Washington Courts: Press Release Detail

Foster youth and alumni will learn to use their voices and experiences at Leadership Summit

Decisions are made at many legislative and administrative levels about the fate of children in foster care, and most of those decisions are missing a key element — input from the children themselves.

In hopes of changing that, Washington’s second annual Foster Youth and Alumni Leadership Summit will convene on Oct. 20 and 21 at Cedarbrook Leadership Center in SeaTac. Members of the media are welcome to attend a summit session at 1 p.m. on Oct. 21 to learn about plans for bringing foster youth voices to leadership tables around the state. Foster youth and alumni are the driving forces behind the summit and will be available to speak to reporters.

More than 9,000 Washington children live in foster care, with an average stay of slightly less than two years in care.

“The insights and capabilities of these young people are amazing, and need to be part of the community and legislative dialog about what happens to our children and youth in foster care,” said state Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge, co-chair of the Washington Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care. “They need to be heard, and this annual summit will help them build a platform from which they can speak.”

The Foster Youth and Alumni Leadership Summit is sponsored by the Washington Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care and Casey Family Programs. The summit grew out of a recommendation from the national Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care that “children and their families must have an informed voice in decisions that are made about their lives.”

The summit seeks to promote and strengthen the involvement and empowerment of foster youth in their own cases and in planning for their futures. The goals include creating connections between youth interested in becoming advocates, providing training in leadership and effective advocacy, identifying pressing issues in foster care and how to share those with state lawmakers, and establishing regional foster youth and alumni action groups throughout Washington.

During Washington’s first Foster Youth and Alumni Leadership Summit in 2006, 28 young people in foster care and 18 foster alumni gathered in SeaTac to begin building a base for foster youth advocacy. A report from that first summit is available at  http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/AlumniLeadershipSummit.htm at the Casey Family Programs Web site.

The Washington Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care was launched in 2005 to improve the ways in which courts and child welfare agencies work together for the well-being and safety of children in foster care. It is co-chaired by Washington Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge and Cheryl Stephani, head of the Children’s Administration in the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), and includes legislators, judges, educators, child welfare advocates and foster parents. Casey Family Programs was established in 1966 by UPS founder Jim Casey to improve the lives of children in foster care.

CONTACT:  Washington State Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge, (360) 357-2049;  Casey Family Programs Summit Program Coordinator Lissa Osborne, (206) 354-4259.

Wendy K. Ferrell Judicial Communications Manager 360.705.5331 e-mail Wendy.Ferrell@courts.wa.gov

Lorrie Thompson Communications Officer 360.705.5347 Lorrie.Thompson@courts.wa.gov