 School's
out almost everywhere in Florida, except for a
group of young people aging out of foster care
in Tampa. These youth are studying to get their
GEDs or to get up to speed to return to public
high schools. The program - called Connection
with Education - was started by our grantee Connected
by 25 because so many foster youth are behind
academically due to being moved from school to
school. Connection with Education began with tutoring
and has grown into a full-fledged school with
the blessing of the Hillsborough County public
school system. You’ll read about this remarkable
program in this new issue of the Eckerd Family
Foundation newsletter.
What
is most gratifying to us at the Eckerd Family Foundation is that
this school is being supported completely by private funds from
the greater Tampa Bay community. In addition to our foundation,
the school is supported by the Conn Memorial Foundation, the Lumina
Foundation for Education, the Lightning Foundation, the Triad
Foundation and the Lerner Family Foundation. Last fall, we asked
the community to partner with us to support young people transitioning
from foster care. You have responded generously, and we thank
you.
As
always, please let me know what you think about our newsletter
and our initiatives.
Best
wishes,
Joe
Clark
Spotlight:
New School Offers Stability
and Extra Help for Young Adults from Foster
Care
 |
Carniellius
Branton studies at Connection with Education |
While
he was in foster care, Carniellius Branton, 18, had been moved
from placement to placement, meaning he was bounced around to
as many as 14 different schools in South Florida and Tampa. His
skills reflected his rocky school career. He was reading below
a sixth grade level.
Not
long ago, Carniellius heard about a new school aimed just for
young people from foster care. Other kids in Hillsborough County's
foster care system told him how great the program was. So, he
decided to enroll himself in early May with a goal of getting
his GED.
"I'm
learning a lot," says Carniellius. "The teachers really
break it down so I can understand it. There are enough teachers
to give kids a lot of one-on-one help."
The
new school program is Eckerd Family Foundation grantee Connected
by 25's Connection with Education, which aims to address the unique
challenges faced by young adults aging out of foster care and
help ensure they are connected to education, employment, housing,
banks, and a support system by age 25.
[read
the rest of the spotlight story]
[back
to topics]
New
Law to Help Young Adults Aging out Foster Care Was Born at Cby25
 |
Rep.
Rich Glorioso and Ashley Kyle |
Last
November, Reps. Rich Glorioso and Bill Galvano came to the office
of Eckerd Family Foundation grantee Connected by 25 of Hillsborough
County to hear directly from young people about how to help them
transition more successfully from foster care. Glorioso sits on
the Future of Florida's Families Committee, which is chaired by
Galvano. Glorioso spent hours talking with the young adults about
the challenges they face.
Those
conversations with the young adults paid off. Glorioso crafted
much of the legislation affecting youth who "age out"
of foster care that passed during the legislative session that
ended in May. Gov. Jeb Bush has signed the legislation.
[read
the rest of the story]
[back
to topics]
National
Governors Association to Focus on Youth Aging Out of Foster Care
In
July, Diane Zambito, executive director of Connected
by 25 of Hillsborough County and Linda Marie Grund,
who aged out of foster care, will represent Florida
at a prestigious Policy Academy on Youth Transitioning
out of Foster Care in Berkeley, Calif. Florida is
one of six states selected by the National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices to participate
in its Policy Academy, a yearlong project in which
those states have the opportunity to learn about
important research, promising practices and state
policy options to address the needs of youth in
foster care. Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Don Winstead,
deputy secretary of the Florida Department of Children
and Families, to lead Florida's team. Team member
Grund serves on the Cby25 youth advisory team and
the Florida Independent Living Advisory Council.
Jane Soltis, program officer of the Eckerd Family
Foundation and child advocate Chris Card also will
attend the three-day California meeting. At that
meeting, participants from the six states will work
with renowned researchers as well as national and
state experts to develop action plans for improving
services. They will work with facilitators to clarify
outcomes, devise strategies for achieving those
outcomes, identify short-term actions and begin
to develop implementation plans. The NGA Policy
Academy is being funded by the Eckerd Family Foundation,
the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative and
the Freddie Mac Foundation.
[back
to topics]
Connected
by 25 of Hillsborough County Featured on ABC's Nightline
 Eckerd
Family Foundation grantee Connected by 25 of Hillsborough
County was featured on ABC's Nightline on June
1. The show was part of a major effort by ABC
News to focus on foster care - other stories aired
on "Good Morning America," "Primetime"
and other ABC news programs. Nightline correspondent
Cynthia McFadden followed a young man who aged
out of foster care in Tampa and how Connected
by 25 helps young adults make successful transitions
from foster care. Connected by 25 tries to connect
these young adults with employment, education,
banks, housing, and support systems by age 25.
Connected by 25 also is a site of the Jim Casey
Youth Opportunities Initiative, a national foundation
focused   exclusively
on helping communities in helping young people
transitioning from foster care. Watch
the Nightline show
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Foundation
Head Offers Judges Portrait of Florida's Juvenile Justice System
On
June 12, Foundation President Joe Clark presented
a portrait of Florida’s juvenile justice
system and promising practices to the Conference
of Circuit Judges in Marco Island. Together with
consultant Lynn Ellsworth, Clark shared facts
about Florida’s system with the judges:
it is large and confines more children than other
states. Half of the referrals to the system are
for bad behavior, such as misdemeanor theft, probation
violation, disorderly conduct, loitering and prowling.
