This production is made possible by the generous support of the Mike Schmitz Automotive Group.

MikeSchmitzAutoGroup.com Foster Coalition unites local foster care advocates into effective collaborative communities.

Imagine being a child and being removed from your home with no notice because of a tragic event, abuse or neglect.

Hello, my name is Andrew Howard and I'm on the board of directors for the Foster Coalition.

I want to introduce you to this organization that has positively impacting the foster community in the state of Alabama.

Right now in Alabama, we have approximately 6000 children in foster care.

At the Foster coalition, we want to help those children by uniting government agencies, foster organizations and churches to provide services to the foster care community so that these children can thrive.

We want to support caseworkers and foster parents by providing additional resources.

There's also a tremendous need for mentors and other support people for foster kids.

With the help of a mentor, there is an increased high school graduation rate, higher college enrollment rates and decreased likelihood of turning to drugs and alcohol.

At the foster coalition, we have identified four target areas that our programs will address recruiting workers, reducing turnover, providing education and spreading awareness to improve the image of the foster community.

When the adults have the resources they need, the kids get the care they deserve.

Every child deserves to feel safe and loved.

Thank you for taking the time to watch this video to learn more about what we're doing at the foster coalition.

Thank you again and God bless.

Hello.

I'm Nancy Buckner commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

The goal of foster care is to give children and youth a safe, nurturing place to live until they can be reunited safely with their families or adopted into loving homes.

In some cases, young adults age out of foster care when they reach the age of 21.

Nationwide, these young men and women face an increased risk of negative outcomes, such as homelessness after they exit the foster care system.

To prevent this from happening, it is so important to prepare them for successful transitions from foster care to independence and adulthood.

That is the mission of the Independent Living Program at the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

Participating youth receive assistance, preparing to exit foster care, learning skills to succeed as adults, and building long term support networks.

The program also connects former foster youth with appropriate resources, services and supports, including scholarships.

Those who age out of foster care in Alabama are never truly alone.

They will always have a family of friends, mentors, social workers and advocates to turn to for support.

I hope you enjoy this documentary about Alabama's foster youth.

Thank you.

so I've really been working with young people most of my life.

I went to Bible school, and my goal was to be a youth pastor until I was well past my sixties.

And and so, you know, things don't always go the direction.

And so social work was kind of a second career that I got in and still working with young people.

And so I initially started off in the county for five years.

I was the resource worker for foster parents kind of liaison between the department and foster care.

And so really enjoyed that, get to know the kids and the foster parents and all that and, and then I supervised in the county for three years foster care, protective services, all those things.

And so but my heart is always working with our young people.

I just feel like that's kind of my wheelhouse.

And so I'd worked in child welfare in another state and was very close to the county independent living coordinator there.

So I knew what that role was.

I understood that I'd done events with her.

And so when I worked for DHR in Alabama, my thought was, I really want to do that and I want to do it on a state level, some because I really feel like, some because I enjoy working with young people and then some because I've always understood that if I wanted to see effective change, that you put yourself in those positions to be able to make the right change.

And so not only in my role do I get to work with young people, but we do get to make things better.

We do get to make improvements.

Part of my role is to provide resources and support for the county so that they can help our young people to successfully age out of foster care.

So I'm constantly trying to figure out how we can partner with different people, how we can build supports, how we can provide the resources that the counties need so that our kids can get the help that they need and preparation for aging out of care.

Because 21 is still really young to be branching out on your own.

I have wanted to do foster care since I was a kid.

Middle school, our youth group went and did some painting and yard work for a single mom.

Her wife was a single mom.

But then I later found out was actually a single foster mom.

So it was always something that I had an interest in.

And then it just grew as I got older.

And then I would say summer after my sophomore year of high school, I just really felt like what I had a vision for was big White House.

Well its brick right now, but will eventually be white bunk beds.

Passenger van vacations, big family place for everybody around the fire, that kind of thing.

And here we are.

So we were foster parents for 13 years.

During that time, we fostered over 130 children total.

Anywhere from a night.

Our shortest kid was actually just a couple of hours from like 11:00 until 1:00 in the morning.

So overnight with our longest through foster care being almost three years.

And then we we are now the adoptive parents of five.

I went into foster care when I was 15 years old, I was at school one day and DHR came and they pulled me out of class and they kind of asked me some questions.

And then I lied about my situation because I didn't want to tell the truth.

And they left, actually.

And then I ran into my friends and I was crying and I was very upset.

And they had actually brought me back to my counselor's office.

My friends walked me back there and they were trying to explain to my counselor kind of what was going on.

And so then I came back and I was at the school, so probably like, like 6:00 at night, I was exhausted.

