| WHAT: |
Assembly Select Committee on Foster Care hearings being convened by Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblymember Jim Beall, Jr. (D-San Jose), Chair, on Thursday, July 31st from 1:30 p.m. – 4 p.m. in Sacramento at the state Capitol Room 4202 and on August 8th in Los Angeles at the California Science Center in the Muses Room (700 Exposition Park Drive) from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The hearing will highlight best practices that improve outcomes for foster youth and families throughout the state. Attendees will hear testimonies from foster youth; community organizations, social workers and advocates on challenges and solutions to strengthening California’s Foster Care System. |
| WHY: |
California’s foster care system needs reform. There are 74,000 children who live away from their families and communities because of abuse or neglect at home. Fifty percent of the children who enter foster care are younger than age 5. Many of these children will experience further trauma moving from foster home to foster home and from school to school. Eighty-three percent of foster youth will be held back by the 3rd grade. While nearly 50 percent will reunify with their families, too many will return to foster care because of the lack of an available, long-term stable funding stream to provide supportive services. California is failing the federal performance measure related to repeat visits to foster care.
Far too many children are trapped in the system and remain in foster care until they “age out” at 18. With no place to go, one in four of the youths who age out is incarcerated within two years of leaving foster care, one in five becomes homeless at some time after age 18, only 46% complete high school, a mere 3 % earn a college degree, and just 51% of aged out foster care youths have a job at age 21. |