Fw: Articles that appeared in yesterday's SF Chronicle on FosterCare

[Bill Gould <wbgould@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here are several articles that appeared in yesterday's SF Chronicle on Foster Care

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NO REFUGE 
How California is failing its foster children
SF Chronicle Editorial Board

Sunday, September 11, 2005


A Chronicle Editorial Board Special Report 


Sade entered the foster-care system at age 13. 

Before then, she had been shuffled between a mother whose drug addiction made it difficult to care for her and a grandmother with neither the space nor the money to take on a child full time. 

Those may have been the more stable years of her life. 

Today, four years and seven homes later, Sade (pronounced SHAW-day) has become accustomed to substandard living conditions and even physical assaults. She has seen a succession of adults come into her life, offer a glimpse of hope, only to leave again. 

"No one ever stays," she said. 

Not the social workers, who would only appear when it was time to move her again, then never return her calls. Not the attorney, who was supposed to represent her, but whom she never even met. 

Not the group home owners or staff members, who didn't seem to care. 

Not her mother or her father. 

And not the state or the county, both of which became her official guardians once she was brought into the foster-care system. 

"I can't trust," she told a Chronicle editorial writer during their first meeting. 

Sade has every reason to be distrustful. In a system where courts, counselors, educators and social workers operate independently from one another, Sade -- like thousands of other young Californians in foster care -- fell through the cracks. She went from one group home to the next, with no sense of how long she would be there or to whom to turn if she needed help. 

In the state's broken foster-care system, this scenario has practically become a cliche. 

Despite her statement, it doesn't take long for her to prove that she's not the robot she claims the foster care has turned her into. 

On this second meeting, there is a big smile on her face as she greets a writer at the Hayward BART station near where she lives. 

Slowly, she goes beyond the stories and offers a little more of herself. 

"Want me to read you a poem I wrote?" she asks. 

She reaches for a tattered notebook in her small, black backpack. 

For those of y'all who'll listen 

To tell, I got a story 

About three girls' oppression 

And dehumanizing attempt at glory. 

Not all are ready for the truth 

So those that don't want to hear it can just ignore me 

But for those who do listen 

Don't just stand up 

Grab somebody and hold them for me. 

The poem, she says, is called "Pro lyfe," meaning "prostitute life." Sade should know something about the topic -- she had been living with teenage prostitutes for the majority of her time in the system. 

One of her roommates, she says, used to sneak tricks into their room while Sade pretended to sleep. 

She didn't know why she was placed in group homes with girls who were considered the most troubled and at risk. She was never in trouble with the law. Her only crime was being born to a mother who couldn't care for her, and a father who never tried. 

Apparently, no one cared enough to see that this group home was the wrong placement for her. 

So she sought refuge through writing. She wrote in her journal while she lay in bed, and sometimes during church services. No one knew she was a poet until she decided to let them in on her secret. 

"We were at a conference," said Tiffany Johnson, communication coordinator for the California Youth Connection, a nonprofit, foster-youth advocacy organization led by current and former foster youth. "She was very shy, but at the conference she was compelled by all the other people just like her who shared their stories. All of a sudden, she just went on stage and began reciting one of her poems. Everyone was amazed." 

Her powerful presence and poignant words may have grabbed everyone's attention at the conference, but in the foster-care system, Sade never felt she had a voice at all. 



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Her grandmother had no choice but to give her up. 
In California, relatives of foster-care youth are not reimbursed when they take the children in. As a result, Sade's grandmother, like many other relatives of foster children, could no longer care for her. 

"When a grandmother or an aunt or any relative takes in one of these kids, it's seen as their moral obligation to do so," said Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), who is sponsoring a bill on foster-care reform. "But if you have a grandmother on a fixed income with no support from the state to raise this child, what does she do?" 

On the federal level, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, are co-sponsors of the "Kinship Caregiver Support Act," which aims to provide monetary and emotional support for the more than 6 million children being raised nationwide by grandparents or other relatives. 

After leaving her grandmother's house, Sade was forced to live in a homeless shelter with her mom and older sister until, one day, her mother never came back to the shelter. Sade found out later that her mother had gone back to drugs. 

