Former Foster Care Ward Advocates for Change in Federal Foster Care Laws

Second year SSA student and former ward Ashley Lepse  “delivered a freshly bound report to the senators and  representatives in the Congressional Caucus on  Foster Youth”in July 2012. after working as a foster youth intern with Illinois Representative Danny Davis.

“Gina Samuels, associate professor, also has helped Lepse channel her academic training and her life experiences into workable policy recommendations. “Lawmakers are becoming increasingly open to hearing from foster youth about how their policies are actually lived and experienced,” she said.

Samuels’ career of teaching direct practice in social interventions at SSA has meant that students seek her guidance for years after they graduate. She encouraged Lepse to start with the basic standard for acceptable foster care—a complete end to abuse and neglect—and then to think more broadly about how foster families could promote healing among traumatized children.

For example, Samuels knows foster children who grew up in homes where the refrigerator was locked to keep them from sneaking food, or where parents complained openly about how the state didn’t pay them enough to take care of their foster children. Such things don’t fit the definition of abuse, but also fail the test of providing loving and healing care.

“We can reduce the instances of abuse in the foster care system,” Lepse said. “We need to write and present the message clearly to legislators, and help them understand how to fix it.”

Lepse is hardly cowed by gridlock or inaction on Capitol Hill. She believes the child welfare system can be changed to help vulnerable kids feel loved and supported.

The title of the report to Congress, Hear Us Now, refers to her and her co-authors’ first-hand experiences in foster care. Each of the 13 foster youth interns who wrote the report, supported by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, hopes to speak for children without a voice in Congress.”

SSA student advocates for change in federal foster care laws, guided by first-hand knowledge

[University of Chicago News 9/10/12 by Dianna Douglas]

Now let’s hope that the CCAI actually DOES hear them and respond with the children’s interests in mind and not the adoption and foster care industry’s interests!

REFORM Puzzle Piece