And many referrals came from schools. Only 9.3
percent are confined for more serious offenses,
such as murder or attempted murder, sexual offenses,
armed robberies, and aggravated assaults. Clark
and Ellsworth also focused on strategies that
do work with such children and urged the judges
to use their moral authority to advocate for reforms,
conduct individualized case planning, and help
educate stakeholders about practices that do work,
among other things. This presentation follows
an op-ed about reforming Florida’s juvenile
justice system that Clark recently had published
in the St. Petersburg Times.
Read the op-ed (pdf).
[back
to topics]
The
Eckerd Family Foundation is committed to promoting meaningful
and lasting change to transform the lives of vulnerable youth
and their families. The foundation's mission provides leadership
and support for innovative educational, preventative, therapeutic
and rehabilitative programs for children, youth and their families.
The foundation awarded these new grants in June:
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT:
 Asheville-Buncombe
Education Coalition
$70,000
Asheville, North Carolina
Supporting the development of a long-term sustainability plan
to support ABEC and its community partners. This grant recognizes
the impressive work of five years of the coalition in significantly
increasing high school graduation rates and in addressing racial
disparity issues.
COMMUNITY
HEALTH CARE:
 Morton
Plant Mease Foundation
$50,000
Clearwater, Florida
Providing a matching grant for the “Earn as You Learn”
program for patient care technicians. Six at-risk young adults
will continue their education at Pinellas Technical Education
Center and gain clinical experience in a hospital environment.
The program provides tuition, books, housing and other needs while
paying the students a stipend. The program goal is to provide
opportunities to at-risk youth in the health care profession.
EDUCATION:
Key
West Botanical Garden Society
$600,000
Key West, Florida
Funding two years of the Environmental Educational Program to
enhance science education for at-risk students in the Monroe County
School System. After demonstrating success in the pilot phase,
this program will serve 5,000 students and teachers. The elements
include in-class mentoring as well as peer-to-peer learning and
technical assistance for science teachers. The organization has
developed a partnership with Duke University that involves local
high school students in the research efforts of Duke’s master’s
program. The program goal is to improve graduation rates for youth
and involve them in planning for success.
FOSTER
CARE:
 Camelot
Community Care
$450,000
Tampa, Florida
Second-year funding of the “Connected by 25” project
for youth transitioning out of foster care. This pilot project
provides education, workforce development skills, financial literacy,
savings and asset accumulation and entrepreneurship training to
foster children aging out of the system. The goal is to prepare
foster children to become economically successful and live independently.
The grant includes a public policy and advocacy/education component
to address needed change in the foster care system within Florida.
The project is a collaborative effort among the Jim Casey Youth
Opportunities Initiative, the Lumina Foundation and the Eckerd
Family Foundation.
Florida Guardian ad Litem Association
$150,000
Glen St. Mary, Florida
A three-year grant supporting statewide planning work, development
of a strategic plan and the capacity to implement the plan and
the supports needed by the regional GAL offices. The goal is to
increase Guardian ad Litem services for youth in the foster care
system throughout Florida.
JUVENILE
JUSTICE:
 American
Stage
$10,000
St. Petersburg, Florida
Supporting a pilot program in Pinellas County Juvenile Detention
Center supporting an Artist in Residence program working with
incarcerated girls to help them express their feelings in a positive
way, define and implement goals and expand their world view. The
curriculum will focus on character building, making healthy choices,
defining positive relationships, problem solving, strategies for
success and personal empowerment.
 Boy
Scouts of America, Gulf Ridge Council
$150,000
Tampa, Florida
A three-year grant for the implementation of a
juvenile diversion program, JAKE, that will work
with 600 first-time, nonviolent youth. The Juveniles
Achieving Knowledge and Experience program provides
an alternative to formal court proceedings, keeping
the youth out of the juvenile justice system,
and offers a second chance for those who are willing
to accept responsibility. The program is a local
collaborative effort among the Boy Scouts, law
enforcement, the state attorney, public defender
and the judiciary. The program is unique in that
youth do not enter the juvenile justice system
in the first instance and will be operated in
the context of the civil citation option, as provided
in Chapter 985, Florida Statutes.
YOUTH
DEVELOPMENT:
Big
Brothers Big Sisters of Tampa Bay
$50,000
Tampa, Florida
Supporting the Mentoring Children of Prisoners Program, an initiative
focused on providing mentors to children of incarcerated parents,
who are one of the highest-risk groups in the United States. Based
on the Amachi Project, the program is a partnership of secular
and faith-based organizations working together to mentor children.
This program coordinates mentoring services and creates partnerships
with the faith-based community.
 Great
Explorations
$75,000
St. Petersburg, Florida
Supporting outreach services of The Children’s Museum to
at-risk youth in the community. This program includes adding ten
additional participants to the Youth Apprentice Program, free
memberships to 500 foster families and group homes, summer camp
scholarships as well as fostering at-risk youth to take advantage
of other educational, career and leadership development opportunities
at the museum.
[back
to topics]
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