondering why am I at Motel 6? This trash bag held all of my belongings I had collected over time with different foster families. I was forced to be a mother at age eight, while my mother left me to care for my siblings. I remember being left in the mountains for two weeks with nothing but crackers and peanut butter to feed five mouths. After many different foster care placements, I was taken to Orangewood Children’s Home along with my siblings due to my mother’s mishaps involving drugs, alcohol and neglect. After residing for three months in the children’s home, my siblings and I were introduced to our new foster parents, the Snodgrass’. I was enrolled in school during the middle of my sixth grade year. While I had not attended school regularly prior to that, I was excited to finally have the privilege and opportunity to learn. I was lost in my studies, but I eventually caught up in the eighth grade. By tenth grade, my birth mother had lost all her parental rights, and I was put up for adoption.

The Snodgrass family subsequently adopted me at age sixteen (what an amazing adoption at the age of 16! This rarely happens for youth in care as teens! I was lucky!). Following this event, my older sister Angela, who I looked up to as my mother when I was a child, died in 2002 due to a fatal car accident involving drugs. I was devastated knowing that I would never get to see my sister again, but I persisted in my education and excelled academically because she had high hopes for me. I graduated from high school with honors and was accepted to the University of California, Irvine in 2005.

While attending UC Irvine I learned my responsibilities for the community that I represent, because of my professors who believed in me and gave me that one chance. I want to give back to the future foster youth society by implementing what I have learned. I hope to be a voice for foster youth who may have lost hope, or who do not see the future ahead. Attending UC Irvine was a dream come true and I want to share my experiences with others to encourage them to strive for the best.

As I developed an interest to change foster youth policy and higher education, I was selected to participate in the Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute program at Princeton University. PPIA was a seven-week intensive residential program, which increased my leadership abilities to think and practice as a policy leader in both the public and nonprofit sectors. The program prepared me well and helped me identify the passion I have for my future goals as a public leader.

After applying to various social work, policy, and education graduate schools, I was accepted into Harvard University for my Masters in Education, and I accepted the offer of course (because that’s what you do when you get into Harvard- you just go!). I graduated with my Masters in May 2010, and shortly after started a program that serves foster youth in all states of America. This program is called REACH-Realizing Every Action Creates Hope- and it means that you can change your future through your selected actions.  Foster children do not need to have pity thrust against them. Instead, the program was instilled as a leadership opportunity to ensure that our students succeed with as little barriers as possible. We help our REACH students find employment, find inspiration through having great role models, and following their dreams through hard work. Nothing is easy in life when thinking of your future, and our team makes sure that we are there to support each step. REACH also launched a scholarship program this year to ensure that our interns are able to have one less financial burden (even though they still have a financial need due to the lack of family support).

My past is embedded in my heart, but I have realized with time and maturity that life happens and you have to accept it and move on by taking one day at a time. My long-term goals are to graduate with a Ph.D. in Social Work or Education, and to teach within a university to help change policy for foster youth and to inform the public of social dilemmas. I also plan to open my own foundation to educate the less fortunate in the foster system and implement changes in the current foundations to better the foster children in the future. I plan to give back to my foster care community because I want to help those who I can truly relate to. For more information about the two books I have published, and resources regarding my focus, please visit www.reachforyou.org to learn more.

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Maurissa

In my personal experience as a youth in the group home/foster care sector my education in High School was dismal to say the least. In my early years at attempting higher education at a community college the lack of the basic fundamentals of Mathematics and English in particular became apparent. It took me 10 tries to pass Algebra at my community college, and took 4 tries to pass the English requirement courses. Failing these classes so many times took a serious toll on my self-esteem. I felt that I was never going to succeed in my educational pursuits and I was destined for failure like so many young adults in the system today. The only important knowledge I received in my high school years was from my mentor and principal Adam. Adam gave me research literature to read about youth in care and the rates at which these students are successful in educational endeavors. This literature stated that only 1% of youth make it to college and less than this 1% get a degree higher than an Associate’s degree. I was driven to be that less than 1% that make it to higher education.

Every time I failed one of these courses this data stuck with me I could see why so many give up, it took a lot of strength and courage to continue to retake these courses. I feel that the system doesn’t expect youth in care to succeed and that it is extremely hard to get extra resources and aid to pursue higher education being in the system. I am the only one from my school that I know of to make embark on this journey of higher education, and I have done all of it on my own. From learning how to get transcripts to fulfilling the requirements of my degree, even my group home did not educate me in this area.

Now that I am a Graduate Student at Harvard I am still not receiving as much assistance as I need especially in the area of financial support. I am paying for most of the program on my own through loans. If I was in the Massachusetts foster system according to financial aid I would have received more grants. California needs to contribute aid to the few youth that persevere through such academic difficulties and make it to the graduate level. Besides investing in higher education so many youth in care don’t even graduate high school with the right skills, we need and deserve more opportunities to succeed. I believe that youth in care want to succeed but they need to know they can, I wish I had known of someone who had made it when I was growing up, to help mentor me in the process and give me hope. My endeavors won’t stop here as I plan on continuing my studies to enrich and foster the success of other youths life’s in care, through continuing their education and fighting for appropriate curriculum in their high school careers.