Ideally, foster care would have provided a short-term refuge for the sisters. Instead, it provided years of confusion, frustration and uncertainty. 

"I remember them taking me and my sister, but not telling us where we were going," she said. "Then we were put in this house where there were already seven other foster kids. Did I feel anyone cared about us? No. You just do what you do." 

Sade's older sister, Nikkia, remembers the house being like a prison. 

"We were locked in the house all the time," she said during a phone interview. "We couldn't go outside. We couldn't talk on the phone. We couldn't watch TV." 

Sade didn't see her assigned social worker until it was time to leave. After a month, the worker said it was time to be reunified with her mother. 

"I thought it would be better than being in the system," said Sade. 

But it was worse. With her mom relapsing yet again, there were frequent arguments and physical abuse. 

"I called the social worker to come get me. I thought, 'At least in the system, they can't hit me or tell me to leave because they're being paid to have me there,' " she said. 

Nikkia couldn't understand why her sister would choose strangers over their own mother. 

"I didn't want to tell her she was stupid for choosing foster care, but I thought it," she said. 

>From that moment on, Sade would be lost in California's convoluted system -- until May 31, 2006, her 18th birthday and the day she "ages out" of the system. 



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Sade sat in an assessment center for five hours answering various questions about her health, after which she was assigned to a level-13 group home -- the highest level reserved for the most troubled kids. 
"This was my first group home. Why would they place me in a level so high, with prostitutes? What had I done to be grouped with them?" she asked. 

"They just didn't care about where I was coming from or who I was." 

On her first day, Sade walked into a filthy room where sheets were hung to cover the windows and garbage and dirty clothes were strewn across the floor. 

"There were about six girls, just all yelling and swearing at each other," she said. 

"I was basically invisible when I walked into that group home." 

But not for long. 

That first night, Sade said the other girls surrounded her like vultures, asking her questions about who she was and why she was there. 

But Sade refused to answer, opting instead to face the wall and stare at the mold that had accumulated in the corner. 

"They weren't there to get to know me," she said. "They were scoping out my stuff to see what I had. After that, they started stealing from me." 

Sade said they stole clothes and money and rifled her belongings. 

"The most disrespectful thing anyone could do to me was steal my stuff," she said. 

Numerous fights between other housemates and thefts went on for weeks, then months. Sade called her social worker repeatedly to let her know she wanted to be transferred. 

But the social worker never returned her calls. 

"I couldn't take it anymore, so I went AWOL," she said. "I went downstairs one day early in the morning because the smell was so bad upstairs. One of the staff workers cussed me out for coming downstairs. That was it for me." 

Sade had heard about a homeless shelter for teens in Sacramento, so she hopped on a Greyhound bus with the $100 she had saved and headed north. She spent two nights there, but because she was officially assigned to Alameda County, the workers at the shelter told her she couldn't stay. 

She had no money left to get back on a bus, and nowhere to go. 

"I called the county office and they told me that my case was transferred to another social worker," she said. "She actually called me back and picked me up." 



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The new social worker placed Sade in a new group home in Richmond, where she lasted for only one week. More than half of the girls were prostitutes and all were fiercely territorial. 
On her first day, Sade got in a physical fight with one of the other girls whom she had caught trying to steal one of her favorite sweatshirts. Once again, she called her social worker to request a transfer. 

"I just wanted to go somewhere where I could go home and not be beaten or stolen from," she said. "I wasn't going to stop until I found that place." 

Sade was now 14 years old and in her third group home, where she stayed for seven months before being moved again. By her fifth group home, she had dropped out of school. 

"Everyone in the system who dealt with me knew I was failing. Nobody tried to help me in school, they just kicked me out," she said. 

"There was nobody saying 'Try harder' or 'You can do it.' There was only my voice, and when that's the only thing you hear, it gets pretty hard." 

It wasn't until her sixth and final group home that things finally started turning around. Her mom began calling her more, though Sade never thought of going back to live with her. Her social worker was more involved with her. The girls in the new group home were less combative, and even bordered on being friendly at times. She went back to school. 