I'd been crying all day long.

And then the cops came and they picked me up and I remember them put me in the car and they brought me to the Kramer Center, which is a place we have here where I guess they do the initial interview about everything I remember on the way there, the cops actually, they were trying to ease the tension, so they started singing a Justin Bieber song.

That was funny.

But then when I got to the Kramer Center, they brought me into this room was all orange.

I remember it being orange.

I remember them sitting me down at this table.

And then they were doing the interview and I was exhausted.

I just had my head on the table the whole time.

And then I was finished and they brought me to Target because I didn't have anything.

I had nothing with me.

And then they brought me to get something to eat and then they dropped me off at my first foster home.

I was in middle school, At the time, I was.

It was me and my twin brothers.

We were living with my mom and my great grandmother.

My grandmother had just passed away.

And basically, you know, we my mother had quit cleaning the house and it had gotten bad.

It had gotten like hoarders buried alive almost.

It was it was bad.

And but like, there wasnt any kind of drugs or alcohol, anything like that.

But DHR did get involved and they send a social worker out to try to help get the house clean.

But it was just too much.

And finally, um, the hoarding just got too much and DHR stepped in and said, Look, we can't do this anymore.

It's not safe for your kids.

So that's when we got placed into foster care So when I originally went into foster care, I was about 13 years old.

We actually lived in North Carolina at the time.

So it was a big change because the first step they took to get us into care was moving us from North Carolina to Alabama so that we can live with relatives because that was the first option so that we didn't have to go into a foster home.

But the reason that we were moved is my parents struggle with substance abuse, so we got evicted from our house.

And that's when I got involved and pulled us and kind of explained everything to us.

But we knew our aunt.

We came to visit her every year in Alabama, even though we didn't know that much about Alabama.

We kind of had a feel of what the South was like.

So they pulled us here and it was a it was a big change.

Well, my foster care experience started at 14 when I came into care.

I had just lost one of my two of my close friends from childhood, one due to a suicide and one due to a house fire.

It was just a really rough time for me, and it's a rough transition period at that time anyhow.

I had just moved in with my mother and my grandfather was really sick due to alcohol.

His livers were failing.

He was on hospice.

So I just moved to a new school and I just honestly, I wasn't doing well.

I ended up coming into the system due to some substance abuse from my family.

Okay.

So I grew up pretty much in foster care.

I was in foster care for a little over 12 years.

So by the time I was you know, eight or nine, all the way to when I aged out at 21. but I definitely am the person that I am today because of it.

I think it's taught me a lot of things.

There's multiple ways to be able to discipline your kids without abusing them.

Um, there's.

You know that life can be hard.

Yeah.

My life's always been hard.

It's never going to stop.

So it's.

It's taught me life lessons, and I'm very grateful for it.

My worst day in foster care would have to be the day that I went into foster care.

It's one of those days that you just kind of can't help remember every memory about.

I could tell you.

Still to this day, about what time I got kicked out of school for the court hearing and the phone call that I got from my mom telling me that me and my sister are going to be put together in a home.

But she didn't think it was going to be a group home.

And how we almost got split up because of my age and her age because I was 13 at the time.

So there was a chance of me being put into a group home and being separated.

And I can still tell you every detail from when we arrived back at my grandparents house where we were staying at the time with my dad and my foster mom, and the DHR workers were already there waiting for us.

And all we had was this brown banana box of clothes and getting in the car with like a complete stranger at 13 years old, not knowing like what anything is going to look like going forward.

You don't have, like, trust with these people.

And that would definitely be the worst day because it was the I think, second time I ever seen my biological dad cry.

And it was just it was like the day everything fell apart and I was old enough to know that it it wasn't right and it wasn't normal, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Uh, foster life.

It wasn't too bad, you know?

It was, you know, is I really feel like it's all dependent on, you know, what home that you went to.

Luckily, that, you know, my homes, you know, they didn't get worse.

They got better over time.

So, you know, my first home, you know, of course, your first home is always a new experience.

You know, you never you never really, like used to living somewhere other than your family.

I was so young, you know, I was you know, I was bound to adapt to it anyway.

I didn't really get to live with my original family for long.

I was in the foster care system since 2005.

So, you know, first home was okay.

Second home was pretty good.

And third home was, you know, better.

Amazing.

You know, I was able to, uh, you know, start growing more when I got to my third foster home.

the foster placement I was at was Grace House Ministries.

They helped us a lot, like within the real world, learning how to talk to people, religion, Christian, Christianity, School.

Um, we had a lot of people there to cater to our needs, not all of our needs.

