City of Life Fostering Independence 1998 to Present For a Better Future

The Vision:

The original vision was to be a Community Voice and catalyst to leverage existing resources to better prepare and equip foster care youth to be ready for life – the responsibility was and is that of the community not just the Child Welfare system.

The Problem:

More than 20 years ago, when City of Life was founded foster youth were turned out of the system at age 18 when hormones are raging with no positive adult role model; no car; no place to stay; no structure - just at the time a foster youth needed structure the most, it was removed.

The story that stated the effort. Four young women from Boys and Girls Town were graduating from high school one year – all were born in jail – most of women on drugs – all spent most all of their life in group homes. These young women made their final presentation to the board before they graduated; and they were spectacular – the dean of Valencia’s East Campus (15 minutes away) encouraged the four to visit him over the summer and he would help them prepare for college – none showed!

Youth who chose to go to college received some financial assistance from the state, but not much support from the community – no statistics were kept or were not available; the best guess is that results were not that good. No structure - no supervision.

We started at the time the state of Florida was getting out of managing child welfare outsourcing it to community agencies which were funded with a fixed annual budget expecting the agency to find additional funding from the community they served.

The incentive was on prevention and getting youth out of the system through adoption, relative care, or back with a parent. Over the years, adoptions increased and fewer youth resided in group homes.

Our Part of the Solution:

City of Life recruited grass roots volunteer who met once a month for one and a half hours to identify problems as seen through the eyes of the community and then find solutions that could be implemented with existing resources in the community. Each month the group grew in number; each month the group would inch closer to solutions that helped kids – the first project was the idea of a special “Independent Living” team of case managers to focus on needed life skills when a child turned 18 - the program is still in existence.

Another example had to do with ID’s and a road to getting youth a driver’s license. We partnered with I-Dignity – another problem solved or at least improved with an existing Central Florida resource.

This volunteer group went on to become the “Community Action Team”. Once a problem was resolved, meaning a solution was found and then executed, the team went on to the next thing.

The Vision:

The Problem:

The incentive was on prevention and getting youth out of the system through adoption, relative care, or back with a parent. Over the years, adoptions increased and fewer youth resided in group homes.

Our Part of the Solution:

This volunteer group went on to become the “Community Action Team”. Once a problem was resolved, meaning a solution was found and then executed, the team went on to the next thing.

How We Did it:

Knocked on a lot of doors in the community asking three questions:

Do you think kids at 18 are ready to make adult like decision, if no;
Do you think we, the community have real responsibility to get these young people ready for life? If yes;
What do you want to do about it????????

United Way helped provided a volunteer; as did Orange County Jail; Valencia; Workforce Central Florida; and many others. Edyth Bush provided early seed capital as did Orange County Government. Volunteers and interested citizens wrote checks averaging between $500 to $1,000.

City and County officials and found they had 5 -year plans and in their plans were listings of community issues such as housing and at-risk youth – from the plan we were able to validate problems and find community resources focused on the challenge.

The county jail had the highest success rate for GED training for youth in the community. The jail also doubled, by default, as a major county mental health facility; the jail delivered a lot of babies as well.

The Core Group met the last business Friday of every month. We started in my board room then took the show on the road visiting as many agencies as we good – we found best practices and shared.

Our core group:

Case Managers and Specialists in the child welfare system
Our Community Based Care agency.
The senior Juvenile Court Judge
A local magistrate
A representative from 33rd Street Jail
Representatives from County and City government Guardian ad Litem

Valencia College
Workforce Central Florida
Interested citizens
A workforce training group
The University of Central Florida
Parents and youth
Apologies to those not named
It was an evolving group of a lot of different people.

Our projects:

Education and Training
Safe housing
Transportation
Mentors
Independent Living Skills training
Driver’s license structure
Jobs

Currently we are working on Mental Health.

Our Voyage:

We started with education and training fairs at local attractions to draw attention to the need.

Our first big success was a jobs program with Westgate Time Share - they hired our kids, housed them in vacant units, provided them a noon meal. The first line supervisor became their mentor. Program got local press and national attention.

We partnered with a local community college to develop a support system such as a child might have from a parent. Today Community Based Care of Central Florida (CBC) has a full-time education coordinator with the special services department at the local college.

We worked with local apartment owners to develop a safe housing alternative. Today CBC has a full-time safe housing coordinator using the model where the rent is paid the apartment complex out of the child’s state monthly check.

Transportation remain an issue - progress has been made as noted above - provisions are in place to get these kids a driver’s license and insurance.

Mentoring is a priority at CBC with still a lot to be done in finding a positive adult role model.

Along the way we participated in blue ribbon commissions to get state and local attention to youth homelessness and the hazards to youth who slip through the cracks of the system.

The Community Action Team identified jobs as a critical part of learning to live in the community.

Over time CBC found funding and we partnered with Goodwill to manage the jobs program. We provided funding for one additional employee - Goodwill provided facilities and resources. In 2014 the program was recognized as a signature achievement for the Child Welfare System in Florida. We averaged 4 to 7 jobs a month for foster care youth.

What We Became:

We became the community convener – the group that connected the community.
We were not a Blue-Ribbon Committee – the community took credit – not one person.
We were a voice for foster care youth.
We reported on What We Got Done.
We took the initiative for what still needs to get done.

What We Want to Get Done:

Improve Mental Health

After the Jobs program was successfully implemented, case managers and others took up the cause of helping foster care youth carry the baggage they carry from being dumped into the child welfare system through no fault of their own.

We want to be: A voice – A connector – A resource Finder - A Delivery System

The Community Action Team built a strategic plan – we want to implement it.

Resources are limited and we have a plan.