Cultivating Change - Foster Youth Development Project

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

San Gabriel Valley Other

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

With the challenges faced by our community, this compounds the disparities and marginalization experienced by youth in foster care. Foster youth experience their own personal traumatization that led to them in foster care combined with the community trauma that has a widespread and lasting impact on the community's sense of safety, well-being, and social cohesion. Most violence in Pomona and surrounding communities is of an interpersonal nature including interpersonal violence, disaster, or other events that threaten the individual sense of security. This project will provide a holistic wellness approach to the overall well-being of foster youth and independent living skills to assist with their transition out of foster care. This project will be led by Alexandra Sturgess who is currently a LCSW, who herself has been a foster mother. Alex has a long history of partnership with DCFS and leads our Chosen ministry that is focused on supporting foster youth and families.

Our project will run for ten weeks, 3 times per year, hosting weekly meetings for 1.5 hours, at Purpose Church. We will be providing foster youth with a warm meal, icebreakers, and social activity amongst peers. During the meetings we will discuss one topic from the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, where lead staff will encourage engagement from the youth. The large group discussion will break out to small groups for application of information. Small groups provide an opportunity of safety for the foster youth to develop intimacy amongst peers. The meetings end with each youth making a commitment for the week of something they learned that they would put in practice until the next meeting. In these meetings our youth will find a sense of community, belonging, and connection. The project will include all eight dimensions of wellness: Physical Wellness; Emotional Wellness; Intellectual Wellness; Spiritual Wellness; Social Wellness; Environmental Wellness; Occupational Wellness; and Financial Wellness. Our goal is to build rapport with foster youth and develop trust over time through consistency. Our first-year goal is to establish this project as a safe space for foster youth to grow in their identity. We want youth in foster care to be seen, heard, and experience healthy community. We wish to make a positive impact as lives are touched and supported during the formative years of foster youth.

Foster youth in the community are at a high risk of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These issues can be caused by abuse, neglect, and other adverse childhood experiences. Adverse childhood experiences impact foster youths' attachment and connection with others. There are added challenges in experiencing multiple placements and instability in permanency. The long-term effects are exacerbated mental health problems that lead to poor functioning throughout life, including unemployment, incarceration, substance dependence, and early childbearing. We believe that if the project is successful, it will help reduce the number of foster youths in Los Angeles County who find themselves impacted by substance dependance, homelessness, unemployment, incarceration and mental health issues.