"The woman who owned the group home actually cared," she said. "She wouldn't let us go out or to school looking ragged. If we did stuff that was against the rules, we would get punished." 

Sade's grades went from F's to C's. She even got a job, working as a child-care intern at a day-care center in Oakland. 

"I was 15 and I was starting to feel independent," she said. "I brought my first paycheck to a bank and opened a savings account. I took out $10 to buy my lunch, and that's when I knew I could do things for myself." 

But Sade was still void of emotional support. She learned her mother had cancer -- she never found out what type because her mother refused to talk about it -- and her father was near death from years of heart complications. 

There was no one to turn to. 



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Fast approaching 16, Sade was just two years short of "aging out" of the system. At 18, she would be completely cut off from all county services -- no housing, allowance, counseling, medical assistance or educational support, what little there was of it. 
She heard about a transitional program called the Bay Area Youth Center, where they would prepare her for independent living. She could transfer to an apartment and learn how to cook and budget her money. With the trauma of her mom's cancer and her father's illness, she saw it as the best way out. 

"I'd rather be alone than surrounded by people and not have any emotional support," she said. 

In November 2004 she packed up, as she had grown so accustomed to doing. 

When her social worker brought her to the new apartment in Hayward, she thought it was a joke. 

"I said, 'Are you sure this is where I'm going to live?' " she laughed, pointing toward her complex with its pool, Jacuzzi and exercise room. 

On the exterior, its sienna and sandy tones exude a Santa Fe-meets-suburban-luxury charm. Within walking distance are a grocery store and several coffee shops and restaurants. 

She walks to the BART station, where she catches the Oakland train to her job as a youth-led evaluator for the California Youth Connection. 

She goes to various group homes -- similar to the ones she felt trapped in for so many years -- conducting surveys and monitoring their growth. 

"When I was in these homes, I would listen to these girls and I would think, 'I wish I could help you, but how can I help when I'm down here with you?' I had to climb out," she said. 

And she's still climbing. 

"Sade has gained so much knowledge and found internal support for herself to not become a negative force in society. She inspires the other youth with her conviction," said Timothy Evans, Sade's supervisor at the California Youth Connection. 

Sade has a look of determination when she says where she's going: Spellman College in Atlanta, Ga. She hasn't been accepted yet, but she has been studying for her SATs and won't even consider what will happen if she doesn't make it. 

The historically black liberal arts college for women, she says, would provide enough distance for a new beginning. In addition, she says the school has a great sociology program, which is what she wants to major in. Afterward, she hopes to come back to California and work on reforming the state's foster-care system. 

This, Sade says, is the most stable and happiest she has ever been -- and at the same time, she says she's "terrified." 

"In a year, I'm officially out of the system. That's it," she says. "It's like all of a sudden you're 18 and they expect you to be an adult, but the system doesn't teach you to be an adult. 

"It's one thing to be sad about being in the system but still have a roof over your head. It's another to be sad and homeless and unemployed. That's what the stats say I will become." 



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Sade speeds up her words and begins to walk faster, almost strutting. She is almost back at the BART station where she met the writer two hours earlier. She closes her eyes and begins to move rhythmically to her words. 
She be sellin' her body 

How I know 'cuz' she used to cry every night 

In her bed right beside me. 

She be sellin' her body 

I know 'cuz' she used to tell me her scandalous stories 

In her bed, right beside me. 

She said she got a tattoo her back that says "ride me" 

And I don't know why, but for some reason she felt 

She could confide in me. 

She turns to the writer and hands her the tattered notebook and the journal she kept throughout the different group homes. These, she says, will help her understand what it was like in the system. 

She places her BART ticket in the slot and disappears -- one foster kid out of 80,000 whose chances of becoming homeless, unemployed, pregnant and on public assistance grows greater with every day the system remains broken. 

"This system doesn't raise children, it raises robots," she said. "You have to stop yourself from feeling, from trusting, getting hurt, or angry. You have to move from place to place and feel nothing. That's what a robot does." 

But Sade is not a robot. And while she may have lost all trust in the system and those in it, she has learned to depend on and have faith in herself. 