But overall, I feel like they definitely helped me in several ways.

so while I was staying at Kings Ranch, most things we did was take care of the out in, like, we had maybe four acres of land, We had a chicken coop, a farm in the back two farms and 4 to 5 houses on campus.

So we were separated into like TOP, IOP and basic and moderate living.

It was fantastic, because I don't really know anything about, like how to cars and do taxes and like all the big stuff.

So through every foster care system I went through, they always helped me out.

And I still call my old foster care because I still don't know a bunch of stuff about the outside world, you can say.

So they're really helpful if you let them be.

I would say, like there's a lot of things that were true Big joys when we were in foster care, the biggest one would be when kids get to go home and that is a healthy thing.

Just seeing.

I remember one time we had a sibling set that was going home and we kept it a surprise.

They'd been visiting, so they knew it was coming, but we kept the day of going home a surprise.

And so we went to go meet their mom.

She had balloons and a poster and all the big exciting things.

And so I was a huge, happy, joyous moment for them.

And then since then, just to be able to maintain communication, even with the mom when she needs support or somebody to talk to or ideas about how to handle a certain behavior, and even just like helping herself grow as a woman and as a mom.

And then, you know, it's always joyful seeing kids go to grandparents.

We went through a couple of years where every child that came through our home went to grandparents or aunts and uncles, went to relatives and those relatives.

We still have relationships and communication and with today.

And so we were able to help.

Like I think of one grandmother in particular to a special needs child.

We were able to help her attend some of the same trainings that I was attending that were helpful to me and meeting her granddaughter's needs while she was in our home just to help prepare her.

And she's successfully home there.

Since I want to say it was like summer of 2017 or 18, so quite a few years and still successfully raising her granddaughter with with high needs.

And so and that's huge.

So being able to be a part of that because I can't adopt every child that's ever been through my home.

Obviously we can't parent 130 children and they don't need us to be their parents.

They need us to love their parents and their families just as much as we love them.

Throughout my own care, I've met great people.

Thankfully, I've had really supportive social workers throughout the experience.

I still speak in, talk to them like still to this day.

I've had I think, a total of four social workers throughout my experience.

They've all been really supportive.

They've walked me through my graduation, my college graduation.

I also had a great family.

Like just because my family, unfortunately, I got taken away.

They still were very supportive of me throughout the timing as well as now.

I did have a few good staff members that really did try to, and they've taught me a lot of good Christian values.

They've taught me my one of my house parents taught me how to ride a bike.

Just simple stuff like that.

I've had good experiences with.

The best experience that I did have was, you know, the the memories.

You know, I you know, I always look back at it and, you know, I always wonder how would my life went if I lived with my family when, you know, as I keep looking back, I start to think to myself is fine.

You know, I'm actually in the right spot that I need to be.

I'm here for a reason.

So I guess I guess the best part about being in a foster system is the parents.

You know better foster mother.

You know, if you have a great foster mother, your life should be your foster life should be perfectly fine.

with the youth especially, no matter if they have been in the system their entire life or if they just now have gotten into the system, they need to know that they're loved for whatever reason that they're in the system.

I would easily say that it's because that at some point there's a lack of love in in the family, in the household.

I mean, my mother loved me, but at the end of the day, that mental illness got the best of her and, you know, there was a lot of times that I felt like I wasn't loved enough, you know, And so thankfully in the last foster home that I was in, I was given that unconditional love.

Um, I had a rough patch in school and some things had happened in my life.

And one day my foster dad, I got home and we talked about what was going on and, uh, he said, What are we going to do about this?

And I said, I don't know.

I guess you're just going to give me a put me back in Foster Or send me back to my social worker And he said, No, we're not doing that.

You're part of this family.

That's not even an option.

So only you can get that out of your mind.

And when he said that, I just broke I mean, you can tell I'm getting emotional about it right now, but I just broke because I had never seen that unconditional love except through God.

You know, I'd seen it from God because my life is, you know, I've been blessed my entire life.

But from that man sorry... him show me that unconditional love that meant the world to me.

Um, and so it made a huge impact on me because it made me want more.

It made me want to do better in school.

It made me have more dreams.

Yeah.

And thankfully, that has made me become a better father.

one of the things while I was in care is they made sure I stayed with softball.

Softball was my outlet.

I did have some anger management issues that I had to deal with, and I took it out in sports.

So that was and I know that was in my case file was she has to say in softball, do not separate her from softball.

So I really didn't have many friends in high school.

I played school ball.

I played summer ball and I played fall ball.

So I played softball nonstop.

And I had a softball coach who knew what was going on.

So he actually paid for almost everything through my softall career.

And so that was great.

And he got me a scholarship to college to play softball.

So I went to a military college, which I and I still speak to this day that I wish every foster kid could not look at the military experience as, Oh, it's going to be like prison.

