Mockingbird Society

ASK-Y Meeting Minutes: 10/23/06

City of Seattle — Valerie Douglas
CPC — Anna Trombley
Mockingbird Society — Jim Theofelis, Lauren Frederick, Najja Morris, Jamica Henderson, Jessica Garcia, Renita Baskin, Misty Lou Cook, Juan Ramirez, Jonelle Abd-Rahmaan, Raquel Granath
Friends of Youth — Sarah Benton, Benji Rouse, Katy Lukas
NWNY — Gary Hammons
ROOTS — Sinan Demirel
Ryther — Johnny Ohta
YMCA — Sean Walsh
YouthCare — Joanna Ward, Tracy Peelen
45th St. Clinic — Charlotte Tucker
Dorothy Broxon Jenkins, Andrew Block, David Maxwell

Rep. Mary Helen Roberts agreed to sponsor legislation that would extend Medicaid benefits through age 23 to foster youth aging out of care. We are working on getting a companion bill in the Senate with Sen. Helen Kaiser sponsoring.
Jim explained that we have a budget surplus this year, and that this is a budget year for the state, so we have a good chance of success with this bill.
Indiana just passed this bill; about 30 states extend Medicaid to youth aging out of care.
This will save money for taxpayers, as youth won’t be using the very expensive ER for care.
Rep. Pettigrew continues to work on housing for youth exiting foster care.
Issues related to homeless youth and adults will be supported by ASK-Y. CEH is advocating to expand the size of the housing trust fund.
With the SKCCH Homeless Youth Summit, some advocacy issues may arise that can be brought to the state level.
ASK-Y will support this secondarily.

Volunteers from the One Night Count talked to the group about how to better count youth who are out that night. It is hard to judge age in this project. How can we as advocates better count youth and young adults?
There is also an issue with Occupancy. The standard of 90% has not been consistently met by the programs that serve youth. There are a couple of reasons for this, which service providers understand. The group is trying to come up with a larger statement to give to the larger committee (CEH) and funders about why this occurs. Valerie invited others to attend; the next meeting is Nov. 16th at 2:00. Valerie can add you to the email list. CEH will be making recommendations that will impact policy for years to come, so our input is important.

Andrew Block introduced this project to the group. He has a grant to work for one year with youth collaborations, and help them work toward social justice goals.
He is promoting a collaboration of collaborations. He is putting together a book about all the different youth collaborations that exist, and what the barriers are in working together.
He has funds through 2007 to assist youth in working together.
Gary suggested that juvenile justice would be a possible avenue of working together.
Andrew would be a resource contact or intermediary to get us in touch with other groups who also support our issues. He could assist with the logistics of communication between the groups.
Jim asked for his support in getting the word out about Advocacy Day.
Dorothy stated that he could be a resource in connecting kinship families to resources in the group.
Anyone who is interested in getting involved in Andrew’s project should see him after the meeting.
He would not attend each ASK-Y meeting, but would attend the occasional meeting

Oct. 26th & 27th, there will be a Summit on Homeless Youth issues in Seattle. Plenty of food will be provided at both days. Please contact Charlotte if you want more information.
We have been trying to get an event on the city/county level for some time, so this is exciting.

We will finish committee assignments at the next meeting, if we have not completed them today.
Valerie gave an overview of the day.
Najja gave an overview of Training Day. Evaluations show that youth feel more effective and prepared if they have attended Training Day prior to Advocacy Day.
Advocacy Day will likely be the first or second Friday of March.
Valerie would like to see more effort spent on getting youth from around the state involved. Najja could get her in touch with youth leadership summit participants; Gary is putting together a statewide directory that will be helpful for us too.
We could get lists of providers throughout the state who are supportive of this legislation.
They could do a short video and we could present it at Advocacy Day. We could send them materials and agendas and have the regions tailor training for their groups.

All attendees at this meeting should ask their organization’s CEOs (or decision makers) if they officially endorse the bill. Email that information to Lauren.
We will have a proactive media approach, and invite/educate them prior to the event.
We could add a training about how to speak to the media (perhaps a Media 101 class prior to Training Day).