A Foster Care System Where Every Child Has a Loving Home | Sixto Cancel | TED
TLDRThe speaker shares their challenging journey through the foster care system, highlighting the need for reform. They recount their experience of abuse and the innovative steps they took to return to foster care, leading to the founding of Think of Us. The organization focuses on redesigning the system by engaging with those impacted and advocating for kinship care, which has been shown to significantly improve outcomes for foster children. The talk concludes with a call to action for allies to help transform the system and ensure children are raised in loving family environments.
Takeaways
- 👶 The speaker entered the foster care system as an 11-month-old baby and was later adopted at age nine, but the home life was not loving or supportive.
- 🏠 The speaker faced racial discrimination and neglect in their adoptive home, leading to a decision to re-enter the foster care system at age 15.
- 📹 The speaker used a recorder to gather evidence of their mistreatment, highlighting the importance of documentation in cases of abuse or neglect.
- 👫 The foster care system is challenging, with children often placed in unfamiliar environments and expected to adapt quickly to new families and rules.
- 🌪 The speaker experienced multiple 'storms' of instability, indicating the ongoing struggles faced by those in the foster care system.
- 🤔 The speaker founded Think of Us, an organization aimed at redesigning the foster care system by engaging with those directly impacted and using their experiences to inform change.
- 🔍 Think of Us conducts research and uses data to identify the most broken aspects of the foster care system, working with leaders and those with lived experience to co-design solutions.
- 🏡 The organization discovered that many children in group homes had extended family members who could have cared for them, pointing to a systemic issue of misplaced children.
- 📈 The power of lived experience is crucial for transformation, as it provides insights that can inform legal actions and systemic changes.
- 👨👧👦 Kinship care, where children live with extended family or known adults, is shown to have better outcomes for children's mental health, stability, and education.
- 📊 Only 35% of young people in the foster care system are placed with kin, despite the benefits, indicating a significant area for improvement.
- 🌟 Simple solutions, such as asking young people about preferred family placements and requiring extra approvals for non-kin placements, can significantly increase kinship care.
- 🤝 The speaker's personal experience of discovering unknown family members underscores the potential for kinship care to provide a more stable and loving environment for foster children.
- 💰 The foster care system's budget is substantial, suggesting that there are resources available to improve kinship care and support families.
- 🔑 The speaker calls for allies and advocates to help make kinship care the norm, emphasizing that everyone can contribute to this cause regardless of expertise.
- 🌱 The potential for systems change, such as federal decisions that facilitate kinship care, could significantly shift resources and improve outcomes for children in foster care.
Q & A
What was the speaker's experience like when they were first placed in foster care?
-The speaker was an 11-month-old baby when they were placed in foster care, and they were adopted by a family when they were about nine years old. However, the home was not loving, and they faced racial slurs and neglect.
How did the speaker document the abuse they experienced in their adoptive home?
-The speaker used a recorder and tape to secretly record the evidence of the abuse they were experiencing, inspired by the TV show 'Law and Order' and the character Olivia Benson.
What challenges did the speaker face when they were placed back into the foster care system at the age of 15?
-The speaker faced the challenge of being placed with strangers and expected to adjust quickly to new homes, schools, and rules. They also had to deal with the uncertainty of their future within the system.
What is the general issue with the foster care system according to the speaker?
-The speaker believes that the foster care system is not effectively raising children, with unsupported foster youth being more likely to experience negative outcomes such as homelessness, incarceration, and being sexually trafficked.
How does the mental health of foster youth compare to war veterans, as mentioned by the speaker?
-Foster youth are two times more likely than war veterans to experience and suffer from PTSD, indicating the severe mental toll of being in the foster care system.
What is Think of Us, and why did the speaker start it?
-Think of Us is an organization started by the speaker to address the flawed design of the foster care system. It aims to engage those impacted by the system, collect their experiences, and use that data to inform solutions and redesign the system.
What was the key insight from the research conducted by Think of Us regarding teenage foster youth?
-The research revealed that many teenage foster youth were being misplaced in group homes when they actually had extended family members they could have lived with, which was causing them further trauma.
How did the speaker's organization contribute to legal actions against for-profit group homes?
-The organization collected and amplified the voices of the foster youth, which helped inform litigation by the United States Department of Justice, an investigation by the United States Senate, and an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court.
What is kinship care, and why does the speaker believe it can transform the foster care experience?
-Kinship care is when a child lives with an extended family member or a known adult who loves them. Research shows that children placed with kin fare better in terms of mental health, stability, and educational outcomes, which is why the speaker believes it can transform the foster care experience.
What percentage of young people in the foster care system are currently placed with kin, and what is the speaker's goal?
-Only 35 percent of young people in the foster care system are currently placed with kin. The speaker's goal is to make kinship care the norm, ensuring that more children are raised in a loving family environment.
How did the speaker's personal experience with their family reunion highlight the potential of kinship care?
-The speaker discovered that they had relatives who had been fostering for longer than they had been alive, and they were only 58 miles away. This personal revelation underscored the missed opportunity for the speaker to be raised in a loving family environment through kinship care.
What is the current systems change opportunity mentioned by the speaker, and what impact could it have?
-The speaker refers to a federal decision that could facilitate relatives stepping up to provide kinship care and receive support. If approved, it could result in a shift of three billion dollars from traditional foster care to kinship care, making it a more prevalent option.
What is the speaker's call to action for the audience?
-The speaker asks the audience to become allies and advocates for kinship care, emphasizing that they don't need to be foster care experts to understand the importance of family and the potential of kinship care to transform children's lives.
Outlines
🏠 Foster Care Experience and the Birth of Think of Us
The speaker shares their personal journey through the foster care system, beginning as an 11-month-old and facing racial discrimination and neglect in their adoptive home. At 15, they took initiative to record evidence of their mistreatment, which led to their re-entry into foster care. The speaker emphasizes the instability and uncertainty of foster care, highlighting the higher likelihood of negative outcomes for unsupported youth, including homelessness and PTSD. This personal struggle inspired the creation of Think of Us, an organization aimed at redesigning the foster care system by engaging with those directly impacted and co-designing solutions with sector leaders.
👨👧👦 The Power of Kinship Care in Foster System Reform
The speaker discusses the significant benefits of kinship care, where children in foster care are placed with extended family or known adults, leading to improved mental health and educational outcomes. Despite these benefits, only 35% of foster youth are placed with kin. The speaker shares successful initiatives that increased kinship placements dramatically in certain areas, emphasizing the need for systemic change that prioritizes family. They recount a poignant personal experience of discovering a large, supportive family unaware of their existence, illustrating the missed opportunities for kinship care. The speaker calls for a federal decision to facilitate kinship care and an investment of $3 billion to support it, inviting the audience to become advocates for this cause.
🌟 Transforming Foster Care Through Family-Centered Solutions
The speaker envisions a future where foster care prioritizes placing children with extended family or familiar adults, creating a sense of belonging and love. They believe that with collective effort, this can become the norm, transforming the reality for millions of children. The speaker concludes with a call to action, urging the audience to consider the potential of kinship care, to center the experiences of those who have been in the system, and to join as allies in advocating for a family-centered foster care system.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Foster care system
💡Adoption
💡PTSD
💡Think of Us
💡Lived experience
💡Kinship care
💡Misplacement
💡Institutional abuse
💡Support
💡Federal decision
💡Advocacy
Highlights
The speaker was placed in foster care at 11 months old and later adopted at the age of nine into an unsupportive home.
The speaker experienced racial slurs and neglect, leading to a decision to take matters into their own hands at the age of 15.
Inspired by 'Law and Order,' the speaker used a recorder to gather evidence of their mistreatment to re-enter the foster care system.
Foster care is challenging due to the uncertainty and the need to adjust to new environments and families.
The foster care system has a poor track record of raising children, with high rates of negative outcomes such as homelessness and incarceration.
Foster youth are more likely to suffer from PTSD compared to war veterans, highlighting the mental health toll of the system.
The speaker founded Think of Us to address the flaws in the foster care system by engaging with those directly impacted.
Think of Us uses data and insights from the collective experiences of thousands to identify and redesign broken system components.
Research by Think of Us revealed that most children in group homes had extended family members who could have cared for them.
The organization's work contributed to litigation, investigations, and an amicus brief that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The power of lived experience is crucial for transformation and was leveraged to inform systemic changes.
Think of Us discovered that kinship care, where children live with known adults, significantly improves outcomes.
Only 35 percent of young people in foster care are placed with kin, despite the benefits of kinship care.
In one state, simple solutions increased kinship care placements from 3 percent to over 40 percent in two years.
Another state managed to place over 80 percent of children in foster care with kin, debunking the myth of lack of available adults.
The speaker's personal experience of discovering unknown family at a reunion underscored the missed opportunities for kinship care.
The current foster care system spends over 30 billion dollars annually, which could be reallocated to support kinship care.
A federal decision could facilitate kinship care by shifting three billion dollars from traditional foster care, making it the norm.
The speaker calls for allies to advocate for kinship care and to center the experiences of those impacted in the design and implementation of the system.
The potential exists to transform the foster care system to prioritize kinship care and ensure children are raised in loving environments.
Transcripts
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