Can a bunch of energized, well-educated Los Angeles college students change the disaster facing kids unlucky enough to be caught up in California's widely pilloried foster care system?
A bright pool of 12 USC students studying journalism, social services, and public relations say no more after getting training in a class called "Media for Social Change," taught by former Los Angeles reporter Daniel Heimpel, who has befriended and helped a lot of troubled foster care kids. n the U.S., over 400,000 children are in foster care. Child abuse and neglect often put them in this heinous situation, and the worst part-- most go into a new home where they face the same abuse. 25,000 will exit the system without a positive adult presence in their lives. They go off into the world alone and unprepared for what awaits them, but there's
Heimpel led his 12 students in a crusade to fix the defunct child welfare program. In the U.S., five children die from abuse every day.
Heimpel said, "I am a journalist who focuses on solutions. I actually think that what we are doing is the future of journalism."
Heimpel founded Fostering Media Connections, to "leverage the power of solutions-based journalism to give voice to children in foster care, inspire individuals and communities to engage on their behalf, and engender political will to create policies that will improve their lives."
Daniel Heimpel started this quest for social change in 2010 and has led two successful classes on the subject. The first was at UC Berkeley, and the second at USC.
Inspired by a class at Harvard, The Art of Social Change, he decided to take his advocacy group, Fostering Media Connections, to the next level.
"The Art of Social Change" is about bringing the best thinkers in children's issues and have them talk about how they made social change happen, I was blown away." said Heimpel. "I came back to S.F., created a strategic plan and started thinking about how to get an army of journalists."
Last semester, Heimpel's class presented a symposium on how to solve common foster care issues, in a room packed with many students, foster care specialists, journalists, and adults who made it through the system.
Congress woman, Karen Bass was present to support the cause and explained that congress argues about many things, but fixing the foster youth program requires bipartisan efforts. In a very emotional charged speech, Bass spoke about the the intent to solve foster care problems.
"The only time you ever hear about congress it's how dysfunctional we are." said Bass. "but what you never hear about is when we work together, and child welfare is an issue that we come together on a bi-partisan basis."
Bass explained that congress created a caucus to go around the country and learn about the foster system, which she believes is completely broken. She believes it is imperative that any legislative changes should involve people who are affected by the problem.
"Building an outside movement that says we need to transform the child welfare system is absolutely critical for us to get the work done inside the capital."
Students enrolled in the class came up in small groups and presented their reports on the subject. Reports on urban planning, pregnancy, parenting, the absence of sexual health education for foster youth, child welfare practices, girls in the juvenile justice system, accountability and academic achievement.
The students ended their symposium last semester, with a very moving piece of spoken word poetry by Christie Renick, who's mother was brought up in foster homes and struggled throughout her life because of it. With a major focus on pregnancy inside the foster system, an article by Renick on the Chronicle for Social Change website, states that:
"California is home to a total of about 56,000 foster youth, a little under half of whom are between the ages of 11 and 20. Experts estimate that a single pregnancy without complications (including prenatal care through birth and care immediately thereafter) costs the state between $5,000 and $7,000. According to research, about 7,500 (30 percent) of foster youth between the ages of 11 and 20 will become pregnant or father an unwanted child while they're in care. If half of these youth are female, then the research predicts there will be about 3,750 unplanned pregnancies within this population. If each pregnancy costs $5,000, paid for by Medi-Cal, the state can plan to spend about $18,750,000 on unplanned teen pregnancies."
With numbers like that, it is more than apparent that legislative changes are needed in the system and it begins with one person.
For more information visit The Chronicle for Social Change website.
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