In California's foster-care system, she had no choice. 



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Foster-care children facts 
Nearly a third will become homeless at some time within the first year after they leave the system at age 18. 

65 percent of California youth graduating from foster care in fiscal year 2000-01 were in need of affordable housing. 

Fewer than 10 percent enroll in college and only 1 percent actually graduate. 

50 percent will become unemployed. 

Emancipated youth earn an average of $6,000 per year -- well below the national poverty level of $7,890. 

25 percent will become incarcerated within the first two years after they leave the system. 

One-third will be on public assistance shortly after aging out. 

67 percent of emancipated females from California's child welfare system had at least one birth within five years of leaving the system. 

Source: Children's Law Center of Los Angeles 



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I'm a Robot / By Sade 
I'm a robot, I'm a robot 

You can't come in 

'Cuz' I got the do' locked. 

Been moved around too much 

That's why I got the do' locked. 

Momma been left, 

Daddy just ain't givin' a damn. 

So where else could I go? 

Except to live with Uncle Sam? 

Screw a village, 

I was raped by the government 

Corrupted minds, manipulated crime 

What happened to God's covenant? 

How the hell 

Can the system try to be my mother 

When they can't stop people 

>From 'jackin' planes with box cutters? 

When I was 14, 

I was worth a monthly 5 G's. 

They got cashed out, 

Yet you can't see me in no Nikes. 

And an allowance 

You get less than likely 

So hell to the yea, I stole 

When I thought they looked pricey 

Group home usin' 

Sheets for curtains 

While the owner got his Navigator 

Parked on the curve, and 

Her kids came by sometimes 

Always fitted 

While we got our group home van 

And ain't ever no gas in it. 


Note to readers: Sade's last name was withheld because of her age and status as a foster-care youth. 

Page C - 1




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EDITORIAL 
Deadbeat state

Sunday, September 11, 2005

SF Chronicle Submissions
Letters to the Editor
Open Forum
Sunday Insight
 

If the state of California, its counties and its communities are each responsible for raising the 80,000-plus foster children in the system, we are all guilty of being deadbeat parents. 

For too long, California has failed -- and continues to -- in its obligation to provide homes and hope to tens of thousands of children in its foster-care system. 

Further disabling the disjointed and underfunded system is a silo-type structure with standards that vary widely from county to county. Most often, the abused and neglected youth who enter the system are essentially left to fend for themselves as they bounce from home to home until they emancipate, or "age out," at 18. 

At that point, they really are on their own. 

This is not someone else's problem. Californians have a moral and compassionate covenant to provide safety, care and guidance to the kids who have been given into the custody of the state. 

Californians also must confront the practical reality of what happens when young adults emerge from this broken system without the life skills to become productive contributors to society. 

Many of these youth go straight from dependency to delinquency once they emancipate. 

Highlighting the effect this flawed structure has on these children and on society are several recent reports. They paint a bleak picture. 

Within two to four years after youth emancipate from foster care, 51 percent are unemployed. 

More than 40 percent are on public assistance. 

Nearly one-third are homeless within the first year after leaving the system. 

One in 5 will be incarcerated. 

In addition, emancipated youth experience higher rates of mental illness and unwanted pregnancies. 

"We can either invest in these kids now, or pay later. That's a guarantee," said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization that represents more than 80 percent of the abused and neglected children in the Los Angeles Superior Court's Dependency Court system. 

In addition, several reports have cited serious deficiencies within the foster-care system: 

-- A 2003 report by the Little Hoover Commission criticized the system's lack of leadership and accountability. 

-- In 2004, the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care called for more collaboration between agencies and the courts. 

-- In Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2004 California Performance Review Report, foster care was called a "system in crisis" in need of more state leadership. 

Yet the governor slashed $3.5 million from the state's 2005-06 budget for foster care. The funds were to beef up resources to address the deficiencies in the foster-care system cited by a federal performance evaluation. California failed in every category in 2004. Despite these reports, nothing has been done. Meanwhile, thousands of children continue to languish in a system that everyone agrees is in disrepair, yet no one will take responsibility to repair. 

