Youth Voice About Kinship Care and Maintaining Connections

On Friday, June 21, 2024, OHIO YAB Youth Ambasador Liz Blanchard shared their insights with DCY staff about Kinship Care. Representatives from the Department of Children and Youth included Laurie Valentine, Angie Hughes, Veronica Burroughs, Kip Crist and Joan Vanhull.

The Ohio Department of Children and Youth is preparing their 2025-2029 Child and Family Services Plan. Their #2 goal is to: Ensure every child and teen is placed in a family-like setting and maintains connections they identify as important in their life.

Some of their action steps to accomplish this goal are:

• To increase the use of kinship care.
• To explore processes for licensing relatives as foster family homes.
• To increase and improve trainings focused on kinship care.
• To explore Kinnect to family respite services.
• To improve access to services through a public facing resource hub designed to meet the needs of kinship caregivers, adoptive parents and young people involved in child welfare.

During the call, Liz shared insights and recommendations about:

• How the system should listen to youth about where they do and don't feel safe, when it comes to biological family members.
• The need for direct support for young people in and from foster care, and to include their voices more in training. 
• How, because of the method of kinship care placement, her extended family was told that they didn't qualify for many programs. They experienced multiple barriers, conflicting information about qualifications and were unable to access resources including Medicaid. 

Liz, who is 21 years old, shared that, "Young people in and from foster care have access to a lot more resources than young people in kinship care placements. I didn't have support in the way that I needed. I didn't have anyone guiding me."

Liz asked: "Could there be a similar program to Bridges for young adults who age out of kinship care?  You are on your own, and it feels like being abandoned by a system that doesn't care. We don't qualify for resources in a way we would if we aged out of foster care."

Liz shared also shared heartfelt support and appreciation for the Columbus State Scholar Network. She has recently earned her Associates degree, and will attend Otterbein this fall to pursue a career in journalism. 

When it comes to maintaining connections, during the recent Youth Voice project, participating youth and young adults shared valuable insights regarding: