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ASK-Y Meeting Minutes: 11/7/03
- Opening remarks from Jim Theofelis, Executive Director of the Mockingbird Society:
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Some of the major ideas behind the ASK-Y coalition:
- Providing training and opportunity youth and parents involved in a broad array of systems to speak to legislators on their own behalf about the policies that impact them. Jim shared a story about the impact that a particular young woman’s testimony had on Senator Hargrove.
- Adopting a broad based perspective that focuses on multiple systems that affect youth including the foster/group/kinship care, juvenile justice, homeless, mental health and chemical dependency systems. While focusing on just one system can be very powerful, it can also be very limiting since so many of the youth we serve are involved in multiple systems.
- Mockingbird has applied for a grant that would fund some of the coalition’s expenses such as transportation and stipends
- Jim wanted to be upfront with everyone that, because Mockingbird is sponsoring the coalition, any policy or action items would be subject to Mockingbird Board approval. Jim also wanted to be clear that he doesn’t anticipate any problems and that Mockingbird is sponsoring the coalition because we are excited about working as a team with a broad array of community members toward collective goals.
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Norma Wainright from Child Welfare Advocacy Coaltion (CWAC) gave a brief presentation on that group’s history and current goals:
- CWAC started out with 4 people who realized that they could all be better advocates if they pooled their resources and worked together. There are now around 12 consistent folks who are part of the coalition and over 700 people in contact with the coalition via email. They have found that the shorter the list for each legislative session, the more strong and effective the coalition has been. Norma mentioned that one thing that the coalition would like to see is more involvement from youth and information about what youth want in terms of policy. This session, CWAC is focusing on issues related to kinship care and educational stability for kids
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Marci Curtin from Seattle King County Coalition for the Homeless Youth and Young Adult committee talked about that group:
- They meet once per month and hold trainings every other month. This session their major issues include: extending the reporting period for runaways (last session this bill flew past in the house but died in the senate), foster care and juvenile justice. This group is also involved in homeless youth advocacy day.
- A statement was read from Jon Gould from the Children’s Alliance outlining their major issues for this legislative session including: children’s health (stopping premiums and restoring coverage for immigrants), issues of hunger and issues around the quality of food that is served to kids in schools (e.g. pop and candy machines).
- Sola Plumacher from the Homeless Youth Task Force talked about an idea of putting together a “master website” that would contain links and information about all these different advocacy groups and their goals for the legislative session as well as bills that they are tracking. Also, there is a need for a coalition to take the lead on Homeless Youth Advocacy Day for this coming session.
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Jim suggested a number of possible issues that ASK-Y may want to focus on for this legislative session:
- Adolescents in general and the deprioritization of services for adolescents—an example being that CPS currently is not even investigating calls on adolescents.
- Playing defense against upcoming budget cuts
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Becca Bill issues including:
- extending the reporting time for runaways
- pushing for a review of the Becca Bill to determine its effectiveness (e.g. maybe it has worked for kids with intact families but has it really helped kids who were being abused?)
- Juvenile justice—addressing issues of legal representation and the underfunding of the public defender’s office
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Casey Trupin from SYLAW suggests:
- Looking at the issue of sealing juvenile records; most folks don't even know that they CAN seal their record and even if they know that the process is very complex. For a misdemeanor a person can apply to have their record sealed 2 years after their 18th birthday and must appear in court to make this happen. For a class B felony they have to wait 10 years before they have the possibility of getting it sealed. According to Casey Washington is one of the only states that does this and not only is it highly punitive (it was changed in 1997 to mirror the adult system) but it can prevent kids from having access to jobs and housing.
- Age of consent and issues of involuntary commitment to mental health and chemical dependency treatment.
- Curtis Knopf from Youth Care's Passages talked about the need to incorporate other counties such as Spokane and Walla Walla in terms of networking knowledge of services across the state. Possibly use some of the grant money to go other places in the state to recruit folks to do advocacy? Connecting with individuals and groups in Olympia is also very important especially because they have such easy access to the capital.
- Ideas for forming committees were discussed and the consensus was that a committee would be formed to address advocacy training and organizing the Homeless Youth Advocacy day. Sola and Marci volunteered to co-chair this committee and Valerie Dougas from the Working Zone volunteered to take the lead on the training portion. CASA, Children’s Home Society and the Mockingbird Society all have useful advocacy materials.
- It was decided that the next meeting will be Monday Nov. 24th at 3:30pm in the Treehouse Building (2100 24th Ave S).
- In the interim until that meeting, everyone agrees to reach out to other people in the community and invite them to attend (especially people directly involved in the systems that ASK-Y will focus on), and to come prepared with an idea of 3-5 issues that they would like to see addressed in the next legislative session so that the group can set an agenda for the coming year.