Foster care in California is a county-run operation, where each of the 58 counties has its own differing philosophy. In the Bay Area, Alameda County had the largest number of foster kids in 2004, with 3,857, followed by San Francisco with 2,311, then Contra Costa County with 2,024. 

Services, such as finance, judicial, educational and mental health, vary widely from county to county. Collaboration between agencies and among programs that assist youth in locating relatives barely exists and if it does, is dysfunctional. 

A child's quality of care in the system and chances of succeeding, therefore, are at the mercy of the system in whatever county they end up in. 

If that weren't problematic enough, within these counties are various agencies that also operate independently from one another. These include the departments of social services, health services, mental health, developmental services, drug and alcohol, justice, education and the offices of criminal-justice planning. 

With no system in place that ensures collaboration and cohesion among these myriad agencies -- and among the state's counties -- the system continues to operate like a ship without a captain, with no clear direction, leadership or oversight. 

"Everyone has a piece, but no one has ownership," said Curtis L. Child, senior attorney for the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law. 

With California far and away the national leader in foster-care cases (there were more than 86,000 youth in foster care in California in 2004; New York came in second with 29,680), every social worker and attorney faces an overwhelming caseload. 

Oftentimes, foster children aren't even aware they have an attorney, and many complain that calls to social workers often go unreturned. 

In addition to overwhelming caseloads and a lack of skilled workers, the system's most troubling deficiencies include funding that promotes the removal of a child from the home, lack of permanency, lack of support for relatives of foster children who take them in, lack of educational support and lack of programs assisting youth about to emancipate. 

This year, there were more than 30 bills introduced in the Legislature on foster care, according to Child. These bills range in topics, including those mentioned above. 

But while this legislation deals with important issues, it is a piecemeal approach to a much larger problem. 

"Until there is committed leadership and performance accountability in the system, major change and better outcomes for children will also be piecemeal," said Child. 

Proposed legislation by Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), would, for the first time, create a Child Welfare Council that would bring together leaders from judicial, child welfare, health, education and mental-health agencies to identify and resolve the barriers within the system. 

"The gist is to call for centralization and eliminate all the silos," said Bass. "We have to come up with a fix so these children and these families can feel the change. But this bill is just the start." 

Bass is pulling together key players from different agencies, in addition to finding people "most affected" by foster care -- children, grandmothers, foster parents -- to participate in planning meetings in September, then public hearings in October. 

Bass will use the information gathered from these hearings to build out the specific details for her Child Welfare Council bill AB863. 

Bass is right. This bill is only a start. Children in the foster-care system have seen enough instability in their own homes. The state, its counties and its communities must put an end to the instability in foster care -- a system whose purpose is to be a refuge for these youth, not a trap. 

"You judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens," said Bass. 

In our society, these children belong to all of us. Let's give them a chance to grow, learn, flourish and succeed in life -- an opportunity that every child should have. 



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The Chronicle recommends 
This year, there were more than 30 bills introduced on foster care and child welfare in the Legislature. While they are piecemeal solutions until major structural changes are made to the system, the following bills are a good start to improving the lives of youth in foster care: 

AB863: Child Welfare Council. (Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista) Creates a high-level statewide Child Welfare Council and provides increased coordination among the main agencies now providing fragmented services to children. (Status: Held over for next year) 

AB1261: Education. (Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco) Requires an organized process for school placements for foster youth and requires local educational agencies to provide explanation of the placement or enrollment, if disputed by a parent or guardian. (Status: Passed legislation Thursday; on governor's desk) 

AB1633: Supplemental Security Income for disabled foster children. (Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa) Requires the Department of Social Services to develop guidelines for county welfare departments to help foster youth who are unable to get federal Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability benefits. This bill would also extend the opportunity to remain in foster care beyond the age of 18 if the youth is pursuing a high school equivalency certificate. (Status: Passed legislation on Sept. 2; on governor's desk) 

AB1412: Permanency. (Leno) This bill would give foster youth the right to be involved in his or her own case plan and plan for permanent placement. The bill would also give those ages 12 and older the right to review his or her case plan. (Status: Passed Thursday; on governor's desk) 

SB436: Housing. (Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco) Requires a county Department of Social Services to provide annual reports of available transitional housing resources in relation to the number of emancipating pregnant or parenting foster youth in the county, and a plan for meeting any unmet housing needs for these youth. (Status: Pending in the Legislature.) 