Because I went in with the idea of I need this structure.

And it it built me to where I could get to the University of Alabama.

And so I got the softball scholarship and the Foster and Hope scholarship, which got me to finish out my BSW So when I aged out of foster care in 2021, we went right upstairs and I got adopted the same exact day.

And this family, the Munzanias years, they are my family now that's my mom and my dad.

And it's kind of crazy how God intertwined our stories together.

Because when I came into foster care, they started their classes to become foster parents.

And there's been plenty of times that my mom has helped do things for foster kids, that she was helping me and she didn't even know it.

So there's just more more ways that she's intertwined in my life than she even knows and one one year was my 16th birthday.

She made a cake for me.

And I don't like don't like cake.

I like cookie cake.

I don't know.

It's just a little sweet for me.

And then she found out that I don't like cake, so she actually went out of her way and got a cookie cake and did all, you know, everything all over again for me, which was kind of cool.

She helped me get to college and help me.

She came and visited me on my birthday in college and and stuff like that.

And it was it's pretty cool.

But anyways, this family right here, they I know they love me.

I know.

I know that they support me with whatever that I want to do.

So just here in our home state in Alabama, every month, there are young adults aging out of foster care.

They turn 21 and they're handed $1,000 check with the hopes of that.

Everything they've learned during their time, an independent living program through DHR has taught them everything they need to know to successfully survive alone after foster care.

Most of our youth age out and don't have anyone, no family or not healthy relationship with their biological family.

They may or may not be connected to a former foster family or just people out in the community.

So the most simple way to get involved would be to go through your local DHR and sign up to become a mentor with teenagers so well before they age out.

So do you have time to build a relationship where you don't have to foster them.

You don't have to, you know, parent them or adopt them or anything like that.

You just get to be their person.

Our family took it a little bit farther than that.

And our oldest son, we got to adopt him through adult adoption.

2 hours after his emancipation hearing was signed after a little over 12 years in foster care.

And so that's our story.

And with him, he was kind of a package deal, which means he has biological siblings that we get to be a part of their lives as well, though then we also have some other former foster youth that are connected to our family in various capacities, like for the holidays, just support, just somebody to call different things like that.

So it's super easy to get involved once they're age out of foster care.

If you meet someone, there's no like guidelines or rules in place.

It's just building a relationship with a young adult If they are still in foster care preparing to age out, you do kind of have to go through the system and be cleared a little bit more to build that relationship just to be able to have that access.

But again, so the simplest way to get involved is if you know someone else that already is involved with a current or soon to be former foster youth, to be supportive to that person.

And then the second step would be just to get linked up directly with a former or soon to be former foster youth.

And then obviously there's adult adoption, which is totally a thing in our state.

It's actually a lot easier than a child adoption and so and super special you know, being able to adopt our oldest son.

To me, the adoption is just a piece of paper.

It doesn't define our relationship with him, but it does provide something tangible that can be held and looked at.

And to know that even if it's a day that we're not getting along, we're butting heads.

We don't see eye to eye that this is always home.

I'm always mom.

My husband is always dad.

You will never be hungry.

You will never be homeless unless you choose to be that we are here for them.

And I wish that every youth aging out in our state had that.

We are connected with quite a few other former foster youth from various counties around the state.

And, you know, my phone still rings at midnight when somebody has broken down on the side of the road or needs to figure out how to, you know, schedule a tow or we're going out of diapers and needs, you know, diapers dropped off at the front door for their child or how to cook something or to know what temperature like what fever.

At what point do you take your infant to the hospital for just all of those different things that I still, at 40 years old, still call my mom for, you know, my phone rings or my text messages go off 24 seven about that.

And I love and feel incredibly grateful that I'm able to be that for them.

now that I'm able to have a different perspective now that I have went through schooling and I understand what social workers go through and what they're taught, and then you actually see your first foster kid and talk to him about it.

I understand a lot of what my social worker did.

If you were to ask me while I was in care, I would've said she was the worst woman in the world and she never listened to me and she hated me.

And that is not the case.

She loved us.

She took it on herself to take in all the hate from us, to protect us from what my parents were doing.

So we were not so we because I still have a bond with my father.

My mother passed away last year, but I still have that bond and I had that bond with them because I didn't I didn't know what was going on.

If she would have continued to update us and tell us that they're failing their drug test, they're not doing what they're supposed to.

They don't care to get you back.

I don't think I'd have a relationship with my parents today.

And so I think that she to this day was a very positive thing on us at the time.

no, today though, she probably saved the relationship that I have with my parents.

Yeah.

So we actually have some opportunities through our independent living program, through the state office.

We actually provide some financial planning training.

All of our counties are able to access that.

Our foster parents are able to access that.

Maybe it's just a matter of contacting the right person in the county to say, Hey, I know that we have this, but we actually have partnered with different agencies that train on money management.

And so we have a whole series, I think a 13 course series that's available to our young people.

That's one of those skill developments and we can actually provide an incentive for them as they complete it.

So independent living funds are able to provide incentives when young people produce those outcomes.

And those outcomes are education based, career based, as well as household management based.

And so anything that's tied to some of those outcomes, we can provide incentive for provide funding for.

We can do set up costs to help a young person get into an apartment.

And so there's ways that we can help them.

We have several other opportunities across the state.

We partner with HUD for Foster Youth Independence program.

So when young people who are out of care are facing homelessness or risk of homelessness, we have some resources to help with that.

We have some agencies that we partner with across the state that specifically do that kind of work, and so we partner with them.

And then one of the big things we have is we have fostering hope, which is our state funded educational assistance program that's provides tuition to our young people, not only tutition to our young people for any public college or university in the state, but it also pays for certification.

If a young person is looking to get a certification in that area and that certification will result in a job, fostering hope can pay for that.

And then we also have a federally funded program which is ETV Educational Training Voucher, and that provides up to $5,000 a year to help a kid in school in order to be eligible for those two programs.

The state funded program, Fostering hope.

In order to be eligible for that, they just have to graduate high school while in foster care or be adopted or do kinship care after the age of 14 for ETV, the educational training voucher, they just have to turn 18 while in foster care, or either are either be adopted or do kinship care after the age of 16.

So there are some very clear guidelines on that.

And all of that is found, you know, at our DHR Alabama dot gov.

But that information is out there and those are some great things.

Our young people have the opportunity who age out of foster care or turn 18 graduate high school while in care they have an opportunity to go to school debt free.

And for most of our workers, they're still paying off their school.

But our young people and I know quite a many since the program was instituted, fostering hope was instituted in 2016.

We've had many a kid that has graduated debt free and is able to begin without having any of those expenses.

And So one of the things that we do is we have a contract provider that we work with.

And so one of the things that we've worked with over the years is to cultivate a website, social media, and so we utilize that through IL connect dot org.

And our goal is, is that that website becomes a one stop shop for all Alabama.

ILP So if a young person is in care, a foster parent is looking for some information, a social worker needs some information, or even if there is someone out of care, you know, and they want to know what resources are available, they can go to IO connect, dot org They can check that out.

We also have an app that you can download to your phone ILConnect app that again will tie to all that to the social media.

But our goal is, is we want to be easily accessible.

We don't want you to just have to call the right person.

We want you to be able to access that information anywhere you need.

You may be in a meeting and you go, Hey, what's that information?

Let me check that out on IL connect.

Or maybe you're talking to a kid and you want to know, Hey, I wonder if that's possible.

You can go on to IL connect dot org and find that information.

Well, believe it or not, is less scary if you're actually in college because you're in your dorms or whatever.

By the time because of a if I'm not mistaken, I believe emancipation.

At the age of 21.

That's probably like your junior or senior year in college.

You can still be living in the dorm, but I feel like it went by a little bit smoother than what I was thinking at first.

I was very, very scared and everything, but then, like I said, I use my resources, I call it up and I was like, Is there a way that I can and get help if I don't feel like I'll be, you know, financially stable enough to actually handle a whole apartment by myself?

Is there any type of programs or is there anything that I can use that can help me?

And there was something that could help me so it made it a lot less stressful when I found out about the program.

Well, I know one of them that I'm using currently is the housing authority.

I believe it's called FYI instead under the program is called FYI, but it is underneath the housing authority.

So what they would do is, you know, they basically tally up a, you know, a price in area code or zip code that you're in.

And what they'll do is theyll, tell you to go find an apartment at first theyll give you the voucher.

You go find your own apartment that you like, and then they'll basically cut half of that price.

They'll pay for half, and you have to pay the rest of it.

And it helps out a lot to help you save so that you will be able to start to actually fully move out on your own right.

DHR does provide foster children four years of free education in the state of Alabama.

It is through Alabama fostering hope.

So all of my education, I got to graduate debt free.

When I go back towards my master's, I will be paying that out of pocket, however.

But between Pell Grants and scholarships, my debt was free.

So it's really put me in a predicament of a good start because I would have been 30, $40,000 in debt by the time I got out of school.

I mean, just in general, the public lacks knowledge.

They lack education on what foster children need and what we do.

And I think a lot of people have a perception on us of this is our fault and that we're bad children.

And that's just not the case.

Unfortunately, there's just a substance abuse crisis in a lot of us end up in the foster care system.

