Lorain County YAB: Leadership Lorain County

Lorain County foster care youth/young adults and supportive staff have a powerful history of statewide leadership including serving in the following positions for the Ohio Youth Advisory Board:

• 2009 Ohio YAB Treasurer Laura Johnson
• 2009 Ohio YAB Parliamentarian James Burge
• 2009 Secretary Katrina Gallimore
• 2010 Ohio YAB Vice President Cieria Rodriguez-Toney
• 2010 Ohio YAB Treasurer, James Burge
• 2010 Ohio YAB Treasurer Krystal Robinson
• 2011 Ohio YAB President Cieria Rodriguez-Toney

Foster care youth and young adults in Lorain County continue to live out that legacy of leadership on a local level...

In 2011, Lorain County Leadership was involved in the following local activities:

• Organizing a donation of holiday ornaments/purchased ornaments/made ornaments
• Volunteering their time at a local nursing home at the holidays to hand out the ornaments
• Participating in the Lorain County Children Services Holiday party for children in foster care. They handed out presents and helped organize children to see Santa at the party.
• Developing a Holiday party for all of the Independent Living youth to participate in.

The Board developed their own FaceBook page, and organized for presenters to come to the agency and teach Leadership skills to all of Lorain County foster care youth (LaTasha Watts and Cedric Brown).

On a statewide/regional level,  Lorain County foster care youth and young adults participated in the 2011 Career and Entrepreneurship Event for Foster Care Youth and Alumni. They also attended the NE Ohio FCAA Thanksgiving Dinner and encouraged many other youth to participate in this activity.

 Upcoming activities of Lorain County Leadership include the following:

• Participating in the “Wear Blue to Work” campaign to draw awareness to National Child Abuse Prevention Month
• Participating in the development, creation and implementation of a flash mob during the upcoming local family fun day at the mall. This flash mob will include caseworkers, foster care youth and young adults, friends, family, and other supporters/advocates for foster youth. They will be doing a dance. All of the members will have blue shirts to draw attention to Stop Child Abuse.

Current initiatives also include:

• Participating and assisting in the upcoming Purple Project conference. Youth have been asked for input on some of the ideas for the conference and will be volunteering to work the registration tables.

• Researching colleges/vocational programs and setting up college visits for all of the youth to participate in.

• Participating in discussion about recruiting foster parents for teens. Have identified the necessary characteristics of these individuals. Currently brainstorming regarding what to develop and implement to be successful on recruiting foster parents for teens.

• Researching famous people that have been in foster care to help other youth see that they are not alone. Plan on having a formal time to share this information with the bigger group of IL youth.

• Discussion of sending some of the Youth Leadership members to the NILA conference.