December 22, 2016 Voice Your Opinions! Letters to the editor make a difference. You can send a letter of up to 200 words (shorter letters are more likely to be accepted) to the Alaska Dispatch News by email (letters@alaskadispatch.com); or by fax or mail (call them at 257-4308). Send letters to the Anchorage Press via e-mail editor@anchoragepress.com or by mail to 540 E. Fifth Ave, Anchorage, 99501. Feel free to call us if you need factual information to help you write a letter. Contact the Governor. The Governor can be reached at 269-7450; or www.alaska.gov. Contact us. My office can be reached at: 1500 W Benson Blvd, Rm 216, Anchorage, AK 99503; by phone: 269-0106; visit my website at http://replesgara.com; or email: Rep.Les.Gara@akleg.gov Want to Volunteer To Help A Child? You can be a Volunteer Mentor to help a child, through a program we worked with foster care advocates to start, at Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Just call433-4691. Have the time to do more? Alaska has a major shortage of foster and adoptive parents, and you can help change a life by doing that. To ask about foster parenting or adopting a child out of foster care call 1-800-478-7307. And, of course, we are always asking people to donate tax deductible new or used (good condition only) laptops for current and recent foster youth. You can contact us if you'd like to do that.

Dear Neighbors:

I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and a very happy holiday season!

I'd also like to share an effective way to act locally to make a big difference in people's lives.

If you are looking for a way to give and help make the community better, Facing Foster Care in Alaska (FFCA) is one of Alaska's most effective non-profits for for neglected and abused children. They are my favorite Alaskan non-profit, and I will donate to them again soon this holiday season.

With FFCA founder Amanda Metevier-Hernandez and
FFCA member and UAA student Rachel Bedsworth

We have too many foster youth in Alaska, and, bluntly, not enough support for them. That's just not a way to treat children - whom the state is the legal guardian. FFCA is a foster and former-foster youth-led group that works to teach success skills to foster youth, organize quarterly statewide peer retreats so youth with similar hurdles can meet and learn from each other, and help get youth through school and college and into careers. FFCA works with our office to get laptops to youth, helps train social workers (from a foster youth's perspective) and does way more.

Simply put, they make lives better every day. They do work the state has sometimes dropped the ball on with a vastly underfunded and overstressed foster care system, where caseworkers have caseloads of 50%+ more work than they can handle, and bounce between crises.

Introducing FFCA members to the legislature this year

As the legal guardian of youth in foster care, Alaska does not do great. Unmanageable large caseloads take caseworkers away from their important work of moving children to success. Most caseworkers who leave (caseworkers last, on average, less than two years, and frequently leave after less than one year) say their caseloads are too overwhelming, and don't let them do the work they need to do for children and parents.

Until Alaska decides it will provide a system that gets youth out of foster care, and into permanent loving homes more quickly, and is more responsive to youth and foster parents (something I will continue to push), we have a bigger role to play.

You can help Facing Foster Care in Alaska help our youth succeed by going to www.ffcalaska.org.

I hope you'll join me in helping. Most of us enjoy some success and stability. All children deserve that, and you can help us achieve that very basic goal.

With Warm Holiday Wishes,