April 27th Summary Notes
From Voices for Ohio's Children
Contents |
Notes
After a brief welcome and overview, Joan Englund provided an overview of the first meeting for participants. She then introduced Bridget Stewart of Voices, who provided an initial overview and walkthrough of the wiki that has been set up to support the TYP effort.
Wiki & Research Conducted
The purpose of the wiki is to have a venue for continued collaboration and dialogue, advancing our understanding of the issues and opportunities, and furthering our work in an online environment. Contents of the wiki include:
- Summary notes from each meeting of this early planning process
- Results of the initial research efforts on:
- National best practices, initiatives, and resources
- State and local planning efforts
- Local programs and services
The aforementioned three research efforts were briefly presented by Marcy Levy Shankman (national perspective), Gabriella Celeste (state and local planning efforts), and Doug Smith (local programs and services). Participants are encouraged to log on to the wiki and contribute to add to the content presented.
Youth Perspective
As a follow-up to the first meeting, participants were asked to speak with youth and bring to this second meeting their thoughts on what excites them about the future and what concerns them. The following list summarizes, in no particular order, thoughts gathered from youth. These thoughts were gathered by members of the group through their existing services, programs, and opportunities to engage directly with youth.
Youth are concerned about:
- How their mental health symptoms might interfere with their lives.
- How to engage with the world given their mental health issues.
- Whether they are ready to go to work?
- Being stigmatized.
- Whether medication is being properly prescribed.
- Whether friends will take advantage of them if they get themselves set-up well, and what the repercussions will be.
- Housing, jobs, and transportation (because they’re dependent on friends).
- How to pay for college and the decisions they need to make about classes once they’re at college.
- How to get information when they’re not in school or in a job.
- Healthcare
- When Medicaid runs out, where do they go? (18 or 21?)
- Where are kids going for healthcare?
- Getting mental health insurance is hard
- Being alone, not having family support
- Being/Becoming homeless
- Living alone and having others “prey” on them, e.g. friends or family moving in
Ideas from youth:
- Receive a pamphlet or notecard at home about what’s available or where to go.
- Want to be a good role model for others and want peer role models who can say, “Yes, I’ve been there, and now I’ve made it and I’m successful.”
- Want more help to succeed educationally at post-secondary level, even when they already acknowledge that getting through high school was hard and they had issues with it.
- Want to be at the table and have their voices heard
- Resources for social and recreational opportunities
- Want job and vocational training
Observations from providers:
- Pervasive sense of hopelessness
- “Transition” seems alien – some youth seem to expect that they’ll one day have the home and car, but don’t have a sense of how to get there
- Precarious nature of doing well – one small problem or bump can derail everything and then recovery is that much harder
- Many youth don’t have a pattern of success, so it’s hard to rebound
- Need mentoring
- Narrow world view (not much beyond own norm)
- Need to justify whatever is going on, e.g. why they’re still dealing with family when family issues have long been established to be difficult
- Youth are excited to be independent but don’t have realistic expectations
Participants are encouraged to contribute additional youth perspectives in an on-going fashion via the wiki.
Possible Future Action Steps
Based on these ideas, and the results of the research, participants brainstormed on possible action steps for this project to pursue. They include:
- Networking with existing programs and services – build pathways
- Creating a county-wide integrated youth planning forum (across systems) and have this be an on-going process
- Create a resource based on what youth want/need
- list resources/programs/services by life domain
- user’s guide for youth
- Campaign on transitional youth – to educate community/public about how they are still youth and not yet adults
- Identify ways to access money for post-secondary education & training
- Create a best practices model for transitional youth – a practical tool, e.g. individual plan developed by the individual
- Support for older youth/young adults to come back when they don’t fit into the adult system/setting
- Early preparation for career development and life skills
- Specialized case management (through 21 years old)
- Create advocacy effort (including number of transitional youth, challenges and opportunities)
- For raising awareness
- For resource development and allocation
- Create collaborations among service providers – connect community resources and providers
- Have youth and adult systems overlap
- Include non-profit hospitals as part of the project
- Create an internet “211” to provide a portal for youth to find services, programs, resources, etc. (e.g. clevelandyouthinfo.net)
Next Meeting: June 4, 2007, 9:00-11:00 a.m., YWCA Conference Center
Summary Notes From Other Meetings
Please click on the links below to view that meetings summary notes
March 13th Summary Notes
June 4th Summary Notes
July 24th Summary Notes
