Product Description

"Beyond the Foster Care System is a powerful tool to help youths in foster care move to fully engaged lives in our society. Through the stories of wonderful young people we learn how to build on their strengths, abilities, and ambition to help them succeed."
-Marian Wright Edelman, President and Founder, Children's Defense Fund

"Here is a lively, knowing, socially alert scholarship – a way for us to understand what our country’s youth need, want, and desperately ought to have: the interested, compassionate attention of their fellow citizens."
-Dr. Robert Coles, Pulitzer Prize winning author.

"This book offers brilliant insights into helping disadvantaged teenagers turn their lives around. It is gripping to read, offering very engaging stories of young people struggling to find a place in the adult world."
-Francine Cournos, professor of clinical psychiatry, Columbia University

"Every reader will be touched by this book; no one can turn away from the power of the real people who live in it. And while there is not yet a happy ending to the tragic aspects of the foster care system, the good news Krebs and Pitcoff deliver, in their clear, wonderfully readable book, is that there is hope."
-Earl Shorris, author of Riches for the Poor

Each year tens of thousands of teenagers are released from the foster care system in the United States without high school degrees or strong family relationships. Two to four years after discharge, half of these young people still do not have either a high school diploma or equivalency degree, and fewer than ten percent enter college. Nearly a third end up on public assistance within fifteen months, and eventually more than a third will be arrested or convicted of a crime.

In this richly detailed and often surprising exploration of the foster care system, Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff argue that the existing structure sets kids up to fail by inadequately preparing them for adult life. Foster care programs traditionally emphasize goals of reuniting children with family or placing children into adoptive homes. But neither of these outcomes is likely for adolescents. Krebs and Pitcoff contend that the primary goal of foster care for teenagers should be rigorous preparation for a fully productive adult life and that the standard life skills curriculum is woefully inadequate for this purpose.

The authors, who together cofounded the Youth Advocacy Center in New York City, draw on their fifteen years of experience working with teens and the foster care system to introduce new ways to teach teens to be responsible for themselves and to identify and develop their potential. They also explore what sorts of resources—legal, financial, and human—will need to come from inside and outside the system to more fully humanize the practice of foster care. Ultimately, Krebs and Pitcoff argue that change must involve the participation of caring communities of volunteers who want to see disadvantaged youth succeed as well as developing methods to empower teens to take control of their lives.

Bringing together a series of inspiring, real-life accounts, Beyond the Foster Care System introduces readers to a number of dynamic young people who have participated in the Youth Advocacy Center’s programs and who have gone on to apply these lessons to other areas of life. Their stories demonstrate that more successful alternatives to the standard way of providing foster care are not only imaginable, but possible. With the practical improvements Krebs and Pitcoff outline, teens can learn the skills of effective self-advocacy, become better prepared for the transition to full independence, and avoid becoming the statistics that foster care has so often produced in the past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #698592 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 264 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780813538280
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"This book offers brilliant insights into helping disadvantaged teenagers turn their lives around. It is gripping to read, offering very engaging stories of young people struggling to find a place in the adult world." - Francine Cournos, professor of clinical psychiatry, Columbia University"

About the Author

Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff co-founded Youth Advocacy Center in New York City to teach teenagers to be advocates for themselves and take control of their lives. Using their backgrounds in law and higher education, they created a model of using the Socratic case method to teach teens self-advocacy and prepare them for informational interviews in the community. Their Getting Beyond the System(r) model and books, On Your Own as a Young Adult, are used nationally to help teens in and at risk of foster care. For her work at Youth Advocacy Center, Betsy was awarded a fellowship from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, and was elected to the Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global organization which identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs. Betsy is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was an attorney representing foster care children for four years. Paul is an attorney who previously was a filmmaker and founding chair of the Communications Department at Adelphi University, where he was a tenured professor for 20 years, and where he is now is Professor Emeritus.

Customer Reviews

For those interested in an elightened society
A book for all those interested in a society that is serious about "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff have devised this innovative, intelligent, sensitive system to help unfortunate teenagers take control of their own lives, and become contributing members of the communities in which they live. Their description of their method, the voices of the teenagers themselves, and all their efforts to expand this brilliant idea, should make this book compulsory reading for anyone involved in foster care. And for those of us who long for a kinder understanding of children in difficult situations, this book is enlightening. Even if all you're looking for is to reduce drug addition and all the crime associated with it, then read this clear and beautiful book. Many answers are here.

Well written
This book tells an important story a sad story but a story that we --as society--can make better. There are thousands of foster care teens who age out of the system between 18-21 and they aren't prepared or educated well enough to know how to deal with the outside world. For example--- how to interview for a job or where to go for services that could help them---- consequently many end up homeless or on drugs or welfare that drains the taxpayers money. The authors have created a new and proven approach that changes these teens lives. Read the book it's an awakening. and well written.

A Brighter Future for Teens Beyond the System
Beyond the Foster Care System: The Future for Teens is a compelling, eye-opening, easy read that shines light on an often overlooked topic. The true stories of teens Betsy and Paul have worked with put these issues in the context of real people and give a human voice to teens transitioning out of foster care. Their perseverance, dedication, and triumph in the face of adversity are a genuine inspiration to all. Youth Advocacy Center, Inc. does work that is important, necessary, and deserving of attention.