I think managing their mental health is important.

Being able to take control over their own life and their own plan for where they're going.

But ultimately they need support.

They need somebody in their life that can help them out, somebody they can call.

I tell everybody the story a couple of years ago, my stepson was coming home from work at 3:00 in the morning and he hit a pothole and it busted his tire.

And so he called us up and me and my wife drove over to where he was.

And and while we were waiting for the truck to come and tow his vehicle away, I'm sitting in the car and and I'm just all up in my feelings because what I'm thinking of is who do our foster kids call at 3:00 in the morning when they have a busted tire?

Who do they call when they need something?

I have a coworker whose daughter the day after her 21st birthday was in a car accident, shattered her hand and and really kind of put her in a position where she had to move back in the home.

And I think about our foster kids who age out at 21, who don't have that home to go back to, who don't have a family to go back to or may have their birth family.

But it's not the relationship that it should be.

And so they need those supports So they may not need somewhere to live.

They may just need somebody they can call, somebody they can rely upon, someone they can bounce ideas off of.

And I think that's really the most important thing is to how do we help them to develop the supports that they need.

my relationship with Bill Benson and him being the independent living coordinator at State DHR., I didn't get to have him while I was in the foster care system, which I feel like was a disadvantage for me because he's an awesome resource.

I still call him today and I'm like, Bill, can you please help me with my taxes?

And so I met him when I was let me see, I think is when I started speaking for Children's Aid Society is when I actually got to meet him.

I was at the University of Alabama and they have a program called the Reach Program.

This is an awesome program that is not offered at other schools.

Shannon Hubbard is over it and she is currently working on getting it at other schools.

But right now it's only at one.

And what this program is, is is a community of kids who have went through homelessness, kids who kinship, guardianship care or foster care.

And you have dinner with each other once a month to connect.

There's a food pantry where you can go and get food.

You can eat clothes if you need it.

If you're in need, you can get gift cards from Shannon.

And if you're in a emergency, she she can get you any kind of assistance.

I struggle my last semester because I ran out of scholarship and she found me the money to pay for my schooling.

So she was.

She's an awesome resource and the REACH program is amazing.

I can't not talk about that enough because I don't know if I would have made it through UA without that, And so she does awesome things there.

But she also, when I was working on my BSW, she said there's this guy and you have to meet him and his name is Bill Benson.

And he came to one of our Mardi Gras luncheons and I sat down and I kind of talked to him and from that point on, he reached out to me to talk on panels about my experience in foster care system because I don't have the group home experience and not only do I have the kinship, guardianship care, but I also went through the foster care system.

But I also got to college and emancipated myself and went through college with zero support.

I had $0 in my bank account and I had no support So I'm able to talk about that as well.

But he got me into those speaking positions.

And then from speaking there, Children's Aid Society reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to work there.

And I have gotta say yes.

And so I took on that job while I was finishing up my BSW and while working that we work, we have the ambassador program.

And so that was what I was technically over.

And what that is, is we have kids throughout the state.

They represent their county in the state of Alabama when we travel out of it.

So we take them to the Daniel Memorial Independent Living Conference, and we took them to Colorado last year.

This year they're going to go to Orlando.

And there they're able to speak on how the Alabama foster care system is changes that need to be made.

And they're able to take stuff from other states and see if we can implement it here.

Like, one of the things I learned was Arizona has an awesome independent living program.

And so I took a lot of their information and spoke to Bill about it.

And so other than that, Bill also puts on two camps a year called Camp Life.

I cannot think of the exact age range.

It ranges.

But we have a younger camp and we have an older camp in there, the exact same.

We just try to make sure that they're ones for the younger ones, for the older.

And in these camps they get independent living skills.

Sometimes they get cooking, sometimes they get entrepreneurship, just skills that they need to learn before they get out of the foster care system.

But also they get to meet other kids.

They're in the foster care system, which is great for them because they build these connections to one another of we're the same.

I don't have to explain to you that I have a pity life because we're both going through the foster care system and we both have the trauma, but we can be best friends and a lot of them build that relationship with each other and it's awesome.

We a lot of the time see them, Hey, I'm going to snapchat you when I leave here and it's nice and they get a chance to be kids.

They have a dance, they go to the pool, all kinds of stuff like that.

And half the time when it comes time to leave, they don't want to leave.

And it's not because they don't like where they're at.

They're just having so much fun.

And so that's an awesome resource for them.

We went and spoke in Macon County not long ago to speak on how how our foster care system, how our foster care experience went and why why people should get involved, why we should have more people wanting to be foster parents, why we should have more social workers, why we respect what they do.