About the series 
The state of California's foster-care system is a disgrace. The effects of this failing system on the young people it is supposed to serve -- and the policy reforms that are needed to improve it -- will be a continuing focus of this editorial page. Today's editorials were researched and written by editorial writer Pati Poblete, who will stay with the issue. Send your feedback and tips to editorials@sfchronicle.com. 

-- John Diaz, editorial page editor 

Page C - 4


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EDITORIAL 
Against all odds

Sunday, September 11, 2005
SF Chronicle
 
Letters to the Editor
Open Forum
Sunday Insight


Georgette Todd sits under an umbrella in a sun-splashed food court in downtown Oakland, where she works as a copy clerk for a real-estate exchange company. It's her lunch hour, and in her green slacks, dark blouse, chandelier earrings and with an air of defiance, she looks every bit the recent college graduate with a new job. 

Just a month earlier, she was delivering the graduation speech at Mills College in Oakland where she earned her master's degree in fine arts. 

A few cities away, in Martinez, 22-year-old Chris Purcell sits in his neat cubicle wearing his urban Sean John outfit -- button-down, crisp white shirt and knee-length denim shorts. 

He talks about the advocacy group he works for that helps foster youth transition out of the system, and the difference he hopes to make while pursuing a master's degree in psychology at California State University East Bay. 

By all accounts, both Todd and Purcell appear to be the products of solid, stable upbringings. 

But they aren't -- far from it. 

Todd, 24, was transferred from county to county in Southern California. Purcell began his journey in New York, after which he was moved to Southern California, then the Bay Area. 

Both are products of the state's flawed and disjointed foster-care system, and, according to several reports, could have easily become homeless, unemployed, incarcerated or on public assistance within a year after emancipating from the foster-care system. 

The difference was that both came across someone who cared about them and what they did with their lives -- something that rarely happens in the foster-care system. 

For the 20,000 youth nationwide who emancipate -- or "age out" -- of the foster-care system every year, nothing is more terrifying than the number 18. 

It is on this birthday that these youth, many abused and neglected before entering the system, are expected to instantly become responsible adults. While many children outside of the system are eager to leave home at this point, their parents often serve as a safety net in times of financial or emotional need. 

Emancipated foster children do not have this luxury. 

They are moved from house to house, forming few, if any, long-lasting ties to any of the adults they are forced to live with. Then, at 18, they are instantly cut off from a system that never prepared them to live on their own. 

Todd can attest to the need for reform, which is why she often speaks publicly on the topic. Last fall, she addressed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for a foster-care czar with her piece "Pick Me," which she read on National Public Radio's "Perspectives:" 

"Gov. Schwarzenegger, recently you announced you'll appoint a "foster-care czar," whose sole purpose will be to make life better for abused and neglected children. It's a big job, but I found the perfect candidate: me. I might be young and I may not know the right people, but I do know the system." 

She never heard back from the Capitol, and the governor has yet to name that czar. 

"I had to be my own social worker because mine was never around," she said. "She never returned my calls. I was put in an orphanage, where there was one teacher responsible for teaching 30 kids of all ages. I wanted an education. That was my ticket out, and I wasn't getting it." 

If she weren't so outspoken about her past, no one would ever know that Todd, a seemingly together young woman, had been bounced from foster homes to orphanages with her sister since she was 14. Or that she was put in the system because her mother died of an overdose of pain medication and her stepfather, whom everyone called "Mad Dog," was jailed for child endangerment and molestation. 

In total, she estimates she was moved about a dozen times. After a while, she simply lost count. 

"When I finally got ahold of my social worker, we were in a foster home where they weren't giving us our allowance and I only had two outfits," she said. "We weren't allowed to sit on the furniture, we had to sit on the floor and they locked up all the food in cabinets. 

