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  Reports
& Publications
The Future
for Teens in Foster Care:
The Impact of Foster Care on Teens and a New Philosophy for Preparing
Teens for Participating Citizenship
Caring For Our Children:
Improving the Foster Care System for Teen Mothers and Their Children
Rights and Advocacy
Guidelines
A Guidebook for Adolescents In and Aging Out of Foster Care
The Future for Teens in Foster Care
Over the past 12 years, we have talked to hundreds
of teenagers in foster care about their lives. We have found that
you can ask one set of questions and be overwhelmed and saddened by
the forces that surround youth: poverty, homelessness, drug addiction,
violence and incarceration. You can ask another set of questions and
be outraged by the injustices they have suffered in foster care and
the violations and humiliations they endure each day. Or you can ask
a different set of questions and be inspired by their hopes and dreams,
their varied interests, their commitments and passions and their desire
to participate fully in society.
In this report, as in our work at the Youth Advocacy
Center, we focus on the third set of questions. Teens in foster care must
have the opportunity to become participating citizens; we define participation
as pursuing one’s interests and contributing in the public sphere
through employment and civic engagement. Too frequently, the foster care
system does not provide this opportunity.
There are enormous gaps among child welfare policy, its practice and
teens’ actual experiences. This report is informed by our own
experiences as lawyers and program developers working in the foster
care system. More importantly, it is informed by the perspective of
youth in foster care and those who have left the foster care system.
For a .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) file containing the full
report, click here.
To order a hard copy of our report for $12, please email
yac@youthadvocacycenter.org
or call us at 212-675-6181
Caring For Our Children
Published in 1995, this report by Betsy Krebs,
Esq., and Nedda de Castro, CSW, documents the shortcomings in the
foster care system to effectively deal with teenage mothers.
Each year, hundreds of teenage girls living in foster
care have babies and must cope with the child welfare bureaucracy that
often seems to be set against their efforts to build a strong family.
These teens and their babies face obstacles which other parents and children
do not. Many of these problems were widely recognized by youth and child
welfare professionals for years, but had never been documented.
In 1994, Youth Advocacy Center began research to identify and document
the issues surrounding the placement of pregnant and parenting teenagers
in the New York City foster care system. The focus of Caring for Our
Children is the perspective of the teens who go through the system.
YAC surveyed over 60 pregnant and parenting teens in foster care,
held group meetings and interviews with these teens and conducted
interviews with social workers and city officials working in the system.
In the summer of 1995, YAC convened a task force of teen mothers in
foster care to prioritize the problems we identified and develop recommendations
for change.
For a .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) file containing the full
report, click here.
Rights and Advocacy
Guidelines
Have questions about your rights in foster
care? Youth Advocacy Center developed Rights and Advocacy Guidelines
(© 1996) to address common questions about New York City teens’
rights in foster care and as they age out of the system-everything
from adoption to clothing allowances to college assistance to immigration
questions. Written by Betsy Krebs and Evette Soto-Maldonado, Esq.,
YAC originally published the Guidelines in 1996, and the Legal Aid
Society’s Juvenile Rights Division updated them in 2002. The
Guidelines are based on New York State and City laws and regulations
of New York City's Administration for Children's Services. It also
has useful information about social services and legal service organizations
that help teens.
For a .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) file containing the full report, click
here.
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