Because even though I went got my social work degree, I haven't got to be a social worker and I've seen is a lot of work.

And it's tough because they have to go home at the end of the night and turn it off and it's hard to turn it off.

And so they end up working all these extra hours that they don't need to work.

So I mean, there's plenty of things that you can do just I feel like just a foster kid wants to be accepted.

That's that's pretty much what they want to be.

Normal.

Normal.

And in reality, we are normal.

We just have a little bit more baggage with us, you know, And, I mean, one thing you could do is you can spend the day with them.

You know, most of the time they don't have people to spend the holidays with.

You know, they're sitting there.

You can spend the day with them.

You can get to know them, you know, see, see what they're about.

And then eventually, if that's something that you're interested in, you know, supporting them, then that's something that you can do.

another thing that you can do to, to help foster kids out as, you know, be somebody that they can trust, everybody changes in their life.

I don't trust a lot of people in my life, you know, And now that I have people that I can trust, you know, I try to hold on to them and I you know, I tell them everything that I think about.

And I mean, it takes a lot of weight off my shoulder.

don't let them think that, well, once you turn 18, you're out, or once you turn 21, you're out.

Even though I have friends that have never been in the system, that's their mindset too.

Once I turn 18, I'm out of my parent's house and I hear the same thing from the the youth in foster care, whether they're in a foster home, in a group home, whatever, that's their idea to once I turn 18, I'm out.

But and most of the time in their mindset, they're done with that family.

And the thing that I want to see more of is people, like I said, whether you are a foster parent or if you just know somebody that's in the system, let them know that they have somewhere to go, that they have family that show them that unconditional love.

Because even though my foster dad that said that to me lives 2 hours away in Tuscaloosa, I know if I needed him right now, I can call him whether it's car issues, whether it's prayer requests, no matter what it is, or just say, hey, I could call him right now.

He would pick up the phone and we could talk for hours.

If I want to go down there and see them, I cam their door is always open.

They've showed me that unconditional love.

And that's what I think is the number one thing that we can do as a society is show that unconditional love, Like I said, doesn't matter if they're your foster care, they don't have to be related to you.

They don't have to be anything.

But if you know someone that's in the system, show them that unconditional love, whether or not they want it, whether or not they think that they need it, show them that unconditional love and that will impact their life more than they will even ever realize Most counties in our areas in the metro Birmingham area have a foster closet in their county.

We have one in Shelby County.

There's one in Bessemer.

There's there's multiple there's a lot of churches that have support groups.

So a super easy way to get involved.

Helping current foster families would be to plug in to one of those ministries where families can be provided with clothing, whether it's midnight or noon when a child comes to them.

Obviously, we always would welcome somebody showing up at dinner or sending us pizza just to take the edge off so that we could focus on the kids and whatever they were going through, where their needs are at the time.

Respite is huge if you So the state provides foster parents respite where we can request it through the state and they match the child up with another family.

But often the kids don't know those families.

So it's just like going to an overnight babysitter.

But the best case scenario and the more like natural and normal experience for our kids, you know, would be for them to go stay with grandparents like the foster parents, parents or relatives or family friends just because that's so much that's what that's what every other kid gets.

And so a great way to get involved would be to get to know a foster family, some, you know, possibly be willing to get a background check to get cleared for that.

And that's for anything.

Helping with homework, getting kids off the school bus, babysitting, helping around the holidays, kind of any of those kind of things.

But it's it's not just the foster families.

So once our kids go home or go to relatives, there's just as big of a need to continue supporting either their biological parents or their relatives to get custody of them.

And I would even say a bigger need because there's no other support already in the community or very little support in the community for reunified families to be able to maintain stability themselves.

And there's a little bit more, but also not much support for like grandparents or aunts, uncles or fictive kin, which would be non blood related family like friends that take custody.

That's the biggest area where they may or may not have any support from the state available to them.

But where our community can really step up and help kids stay healthy and stable with their biological families after foster care or in lieu of foster care.

one of the things that we try to do in our job through ILP is to build those supports, build those partners.

And so if there's a church out there or an organization out there that says, Hey, I want to help, we'll contact your local county, because I just don't believe that our counties are going to go, no, we have so much you know, we have too much.

We don't need y'all.

We're good.

That's just not the case.

And so I think there is an opportunity for those that are faith based as well as those that are not to step up and say, hey, we want to provide some support for these young people.

And again, it's not always just a place for them to live.

Bringing them into your home.

Sometimes it's just taking them to lunch, sometimes it's just providing resources.

Sometimes they need help knowing how to drive a car or being able to get their license or knowing how to fill out their taxes.

so really some of the success stories that I've seen are those young people who have found those supports.