Foster Care Counts applied for a $100,000 LA2050 grant – being funded by the Goldhirsh Foundation – to help develop a virtual mentor program for any foster and at-risk youth.

The idea is pretty brilliant. Transition-aged foster youth — like all young adults — can find college applications, submitting forms for financial aid or navigating all the opportunities a college campus holds difficult. That is where the virtual mentor comes in. Empty-nesters with experience helping their children make it through the college and life hurdles that pile up after age 18 will use their free time to help foster youth face those hurdles and excel. By doing this virtually, the promise is to create a system that can serve thousands of youth. In addition, the model Foster Care Counts is promoting offers people totally unaware of the foster care system a low commitment entrance point to helping foster youth that will hopefully translate into increasing levels of interaction by the virtual mentors.

“Virtual mentors can help foster youth enter and complete college, and as indicated in the LA2050 challenge, better education can increase prospects and participation in community life in all areas of the LA2050 challenge, creating better citizens and a better city,” wrote Foster Care Counts Founder Jeanne Pritzker in the online competition.

To win the grant, Foster Care Counts need to be one of the top ten applications with the most votes. If you want to learn more and vote for this project, just click HERE: http://myla2050.maker.good.is/projects/virtualmentor

We are FMC support the idea and voted already.

-FMC 

Whether extended family or foster parents, there is no uniformity in training on how caretakers should address sex with youth who grow up in foster care. No one is responsible for teaching these teens about safe sex practices, healthy relationships, and the value of love.  This lack of comprehensive sexual education for youth in foster care has a significant correlation with high pregnancy rates and contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, among many other negative outcomes.

In response to this, Fostering Media Connections presents, “Let’s Talk About Sex with Foster Youth,” a series of “webisodes” aimed at improving the sexual education of foster youth. Each webisode consists of interviews with foster youth, their parents and experts on a range of topics covering sexual health, family planning and the psychological issues associated with sexuality.

The first episode will be released during the web series launch party May 14 at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, California. After the viewing, a panel of experts will engage with the audience about the need for sexual education for foster youth across the country. The event will be from 6-9PM, PST.

Save the date and join FMC for the viewing and discussion May 14, and spread the word about the need for sexual education for youth in care.

Zak Mucha and Trey Bundy discuss child trauma: its roots in mental health, poverty and crime and what the news media gets wrong and right when covering vulnerable children.

Zak and Trey will talk about these issues and take questions at two events. Both are free and open to the public.

On Tuesday, March 12 at 6pm Zak and Trey will join the Goldman School of Public Policy‘s Journalism for Social Change Class at 2607 Hearst Ave. in Room 105.

Wednesday, March 13, 10am at San Francisco State University (1600 Holloway Ave., HSS Building, Room 380).

Zak Mucha is a licensed social worker in Chicago, where he runs an Assertive Community Treatment team, providing street-level mental health services to clients with severe psychological and substance abuse problems. Zak is the author of two novels, several articles and essays and an upcoming work of nonfiction about his experiences in the mental health field. He also serves on the advisory board of the National Association to Protect Children.

Trey Bundy is a journalist at the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, where covers child welfare, juvenile justice, education and crime. He worked for 10 years as a residential treatment counselor with children from backgrounds of abuse and neglect. His work has appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, ABC TV, NBC Bay Area, Planet magazine and SF Weekly.

The events will also preview a new class debuting at San Francisco State in the fall. Trey Bundy will teach Public Journalism, with a focus on social issues affecting children and teenagers. The class will be open to students from departments of journalism, social work, criminal justice and other disciplines. The class is an outgrowth of the Journalism for Social Change program currently being taught at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and USC’s Price School of Public Policy.

Both events are produced in partnership with Fostering Media Connections.

“I am surprised and  humbled,” said Blackshere, a multimedia journalist at FMC. “I’m very happy that this award will allow the work of FMC and the stories of youth across the nation to be recognized.”

For the 2012 Awards, a distinguished award selection committee reviewed significant child-related works of journalism and related forms of media that were published during the time period of July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012.  Winners were selected based on scope and depth of research, initiative and level of effort; quality of writing; and contribution to public understanding of the topics addressed.

Blackshere now joins FMC Executive Director Daniel Heimpel as a recipient of the Price Award. Heimpel won in 2007 and 2010.

The Price Child Health and Welfare Journalism Awards have been presented annually since 1992 to recognize excellence in journalism, and specifically to recognize significant stories, series, or bodies of work that advance the understanding of, and enhance public discourse on, child health and well-being issues, including but not limited to health, health care reform, child nutrition, child safety, child poverty, child care, education, child abuse, foster care, former foster youth, juvenile justice, and children with special needs.  The honor is awarded by the Children’s Advocacy Institute in California.

To read Blackshere’s winning articles, click here.