I made a deal with myself yesterday that I would blog twice a month for mental health reasons. My fear is that I will get caught up with the day-to-day frustrations, which causes distractions that I'm not going to allow myself to afford. In working on foster care policy in the last year, I've noticed that is one of two main aberrations that most child welfare professionals encounter in their work. It is so easy to be distracted by the details, so by taking a little bit of time each month to step back and focus on the big picture, I can avoid this restraint, or contention (or whatever we want to call it).
The other distraction I noticed was that there are so many adults involved in one case, that it's easy to assume one simple responsibility will be covered by someone else. The problem is that each adult is so busy that most adults assume most tasks fall under the responsibility of someone else, so nothing gets done and the youth falls through the cracks. I have been able to point this out as it happens during work groups and committee meetings, but I have also seen in happening within OFYC meetings which is something I think is really important to avoid if we really want to make a difference.
The point of this post, though, is to update my many readers (aka, myself and my foster parents in Arizona) about OFYC and the progress we have been making. The last time I posted a legitimate update was in November, and I have about seven drafts since then but none that are even close to coherent. I have gotten pretty distracted with my own life, to the point where I had to write in my calendar a reminder to update my blog... Hopefully that gives you a sense of how chaotic my life has been.
In November, I encountered some biological family drama. Any foster kid knows that drama is a very ambiguous term when it is used in the same sentence as "biological family." This incident involved an awkward funeral, and combining foster family with biological family which is risky and emotionally exhausting alone. Death is also not something I am too familiar with, and I am not sure I have even had a chance to react yet. Immediately following this drama was more drama involving the "other side" of the biologicals. I flew to Texas, which I thought would be a great place to relax and recover, but I was wrong. I'm not sure the word "wrong" even begins to encompass all that happened in Texas. Needless to say, I will not be going back any time soon (aka, ever).
I intended to post around Christmas about the holidays and my plans with OFYC, but I was too distracted and before I knew it, Winter Term began. During Winter Term, I set up an internship for 12 credits (or 32 hours) at Children First for Oregon, which is the nonprofit that OFYC is calling home for the time being. I finished out the term in March, which is the month that OFYC has leadership elections. I did not run, and I'm still deciding if that was a good decision or not. I'm certain that come Summer, I will be happy with my decision; it makes more sense in the long run because come August, I have my own projects I want to work on which I wouldn't be able to do as president of a state-wide project.
I started my internship at Children First right after this election and it has its ups and downs. I love having a full work day with different things to do, and the office is full of women who I get a long with really well. I have my own little cube with my own little desk and I do my own thing, so I feel very spoiled. Sometimes, working so much on foster care policy and being surrounded by all of it surfaces some things I have buried in the past but other than that, I love my work and all the challenges it brings.
I have done a lot of OFYC work as well. Within the last two months, I have been training the new leadership team, coordinating the National Foster Care Month events like the Duffle Bag Drive and the filmed project, and recreating the OFYC website. I have done a lot of other relatively smaller things, such as creating a workshop on Sex Trafficking in Oregon and different kinds of activities like that.
Anyway, I have a couple more weeks on this internship and then I will be back in Eugene working on classes. I have decided to apply for the PPPM major in the Fall and graduate in the Spring. That gives me a year to develop my mentor project on campus and if the pilot is successful then the timing will be perfect in implementing the project at the other major universities in Oregon.
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