Sometimes those supports are previous foster parents, adoptive parents.

Maybe it's someone they've met at church, a coach, a teacher.

Sometimes it's a previous worker.

We've had some of our staff that have stopped being their worker and have taken them in as foster kids because those relationships develop.

And so I think also there's a lot of peer support that goes on.

One of the things we're seeing in Alabama is some of our prior foster youth are coming back in and mentoring foster youth as they age out of care.

And that's something that we're working on to try to develop and cultivate a little bit more.

Because even if we because previous foster youth would refer to as lived experience, youth tend to understand a little bit more than people who have never been in foster care.

And so we find that that kind of helps us and helps them.

And so that's one of the things we're cultivating.

But I definitely think those success stories are those that find those supports, that find their community, because I think that's really what it's about, is finding your community.

for ILP, what we're looking for is skill development.

When I talk about ILP, I talk about skill development because ILP independent living is different for everybody.

You know, I lived a certain way.

You were probably different in how you were raised, but at the end of the day, what skills are we teaching them so that they can be successful in life?

And those are personal skills.

Those are not just not just money management or household management.

There are so many other things that go in there and all of us have an opportunity to say, What is that one skill I could teach a kid?

What is that one skill that I'm good at that I can invest in a kid, call the county up, say, Hey, look, I'd like to meet with your kids.

I'd like to meet with you guys and see how I can help to invest some skill development in your young people.

I would love to take in a teenager just because I love babies.

I love my son, and I would just love to snuggle up a newborn again.

But I know that I went through the foster care system and when I was told it would, they were looking for a placement.

I was terrified that I wouldn't be found anywhere.

And I was blessed to not have to experience what a group home is.

But through the youth that I met and the Ambassador program, I have learned what a group home is like and how detrimental it can be.

It can be very positive, but there's also some detrimental sides to it when it comes to they're not in a family home.

And so I would love to down the road once we're ready to take in a teenager and I feel like we can handle a teenager, I would love to take in one and kind of see where it goes.

But yeah, I would I would be very, very happy to do that once I feel like I am not a teenager myself.

I am 25 and I still feel like I'm 15. in five years.

I see myself graduating from college and also stepping into teaching for you to help kids out like myself a lot of kids need help, and I feel like since I've been through the similar situation, maybe they would listen or would better understand hearing it from somebody who's been through it.

So I definitely will love.

I actually volunteer at the group, Um, the hours that we have independent living.

And I always go back and speak to the girls or talk to the girls.

I actually have an event there.

I'm going to speak it.

So my degree is in social work.

I have a bachelor's in social work with.

My goal is to go back for my master's as well as going back for a bachelor's in law I feel like I can be the mentor that I didn't have a lot of the children look up to me and feel like they can do it right now, our house isn't big enough, but we would like to hopefully one day either build a house or, you know, buy a house that's big enough to where we can foster even hopefully adopt, you know, even though we have our daughter now, you know, we want to be able to help as many people as we can.

And she knows my heart's in it.

I want to help the teenagers out so they're not in that same situation.

you know, I want to be financially stable, to have a family.

Of course, you know, I can't wait to to be a dad.

It's something that I've always wanted to be.

But in ten years, hopefully, I have, you know, an amazing job, a successful job, you know, And I mean, I see myself happy as I see myself kind of healed.

I just feel like right now I keep kind of fighting myself.

So maybe in ten years I'll be able to be more calm and and be able to see through everything and actually start to kind of live my life.

You know, This production is made possible by the generous support of the Mike Schmitz Automotive Group.

Mike Schmitz Auto Group dot com.

Foster Coalition unites local foster care advocates into effective collaborative communities.

Imagine being a child and being removed from your home with no notice because of a tragic event, abuse or neglect.

Hello, my name is Andrew Howard and I'm on the board of directors for the Foster Coalition.

I want to introduce you to this organization that has positively impacting the foster community in the state of Alabama.

Right now in Alabama, we have approximately 6000 children in foster care.

At the Foster coalition, we want to help those children by uniting government agencies, foster organizations and churches to provide services to the foster care community so that these children can thrive.

We want to support caseworkers and foster parents by providing additional resources.

There's also a tremendous need for mentors and other support people for foster kids.

With the help of a mentor, there is an increased high school graduation rate, higher college enrollment rates and decreased likelihood of turning to drugs and alcohol.

At the foster coalition, we have identified four target areas that our programs will address recruiting workers, reducing turnover, providing education and spreading awareness to improve the image of the foster community.

When the adults have the resources they need, the kids get the care they deserve.

Every child deserves to feel safe and loved.

Thank you for taking the time to watch this video to learn more about what we're doing at the foster coalition.

Thank you again and God bless.