Support Parenting Youth in Foster Care.

Young parents in the foster care system face both the
challenges of being in foster care as well as the
challenges of being a young, often single, parent.
Studies of both groups have found that they will
experience higher than average rates of poverty,
unemployment and low educational attainment. While
this has long been the case, the issue of parenting
youth in foster care has become more pressing with the
implementation of extended foster care in California.

Fortunately, California State Senator Leland Yee
has introduced Senate Bill 528, legislation that will
make important changes to how the foster care
system serves parenting youth.

SB 528 does four things:

ensures that there is adequate planning for
pregnant youth in foster care by implementing
specialized conferences that have been piloted
in Los Angeles;
prioritizes children of parenting foster youth for
subsidized child care, allowing the youth to
pursue their education;
ensures that all children in foster care have
access to medically-accurate, age-appropriate
reproductive health education to prevent
unintended pregnancy;
requires the State of California to track the
number of parenting youth in foster care;
currently we do not know how many parenting
youth are in foster care.

SB 528 has the potential to make a real difference
in the lives of young parents in foster care. SB 528
will be heard in the Senate Human Services
Committee on April 9th. To support SB 528, there
are three things you can do:

1. Send a letter of support by March 29th
2. Endorse SB 528, as an individual or an
organization
3. Attend the Senate Human Services hearing on
Tuesday, April 9th

And of course- please forward this information
along to others interested in improving outcomes
for parenting youth in foster care.

SB 528 is sponsored by the Alliance for Children’s
Rights, Children’s Law Center of California, the
John Burton Foundation and Public Counsel.