Stark Franklin Retreat

 

Youth Insights Regarding CST Juvenile Court-Related Recommendations

The OHIO YAB has a longstanding commitment to Youth Voice in Court, as exemplified by the photos below from the 2010 Judicial Teleconference, in partnership with the Ohio Supreme Court. 

Here is a summary of Ohio foster care youth and alumni input regarding the juvenile court-related recommendations included in the Children Services Transformation report. 

Link to more photos. 

The OHIO YAB established a partnership in 2021 with Ohio Legal Help, a two-year old non-profit organization that was established by the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation, the Ohio Supreme Court, Ohio’s legal aids, and other stakeholders in Ohio’s legal system. 

Ohio Legal Help was planning to create a special section on their website to support the legal needs of current and former foster youth, and invited feedback from current and former foster youth. 

Their new legal information hub for foster youth is now live, and includes: 

• Foster Youth Bill of Rights
• Foster Youth Rights in Court 
• Aging Out of Foster Care
• Child Welfare Investigations
• Changing Your Legal Name
• Getting Copies of Vital Records
• Sealing and Expunging Juvenile Record

Below are the Top 14 Legal Needs that were initially suggested by Ohio foster youth:

1.) Assistance in Accessing Benefits: Such as Medicaid to age 26, Social Security and/or other benefits for which they might be eligible. And being unsure whether they are allowed to apply for food stamps if they are in Bridges or enrolled in college.

2.) Custodial Issues: Former fosters seeking to maintain custody or contact with their children.

3.) Filling Out Forms: Assistance with leases, filing taxes, understanding the FAFSA, applying for Educational Training Vouchers, etc.

4.) Housing Issues: Avoiding eviction, handling landlord-tenant disputes, and how to address unsafe housing conditions (bugs, mice, mold or lead).

5.) Identity Theft: Foster youth are at high risk for identity theft because they frequently change placements, giving an expanding group of adults access to their personal information. 

6.) Legal Citizenship: Ensuring that young people don’t emancipate from foster care and then discover that they are not legal citizens. Young people who are abused, neglected or abandoned by their parents must apply for Special Juvenile Immigrant Status before age 21. 

7.) Name Change: Seeking a legal name change in order for their last name to match that of a siblings, or in order to not reflect an adoptive family if that adoption ended in dissolution.

8.) Protection Orders: Seeking a restraining order and other protections, when trying to escape an abusive relationship during young adulthood.

9.) Records: Desire to access their case file, ICCA form, school records, medical records, adoption records and/or desire to expunge a juvenile record.

10.) Rights Violations: Wanting to ensure that a prior abuser is no longer able to harm others.

11.) Sibling Connections: Assistance in contacting one or more siblings from whom they were separated.

12.) Vital Records: Assistance for young adults who do not have a birth certificate, Social Security card, and/or photo ID.

13.) Wage Issues: Young people who do not receive payment for work they did, and are unsure of how to seek recourse.

14.) Youth Voice in Court: Desire to have a voice in their case plan, transition plan, placement decisions, and/or staff annual reviews, and to be notified about and allowed to attend hearings and communicate with their judge. 

Youth Recommendations regarding Cuyahoga County

The Cuyahoga County Council is the legislative body of Cuyahoga County government, made up of 11 elected representatives from across the County. 

They have recently received updates from Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services regarding their proposed solutions to ongoing issues at the Jane Edna Hunter building. Their proposed changes include: pay raises, issuing a “no eject or reject” RFP, assigning a sheriff’s deputy to the building full-time, and considering reinstating the Metzenbaum Center back into a residential drop-off site. 

OHIO YAB Ambassador Regine Turner has been at the forefront of this issue for years. She participated in the protest on July 7, 2020, as referenced in the article: Demonstrators call for end to housing kids in county office building. Regine and others carried signs that said: 

• Where did you sleep last night???
• A building is not a home

OHIO YAB Ambassador Regine Turner has suggested that those with “lived experience” create their own list of recommendations to share with the Cuyahoga County Council.

Virtual meetings were held this month to further work on a list of recommendations to share with the Cuyahoga County Council, prior to their next meeting: 

Committee of the Whole Meeting
Event date: 9/22/2022-10:00 AM
Address: C. Ellen Connally Council Chambers-2079 East 9th Street, 4th Floor

2022 Foster Youth Rights Video

 

OHIO YAB Youth Ambassador Jonathan Thomas recently shared about the Foster Youth Bill of Rights and why having the right to privacy and personal belongings is so important.