Positive changes in youth services here show value of working together

Last year, a short film called "ReMoved" circulated widely throughout social and mainstream media, receiving millions of views, multiple awards and thousands of comments from people around the world.

Created by a couple who found inspiration while in foster parent training, the film features the powerful story of a 9-year-old girl removed from her abusive birth home and placed into foster care.

Although fictional, it is a story that illustrates the very real hope and challenges that exist in the foster care system, and as the success of the film shows, it is a story that needs to be told.

It has also continued a dialogue into how we — as communities, public entities and social service providers — are best meeting the needs of these at-risk youth and their families, and what we can do better.

Let us recognize National Foster Care Month this May by embracing the efforts of our foster care families and better understanding several critical changes to the way we service at-risk youth in Hawaii.

Nationwide there are nearly 400,000 children in foster care, according to the most recent data available (2012), from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Hawaii accounted for 1,101 of those children — a consistent decrease each year from 1,506 in 2009.

The largest percentage of the national total — at 47 percent — were in nonrelative foster family homes, with half eventually reunited with their parents or primary caretakers. The median age of these children was 8½ years old.

Hale Kipa, a nonprofit organization that improves the lives of youth through a variety of programs, including foster care services, often determines that youth are best served by being placed in a traditional home setting. We match a particular youth with the family that will best meet their needs at a difficult time, and that family then provides care and structure as it teaches living skills and healthy relationships.

Central to Hale Kipa’s efforts is the "trauma-informed approach," which is sensitive to the variety of ways that young people experience trauma — and the variety of programs that could be helpful to them.

Most recently, we have seen steps statewide to embrace this approach, with the integration of the "wraparound" model of delivering services, whereby the needs of the youth determine how services are delivered, not the structure of the system.

Two pilot projects at Child Welfare and at Juvenile Justice will make this model an integral part of the foster care continuum.

A related concept being adapted for Hawaii by the Department of Human Services is a waiver for federal foster care money, allowing agencies to redirect these funds to keep youth out of placement or to get them out more quickly. Once they are back in the community, they can be "wrapped" with services to help them succeed.

In addition, the state Department of Health continues to provide year-long training on a treatment model that incorporates trauma-sensitive techniques for youth to help with emotions and problems related to traumatic life events.

In this past year, we have seen an extension by state law of foster care to youth 18 to 21 years of age. Historically, at age 18, children have "aged out" of the child welfare system, as well as the juvenile justice system and the Department of Education. This "gap group" of people ages 18 to 22 often experiences challenges in finding services sensitive to their unique needs. This recent legislation changes that, providing much-needed support to our youth at a critical time.

These major changes in the way we think about youth services not only prove that a higher level of collaboration among state agencies and the nonprofit sector is feasible, but that we can all continue to enhance our efforts to best serve our at-risk youth.