"But all the social worker said was, 'You should feel lucky that someone even took you and your sister in.' " 

She was lucky, but not for the reasons the social worker gave. 

When she was 16, her lawyer's best friend decided to take her in as a foster child and allowed her to stay with her until she emancipated. She taught her how to budget her money, encouraged her to find jobs and gave her the confidence she needed to apply for admission to different colleges. 

"When I turned 18, she could have kicked me out, but she allowed me to stay until I got into college," she said. "But I still had that fear that she would kick me out at any time. That's just how everything went in my life." 

But she never kicked her out, and, eventually, Todd moved from San Diego County when she was accepted to California State University Sacramento. She first majored in English with a minor in journalism, and then went on to Mills College in Oakland to earn her master's degree. 

Todd is one of the less than 1 percent of emancipated youth who earn college degrees. 

She now travels the state giving speeches on foster care and writes a regular column called "Emancipation Proclamation" for Empower!, a newsletter for California policy-makers. 

In addition, she is working on a memoir, called "38," the caliber of the bullet lodged in her mother's head during a botched methamphetamine deal. Afterward, she plans to write a second book chronicling her years in foster care. 

"I live in the past. I know you're not supposed to, but I have all these stories to tell. I can't help it." 

Like Todd, Purcell was moved to more than a dozen group homes and orphanages. His mother was a drug addict. His stepfather dragged him and his younger brother from state to state until they reached South Central Los Angeles, where county workers deemed him to be an unfit parent and placed Purcell in a group home. 

"They were more like prisons," he said. "To me, it felt like the adults were there to work, not take care of you. We were treated like numbers, not children." 

Purcell never saw his social worker, and didn't even know he had an attorney until he had already emancipated. 

That's not surprising. Although California is one of the few states that require each foster child to have legal representation, the caseloads are so great, most foster youth aren't even aware that they have an attorney. 

"They're assigned to a lawyer the minute they're taken from their home," said attorney Miriam Krinsky, who heads the Children's Law Center in Los Angeles. "There should be about 100 foster cases per lawyer, but there are some places where they can have up to 1,000." 

According to Judge William Thorne of the Utah Court of Appeals and a member of the Pew Commission on Children on Foster Care, "There are, in some locations, children's attorneys who carry a caseload of 2,000. In my mind, that is unconscionable." 

In 2003, Fresno had the highest number of caseloads in California, averaging 616 clients per attorney. 

Because Purcell was often the smallest child in the group homes, he was frequently bullied and beaten up. But neither the staff workers nor his assigned social worker ever helped, he said. 

But being beaten, he said, did not compare to his worst day in the system, during which he had been living in a co-ed group home. 

"When I was 14, one of the females in the house got raped by one of the staff workers. We told the social worker and they transferred her somewhere, then they transferred me to another group home," he said. 

Purcell went from bad to worse, moving from one county system to the next to be close to his stepfather, until finally, he met a foster parent who actually cared. 

"I was already 15 and she would tuck me in and give me a kiss on the forehead goodnight," he said. "I never had anyone do that before. It was soothing. I stayed there until I emancipated." 

When he turned 16, Mark Cruise, who worked as an outreach specialist for the Independent Living Skills Program for Contra Costa County, began calling him, then coming to his house. 

"I kept thinking, 'What does he want?' " said Purcell. "Then he said, 'I want you to succeed.' " 

And that's all it took. One foster parent, who showed that he cared, and a social worker determined to prevent him from becoming a statistic. 

Now Purcell works for Cruise as a speaker's bureau consultant, focusing on community and youth outreach. He works with youth about to emancipate, bringing them on college visits and helping them with their applications. 

He realizes that by the time the youth are about to age out, much damage has already been done. Foster care, the way it works now, he says, does nothing to prepare you for a successful, independent life. 

"They shouldn't have to wait to come here to learn independent living skills -- it should start the minute the kid is taken from the home. This system is supposed to be in the best interests of the child, but how can it be when it doesn't show you how to live? 

"At least in this job, I can say, 'If you come here and listen, you will succeed. Here, we'll show you how to live, not talk down to you. Here, somebody really does care about what happens to you.' " 

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