fostered: santa cruz county
DESCRIPTION
FosterEd: Santa Cruz County Judge Denine Guy, Superior Court of Ca., Santa Cruz County, Juvenile Division Mark Holguin, Family and Children’s Services Michael Paynter, County Office of Education – Foster Youth Services Rachel Velcoff Hults, National Center for Youth Law - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
FosterEd: Santa Cruz County
Judge Denine Guy, Superior Court of Ca., Santa Cruz County, Juvenile DivisionMark Holguin, Family and Children’s Services
Michael Paynter, County Office of Education – Foster Youth ServicesRachel Velcoff Hults, National Center for Youth Law
Jennifer Laird, MPR Associates, Inc.1
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Grantee:
National Center for Youth Law, FosterEd Initiative
NCYL is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California
that works to ensure that low-income children have the
resources, support, and opportunities they need for healthy
and productive lives. NCYL’s FosterEd Initiative seeks to
improve the educational outcomes of children and youth in
foster care.
FosterEd operates in California, Indiana, and Arizona.
The Santa Cruz County project is a pilot for the state of
California.
Grantee Program
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Project Description: Goals and Objectives
Improve the educational outcomes of Santa Cruz County
foster children/youth by ensuring each has an educational
champion with the beliefs, capacities, and behaviors
proven to support educational success, and is developing
educational resiliency.
Ensure that project outcomes and processes are
measurable and regularly measured, with data used to
drive improvement and evaluate success.
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Project Description:Key Collaborative Partners
County Office of Education – Foster Youth Services
Superior Court of California, County of Santa Cruz, Juvenile Division
Human Services Department – Family and Children’s Services
Community organizations and providers, such as CASA
State-level oversight provided by California’s Improving
Educational Outcomes of Children in Care workgroup
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Project Description: Target Population
School-age children/youth who are the subject of an open Santa
Cruz County dependency case and reside in Santa Cruz County,
and their educational champions.
There are approximately 245 such children/youth in Santa Cruz
County at any given time.
To date, the project is serving approximately 60 children.
Implementation is being phased in, with children entering the
project at select points in the dependency process.
Educational resiliency work will be focused on youth ages 11 to
17.
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Project Description: Proposed Services, Activities, Processes, Outputs
Identification of one or more educational champions to
support the child’s school success.
Identification of the educational champion’s and child’s
education-related strengths and needs.
Development of educational intervention plans.
Implementation, ongoing monitoring, and updating of
educational intervention plans.
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Project Description: Logic Model
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Project Description:Key Expected Outcomes
One or more educational champions are identified for each child
in foster care in Santa Cruz County.
Educational champions develop the beliefs and expectations
needed to support the child’s school success.
Educational champions develop the skills and capacities needed
to support the child’s school success.
Child’s educational needs are increasingly identified and
addressed.
Over time, educational outcomes improve (i.e. attendance rates
and grades).
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Evaluation Approach
External Evaluators: MPR Associates Key Research Questions: 1. Who participates in FosterEd?
For the target population of foster children/youth, what portion of them
has an educational champion who participates in FosterEd?
Who are the participating educational champions, and what are their
relationships to the child/youth (e.g., biological parent, foster parent,
relative caregiver)?
2. What activities are associated with the implementation of FosterEd?
What services are provided to educational champions through
FosterEd, and by whom?
What factors enhance or detract from the implementation of FosterEd?
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Evaluation Approach(continued)
Key Research Questions
3. Do educational champions who participate in FosterEd demonstrate
growth over time in beliefs, behaviors, and capacities associated with
educational success?
If so, what is the nature of that growth?
Did participants perceive activities related to FosterEd to be beneficial?
4. Do foster children/youth with educational champions in FosterEd
demonstrate improvement in educational performance?
For children/youth with educational champions served by FosterEd, is
there demonstrated improvement in rates of school attendance,
California Standards Test (CST) performance, and school behavior? How
do these rates compare to district, county, or state-level student
performance?
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Research Design: Mixed-method approach (quantitative and qualitative)
Leveraging merged child welfare and education data
Quasi experimental Evaluating a number of comparisons strategies
Assessment of short- and long-term outcomes Example of short-term outcome: increased skills of educational
champion to support child’s or youth’s education
Example of long-term outcome: increased school attendance and
grades
Evaluation Approach(continued)
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Opportunity to provide meaningful, individualized support
to foster children and youth and their educational
champions.
Opportunity to raise education as a critical part of the
dependency court case plan and service provider focus.
Opportunity to develop tools, strategies, and best
practices that can be used in Santa Cruz County as well as
other counties throughout the state.
Expected Opportunities
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Effective engagement of birth parents who are facing a diverse
range of challenges personally and within the court process.
Develop individualized intervention plans with incremental
goals.
Present involvement in education as a positive way to support
and provide stability for the child.
Identify and engage caregivers and others as “co-champions.”
Gathering and reviewing data for large numbers of children and
educational champions.
Focus on inter-agency collaboration and systemic and
technological communication.
Develop standardized tools to screen for and track strengths,
needs, and goals.
Expected Challenges & How to Address Them
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Sustainability Plan
Implementation is being carried out by Santa Cruz
County agencies, largely through use of existing
resources.
Grant-supported staff will model educational coaching,
case management, and project management strategies
for social workers, FYS staff, and existing service
providers (train-the-trainer approach).
Investment in development of assessment/screening
tools, technological infrastructure, and practices for
ongoing use beyond the grant period.
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Dissemination Plan
Distribution of curriculum and related materials online
(see www.foster-ed.org/resources), through state-level
leadership team, and through trainings (such as state-
wide FKCE program training)
Development and distribution of toolkits for project
implementation in other counties, with support from the
Child & Policy Institute of California and state-level
leadership team.
Dissemination of final evaluation report.
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Questions for Fellow CWED Grantees
What strategies do you recommend for effectively engaging and
collaborating with school district and school site staff?
What lessons are you learning, and what advice can you share,
regarding improving data-sharing in your jurisdiction?
Do you have advice for how best to support agency and project
staff as the scope of implementation grows?
° ° °
Thank you for your time and input!
For more information about FosterEd: Santa Cruz County, please visit
http://www.foster-ed.org/ or contact Rachel at [email protected].