ASK-Y Meeting Minutes: 10/24/05
Present:
- Mockingbird Society — Jim Theofelis, Lauren Frederick, Darcie Gray, Najja Morris, Terasa Asher, Jacob Harrison, Ashley Grant, Jamica Henderson, Dietra Clayton
- City of Seattle — Valerie Douglas
- Youthcare — Curtis Knopf, David Roberts, Karen Danz
- Lutheran Community Services — Sierra Rowe
- ROOTS — Sinan Demirel
- Friends of Youth — Sarah Benton
- TeenHope, Inc — Rian Merrill
- Children’s Home Society — Norma Wainwright
- Orion Center — Jessie Forsythe
Intro/Welcome (Jim)
- The group reviewed the September meeting minutes.
Agency Update: ROOTS (Sinan)
- The ROOTS youth shelter has now been open for 7 nights a week for one year! Also, the program recently celebrated its 500th week of operations.
Agency Update: Teenhope, Inc. (Rian Merrill)
- Teenhope, Inc.’s drop-in center has been operating for 2.5 months now. They also have 8 beds for youth ages 13–17.
Youth Advocacy Day: Agenda for 2006 (Jim)
- A bill to extend services to foster youth through age 21 will be on our advocacy agenda again this year.
- The Braam Panel is adding a version of the extending services concept to their plan, which at this point calls for Children’s Administration to propose some form of legislation.
- Representative Mary Lou Dickerson has said that she will sponsor an extending services bill again this year. It’s very good news to have a sponsor so early this year. Mayor Nickels has also expressed strong interest in the bill, because it would alleviate some of the stress local governments face when providing services to youth who age out of care and become homeless, etc.
- Jim stated that others at the meeting were welcome to bring advocacy issues up for discussion.
- Jim introduced Norma Wainwright, a research analyst at the Children’s Home Society. She is involved in another advocacy coalition called Child Welfare Advocacy Coalition (CWAC). She stated that they have not formed an advocacy agenda yet. Their group is waiting for the Braam panel’s recommendations before finalizing an agenda.
- Jim reiterated that the Braam panel’s recommendations will in many ways shape the agendas for youth advocates in the upcoming legislative session. No one is certain about what exactly the Braam panel will recommend. We will also need to determine what Rep. Dickerson is willing to support. It probably makes the most sense to view this as multi-year effort, which means strategically the first step is to focus on HB 2002 from last year. HB 2002 states that youth who are 18, have their high school diploma or GED, and want to attend higher education or vocational school, may remain in their current foster/kinship home. The caregiver would continue to receive payment from the state.
- For those who are new, Jim explained what the Braam settlement is, and its outcome.
- Because the legislative session this year is a short, supplemental session, the legislature is less likely to support large, expensive bills. Instead, they will be focusing on adjusting last year’s budget.
- Jim sent his letter of recommendations to the Braam panel today. His letter encouraged them to ask Children’s Administration to do more than simply “propose legislation” about extending services. For various reasons, DSHS may feel that it can’t do more than propose legislation. Jim is encouraging the Braam panel to recommend that Children’s Administration actually advocate for the new legislation and further support it in some way. The dilemma for CA is that they must follow the direction of the Governor’s office.
- Sarah asked how we can avoid having the OFM (Office of Fiscal Management) attach a large fiscal note to the bill this year. Jim stated that starting to advocate for the bill as early as possible might help, and that Representative Dickerson is looking into that issue.
- Najja asked if we can put forth a smaller, scaled down proposal, in addition to the main bill. Jim stated that we do have that option, especially if Rep. Dickerson advises us to scale back our request. But initially we will go forward with last year’s version of HB 2002.
Committee Report: Youth Advocacy Training Day (Najja)
- Training Day will be Thursday, February 2nd, at the 2100 Building.
- We will have a mix of speakers, including youth who participated in last year’s advocacy day.
- Last year, half of the youth who attended Advocacy Day did not feel prepared to meet their legislators. So on Training Day this year, we will talk about the basics of who their legislators are, and how to effectively share their story with legislators.
- Youth will practice telling their stories and asking questions.
- Youth will be told in advance which legislators they will be meeting.
- They will receive suggestions on what not to wear (in past years, clothing printed with slogans like “Suicidal Tendencies” caused some difficulty getting through security).
- Youth will watch part of a video of last year’s Advocacy Day.
- We want Training Day to be a mix of tangible tools and fun.
- The Training Day committee is requesting another member from a different service provider to participate on the committee. Right now all committee members are from Mockingbird.
- Valerie agreed to help our committee come up with a reasonable agenda/timeline for Training Day.
- We will do evaluations for Training Day. Lauren will email last year’s evaluation form to Jessie.
- Sarah also volunteered to help with Training Day.
- The Training Day committee and Advocacy Day committee will need to work together on a few aspects of the day, including T-shirts/buttons, packets, food, and fliers to promote the day.
- Valerie and Sarah volunteered to help with the food for both days. Jim pointed out that this is a big job that may require a separate committee.
- Valerie stated that our fliers should make it clear that Advocacy Day is a chance for youth to meet legislators face-to-face.
Committee Report: Youth Advocacy Day (David)
- Youth Advocacy Day will be Friday, February 3rd, in Olympia.
- David is locating meeting rooms for us in Olympia. We can reserve the large room in the Cherberg building now, but it’s possible that we could get bumped when the session starts.
- David is contacting various legislators in who are also child/youth advocates, to see who might have an interest in meeting with us.
- The plan is to keep a schedule similar to last year’s, from about 10:00–3:00.
- Curtis stated that we might want to consider ending the day a little earlier, as traffic from Olympia can be heavy on Friday afternoons.
- The committee asked the rest of the group for feedback about what to do in the afternoon.
- Curtis stated that according to last year’s evaluations, people felt that we moved around too much in the afternoon. He asked if we should use one room the whole time, as a home base. The down side to this is that participants aren’t encouraged to walk around the campus and see everything.
- Jim stated that if we do only have one room, the group needs to plan activities or trips around the campus, to see the legislature in session, listen to committees, etc. A big part of Advocacy Day is experiencing government in action and seeing the Capitol.
- One problem with planning to stay in one room the whole time is that the group could get bumped out of that room by a more important meeting.
- David suggested having a scavenger hunt or similar activity to get participants to experience the Capitol building, Rotunda, cafeteria, etc.
- Jim stated that he wants the youth to have a chance to see committees in session. He suggested a sample schedule:
10:00–11:00 a.m. Meet in Cherberg room; eat; introduce advocacy agenda 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Listen to committee hearings and/or scavenger hunt; some groups may set meetings with their legislators 12:00–1:00 Lunch at the Cherberg room; addresses from legislators 1:00–2:00 Visit legislators; attend committee hearings 2:30–3:00 Debriefing as a group, and/or a high-powered speaker - Surveys indicated that participants preferred the committee rooms with microphones, because it was easier to hear there.
- Valerie will let us use a city van to get to help with transportation that day.
HB 2163 (Sarah)
- This bill will distribute $15–18 million dollars throughout the state to counties who are implementing the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness. The money will be distributed as grants.
- Sinan stated that King County will receive $5 million of that. We will need to advocate for the way those funds are spent. CTED (Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development) has the final say about how the funds are spent, but has been supportive of reducing homelessness in the past.
Walk-A-Mile Program (Sierra Rowe, Lutheran Community Services)
- Sierra explained what the Walk-A-Mile program is: an opportunity for foster youth who have aged out of the system to partner with a legislator from their district for one month, to learn from the experience of “walking a mile in another’s shoes.”
- The program runs from Nov. 7th – Dec. 7th. Legislators will have to live on minimum wage for a month. They will trade activities with their youth partner. Sierra passed out fliers about the program.
Committee to End Homeless (Jim)
- Jim, Valerie, and Sinan are on the Homeless Youth & Young Adult Committee, which is a subcommittee of King County’s larger Committee to End Homelessness (CEH). The federal government is requiring the county to develop a 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness.
- There is some trepidation among youth providers on this committee. They are concerned that there are no youth at the meetings.
- Sinan stated that youth can give their input by participating on the Consumer Advisory council, which currently has two open slots for youth.
- The CEH must decide on two deliverables/goals for the coming year. The two most-discussed deliverables are: 1) helping youth move from institutional settings into stability, and 2) providing mental health, chemical dependency, and other services in combination with housing, to help youth maintain housing.
- Valerie stated that by HUD definition, a chronically homeless person needs to have a mental health or chemical dependency diagnosis.
- Sinan stated that the government’s trend right now is to decrease emergency housing services, in favor of increasing transitional/permanent housing services. This trend could be premature, especially if mental health/chemical dependency services are not in place to help youth keep their permanent/transitional placements.
- So far the CEH meetings have been public, and anyone can attend.
- Jim stated that he, Valerie, Sinan, and Rick Eberhart (PFY) have met to update one another on their organizations’ various advocacy agendas. Jim stated that we need to keep in mind the agendas of other advocacy groups, and we are all invited to each other’s meetings. ASK-Y members were asked to be sure to inform other meetings and groups about our work especially the HB 2002 and Advocacy Training/Day events.
- Valerie stated that currently, there is not one list-serve for all the advocacy groups.
Free Advocacy Training from Children’s Alliance
- Jon Gould from Children’s Alliance will be giving a free advocacy training called “Training the Trainers” on Monday, November 28th, from 3:00–5:00 p.m. in the 2100 Building. This training will prepare us for Advocacy Day in February. Please RSVP to Lauren@mockingbirdsociety.org. All ASK-Y members, and youth and providers with an interest in advocacy, are welcome to attend. Jim encouraged all ASK-Y providers to bring youth to the training.
- This training will take the place of our monthly ASK-Y meeting.
Action Items
- Lauren will email last year’s evaluation forms to Jessie
- ASK-Y members should RSVP to Lauren@mockingbirdsociety.org for the Advocacy Training on Nov. 28th