1 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION
A Community Action Plan for Just In Time For Foster Youth’s Proposed LEAP/Ambassador Program: Report to Organization
Lisa Andaleon, Derek Floyd, Desiree Pavlik, Jesus Sanchez LEAD 507 Community Organizing and Change Professor Jessica Robinson University of San Diego August 15, 2013
2 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION What We Did Over the past several weeks our team created a plan to inquire if Just in Time for Foster Youth’s (JIT) proposed youth leadership program (e.g., LEAP/Ambassadors) was actually what the JIT clients wanted and needed. We started by creating a list of questions focusing on three areas: their experience with programs at JIT, as well as programs at other agencies and how they compared; their understanding of the LEAP/Ambassadors program and their definition of leadership in general; and their experience transitioning out of the foster care system and what they felt would have made that transition easier. (See Appendix for Intervention Questions) Understanding that successful programs incorporate some or all of the six human behavioral tendencies (e.g., liking, social validation, reciprocity, scarcity, authority, and commitment), our team intentionally incorporated these behavioral tendencies in creating our intervention. We asked JIT Associate Director, Meredith Praniewicz, to identify five JIT youth whom she thought would be interested in participating in initial interviews with our team. In doing this we were utilizing the human behavioral tendencies of authority, reciprocity, liking, and social validation, as Meredith is also a former foster youth herself. In planning our interviews, we initially thought we would meet the youth where they were located, as this population often experiences issues with transportation. However, to infuse the behavioral tendency of commitment into our intervention, we asked that the youth meet us at JIT’s offices. We also asked participants to recommend any of their peers whom they felt would be also interested in participating in our research, and if they would be willing to contact them. Most participants provided names and contact information of their friends, and several immediately took out their cell phones, texted them and had interviews set up within minutes. In doing this, we utilized the human behavioral tendencies of liking and social validation because
3 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION they trust their friends and could vouch for the validity of our intended purpose. Through social validation, we were able to conduct a total of twelve interviews. Presentation to JIT Executive Leadership and Staff We framed our objective as an opportunity for JIT to revisit its LEAP/Ambassadors program and made a presentation to JIT’s executive director and entire staff. We explained the purpose of our project, the difference between the social service model and consensus model approach to programming, the six behavioral tendencies, and then reported what we heard from the youth, and made recommendations for JIT to consider. During the presentation, our team was paying close attention to the staffs’ reactions in order to help us determine the next course of action. What we heard from interview participants with regard to the LEAP/Ambassador program included: •
JIT should start with a small, invested group of youth and develop a clear vision and understanding of expectations.
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JIT should start with one issue and build from there.
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JIT should be selective in who participates; the people in the group matter.
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JIT should let the youth design, review, and revise the program as they see fit, and allow them to recruit other youth to participate. What we heard from interview participants with regard to what would have helped them
in transitioning out of the foster care system included: •
The physical presence of a consistent person with knowledge of available resources.
•
More preparation emotionally, socially, and financially prior to emancipation.
4 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION •
Peer-to-peer mentoring with someone who has successfully transitioned out of the foster care system to self-sufficiency.
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JIT should designate a resource specialist on staff who has experience transitioning out of the foster care system to either personally help youth find resources or refer them to appropriate agencies/organizations.
Potential advocacy issues youth identified from these needs include: •
Wraparound teams that follow youth throughout their time care.
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A master file that follows youth from school to school.
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Applying the existing national Special Education model to the foster care system.
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Starting the Independent Living Skills program earlier.
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Establishing a database of youth who are about to emancipate and have someone connect with those youth at least a year before they transition out of the system.
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Changing policies so youth do not lose EBT/Food stamps if they receive financial aid. Other recommendations by youth included collaboration with other foster care agencies
such as Voices for Children, Promises 2 Kids, and the San Pasqual Academy. Organizational Response During our presentation, we observed that program staff were genuinely interested in what we had to say: they were taking notes, responding to our ideas, followed up with questions and had comments after our presentation concluded. Our findings validated what they hear from their interactions with youth each and every day. The executive director thanked us for our efforts, while expressing that we were not sharing anything new with him. He informed us that they had tried many of our recommendations before, and that they did not work. In addition he
5 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION explained that he was aware of the youths’ reported needs and the agency had worked on them in the past to no avail. He seemed the least responsive to our recommendations, and felt they would take too much of the organization’s time. Interestingly, he acknowledged the importance of taking the time to build relationships and trust with this population, yet he seemed unwilling to consider our recommendations that would actually help the organization strengthen those relationships. We explained that time must be taken to develop those relationships, listen to each other, and empower youth to lead the development of programs. What Now? For JIT to implement the proposed leadership program, the organization would need to consider implementing our recommendations stated above, which are based on feedback from the youth. More importantly, JIT should consider that it might be using lack of time as an excuse, rather than understanding that time is an essential component of the solution in dealing with this population. JIT would need to listen to the youth and work with them to implement their vision of what they want and need. JIT should take time to reflect and reexamine what it did before that was unsuccessful (i.e., peer mentoring), clearly understand what did not work and why, and continue to pursue alternative avenues until it finds solutions that meets the youths’ needs. Based on our direct feedback from JIT youth, to ensure this program’s success JIT should consider directly involving and empowering the youth in the program’s initial design, review, implementation and evaluation.
6 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION APPENDIX
7 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION Intervention Questions 1. What is your understanding of why you’re here/what we are trying to do?
2. Are you currently involved in any JIT programs, and if so, which ones? If not, which
programs have you participated in previously?
3. What are some things you’ve really liked about the JIT programs you’ve participated
in? And what were some of the challenges?
4. Are you involved in any programs from other agencies, and how do they compare
with JIT programs? Remember, honesty is key to helping us improve. 5. Were you involved in the LEAP or Ambassador programs, and if so, what was your
involvement? a. Do you remember what the purpose of the program(s) were?
b. Did that interest you, and if so, why? c. What do you feel were the program(s) strengths and weaknesses?
6. How do you want to be involved? What do you see your role as being? 7. Is having a leadership program something you want? a. What does leadership mean to you?
8. What do you hope to get out of this program?
9. What is your vision for this program? 10. What do you think are important components of a program? What is important to
you?
11. Why do you want to be involved? 12. What are some barriers or challenges you face in participating in a program that, if
they could be worked around, would make it easier for you to participate?
13. What are some of the struggles you faced when you transitioned from foster care? a. What do you think could have helped make the transition easier?
14. When transitioning, what did you need the most that was not provided?
8 REPORT TO ORGANIZATION 15. What type of JIT program do you think would serve transitioning foster youth the
most (something that does not currently exist). 16. If you could change anything in the current foster care system, what would that be? a. Would you be interested in learning how to actually change the system,
obviously not for yourself since you have transitioned, but for the kids still struggling in it now and in the future?
17. What questions are we not asking you, that we should be asking? 18. Do you have any peers that you believe we should talk to or would be a good asset
to a potential program?
a. Would you be willing to take a more leadership role right now, and help us
facilitate the remainder of our project over the next few weeks?
i. Would you be willing to call peers invite them to come speak with us? ii. Would you be interested in participating in their interviews with us,
changing the questions we ask if you feel that’s important, guiding the conversation, etc.?
iii.
Any other ways you see yourself contributing?