8/10 – Camp Connect for Separated Foster Siblings

In August, we’ll return to Camp Connect. The last time we took pictures for them, we were touched by this special camp which reunites separated foster siblings. We’re always on the lookout for innovative ways to help capture memories for this population! Got any ideas?

From Camp Connect Literature

Camp Connect San Diego is a partnership of Promises2Kids County of San Diego, and United Way of San Diego County. It provides an opportunity to strengthen family ties and create memories for brothers and sisters in foster care who live apart. Research shows that siblings in foster care who remain connected have better outcomes in school and in their placement. This same research also indicates an increased sense of belonging, identity, confidence, problems solving, self esteem, greater connections to their family of origin, and a decreased sense of loss and trauma.

Even though sibling separation is not routinely tracked by foster care agencies, San Diego County began tracking sibling placements in 2008 and is dedicated to improving relationships for fostering siblings through placements and case workers. Programs such as Camp Connect San Diego and the recruitment of mentors who serve sibling groups help in this effort. Approximately 70% of children placed in foster care have a sibling brother or sister and many are separated during placement. Promises2Kids si working with the County and United Way to develop and measure outcomes related to bringing foster siblings together.

Here’s a 2008 United Way article on Camp Connect: Camp Connect Brings Separated Siblings Together

6/10 – HS Graduation Ceremony for Foster Youth in ILS Program

In June, Fostering Memories will have the opportunity to photograph foster youth graduating high school at the Independent Living Skills (ILS) ceremony.

America’s Promise Alliance quotes a Chapin Hall study which found that just 58% of foster youth will graduate high school by age 19 (compared to 87%  of all youth nationally). Given their often transitory and possibly traumatic upbringing, education is just one of many hardships that these youth face so it is a BIG DEAL for them to graduate. We’re happy to be a part of this happy occasion!

5/8/10 – Foster Youth Empowerment Symposium

On May 8, 2010, Fostering Memories was asked to participate in a special Youth Empowerment Symposium through the San Diego County Office of of Education (with support by the Commission on Children, Youth and Families & Casey Family Programs). The event was intended for current and former Foster Youth and was held at the University of San Diego.

Youth attending had the opportunity to participate in a frank and open conversation with inspirational keynote speaker Jaiya John and received a memorable keepsake photograph by Fostering Memories, along with an autographed copy of Jaiya’s book.

Laurie was impressed with Jaiya’s insight, experience and eloquence. The following is an excerpt from his book Beautiful which captures her inspiration for her work with Fostering Memories.

I know the truth
to be charitable is to honor the beauty of another soul
thereby opening yourself up to that beauty
receiving its hidden gift
when we help another
we are not giving charity
we are receiving it
from life’s great beauty waiting within the gift of a gift

Keynote Speaker, Jaiya John

The event featured keynote speaker Jaiya John, founder of Soul Water Rising and author of the award-winning memoir Black Baby White Hands: A View From the Crib. Jaiya was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Immediately placed in foster care and eventually adopted, Jaiya’s childhood branded in him a burning passion for giving his life to improve the way human beings relate to each other. Please learn more about his story at his website http://www.soulwater.org/.

Revising the Program

Our Old Process

Fostering Memories has traditionally visited a single foster care residential treatment center and, depending upon the size, taken photos of all available kids within the facility or of a particular segment of the population. Once the photos were processed, we then returned to the facility to hand out photos and create scrapbooks. This is still an option for larger facilities, but can be more challenging for smaller foster care centers. If a facility only houses six kids, and two are out of the facility during your visit, you have more volunteers than children. Plus we almost never have the exact same population for both visits – so you have kids creating scrapbooks with no photos and other kids who receive their photos but can’t come to the event where they put together their scrapbooks.

Improvements

So Laurie suggested that we try to make it a single event where we take the photos, process them and then make scrapbooks. For small group homes, we can combine several small group homes for a single event – this would help more youth in a single day and make maximum use of our volunteers. Plus it would give the kids an opportunity to visit a different venue and the immediate gratification of seeing the photos that day. Of course, we need an appropriate facility that gives us great photo backgrounds combined with space to put together scrapbooks. And we need portable printers, of suitable quality, to immediately print photos.

Testing the New Process at Mission Trails Regional Park

Our latest success was our first attempt at this new process – we invited 65 foster youth who reside in small group homes to the beautiful Mission Trails Regional Park. What a beautiful setting and a fun day for all! Group home staff, volunteers and – most importantly – kids raved about how meaningful this was.

We found some wonderful printers that provide great quality photos. They print slowly, so we’ve purchased several and are figuring out ways – using multiple camera cards,. multiple photographers and volunteer runners who move the cards between the printers and the photographers – to efficiently use our resources to provide the maximum number of photos for each child.

So far so good!

What if You Didn’t Have Childhood Photos?

Fostering Memories began when Laurie Campbell – then a social worker at a San Diego psychiatric hospital heard a thought provoking request from a foster youth who was about to turn 18 and be released from the system. The girl asked if she could keep her intake photo as they were the only photos she had of herself. Though Laurie knew that foster children lacked for many things, she’d never thought about the fact that they might not even have childhood photos. This particularly resonated with Laurie as she’s almost lost her own childhood photos in the Crest fires and, though everything else in the house would have burned as well, photos were the thing her family was most upset about losing.

Horrified that children were going without this most precious resource, Laurie checked around and found that this was quite common. And so Fostering Memories was born.

Donate $25 and send us a picture of you, or a loved one, and we’ll post it on this webpage as a reminder of how important memories of our childhood can be. Please email the picture to info@fosteringmemories.org.

Thanks for visiting!

Dear reader…

Thanks for visiting us! Please peruse the pages in the right column to find out more about Fostering Memories, a California 501(c)(3) that works with San Diego foster children in residential treatment centers.

If you don’t  find what you’re looking for, please feel free to email us: info@fosteringmemories.org.

Please note that, for the protection of these kids, we aren’t allowed to post pictures of foster youth or provide explicit details on our upcoming events. Pictures you see here are stock photography or friends/family.

MAY IS FOSTER CARE MONTH!

Regards,

Christie Haigh
President, Fostering Memories
christiechaigh@gmail.com

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