Anchorage – This past Saturday was National Adoption Day, held annually on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Currently, Alaska has the second highest number of youth per capita in the nation waiting for an adoptive home. There are over 700 youth in Alaska’s foster care system that are ready and waiting for adoptive parents.
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I consider it good news when there are ways to help people. Many years ago, when I started working to improve our foster care system, I listened to youth, and learned I had it all wrong. Or partially wrong. One thing they made clear was that foster care isn’t all about, well, just improving the foster care system. It’s about what happens when a youth leaves the system, has no reliable parent, and has no reliable adult to turn to for advice. In prior years statistics have shown high post-foster care homelessness (approx. 35%) and incarceration rates (approx. 20%) and we all want to do better.
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Juneau – Today, the Alaska Legislature passed House Bill 27 to make significant reforms to help improve the lives of foster youth in Alaska. The bill, sponsored by Representative Les Gara (D-Anchorage), includes provisions to get youth into stable, permanent, loving homes and out of foster care, where youth often bounce between a dozen or more homes.
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ANCHORAGE — For the past month, Representative Les Gara (D-Anchorage) has been on what he quips is a “World Tour in His Own Car”, pitching to large and small groups how they can help with Alaska’s exploding numbers of neglected and abused foster children. Just five years ago, Alaska had fewer than 1,800 foster youth. Today, that number has exploded to over 2,800. Rep. Gara is working to help these children to succeed and not face continued excuses and neglect.
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I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!
I’d like you to know about our Holiday “Laptops for Foster Youth Drive”, which has become even more important with the alarming increase in the number of foster youth in Alaska, from less than 1,800 five years ago to over 2,800 today. The following press release lets you know about many ways you can help, from donating a laptop, to becoming: a foster youth mentor through a program we started at Big Brothers Big Sisters; a foster parent; or an adoptive parent for a foster youth.