When I talk about the real foster care experts, you probably think I am talking about some overpaid policy makers. Well, that's not who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the youth in the foster care system. We have been the real experts since foster care was first created. We are not acknowledged as the experts, but we know what works and what doesn't.

The way the current foster care system is set up, youth do not have a voice. I don't mean meeting twice a year to tell the staff how bad they are, or to say how you can't stand your social worker. I'm talking about an organized voice, where youth come together, give feedback about the system, and help develop solutions for the problems we've experiences for years.

In my opinion, any agency that provides services to people should allow those people to give feedback about the quality of the services. Foster care staff meet regularly to discuss how they can better serve clients and their families, but how can they really know what needs improvement if we, the clients who receive their services, are not giving them feedback, about the jobs they're doing?

Partners in Change - So the question is, are they genuinely interested in knowing if their services are helping people? In my experience, foster care agencies are more concerned with getting the job done than with improving what they do. We young people have never been involved in deciding how the system could be changed, although we experience the impacts of living in foster care every day.

When you come into the system, most of the immediate decisions about your life are made by people who you will never meet, or by people who you and your family will meet once and possibly never see again.

I know there are limits to our involvement. Youth may not be able to participate in balancing an agency's budget, but they should definitely be able to have more input in where they are placed or the training of foster parents. We need to become more involved in why and how decisions are made about us.

Youth should be looked at as partners in change, not as dysfunctional "problem children" who don't know what they want or who can't be trusted to make decisions about their futures.

The foster care system has so many problems, so why have they been so resistant to having youth help them make changes?

NO REAL YOUTH INPUT: So I ask myselfÑ do they really want to change the system? I am still trying to figure out the answer. I don't understand how they can say they are, if youth aren't more involved. I heard a child welfare commissioner say at a press conference, ÒWe have youth input.Ó But at the time I was the only youth advisor to this commissioner's Executive Advisory Cabinet. At that same press conference, none of the reports asked, "What did the youth have to say?" I'm sure the commissioner would have been shocked if some one asked that, because she would have had nothing to report.

WE WANT REAL CHANGE: There is no way the foster care system can be changed with in put only from social workers, staff, supervisors, and child welfare commissioners. They are not the ones who sleep in the group homes. They are not the ones who are being discharged to the streets due to a lack of Independent Living Services. They are not the teen mothers who have been separated from their children, be cause no one planned ahead of time for a proper placement. Nor are the the ones who have been abused by their foster parents.

Child welfare officials need to realize that we don't want rap sessions to talk about our grudges. We want to start making real changes in the system. We want to break down the walls of silence between adults and youth, and start reforming the system so it can work effectively for all of us. When are they going to realize that they must listen to the voices of those they are responsible for?

A YOUTH ADVISORY COUNCIL: Youth in care and foster care staff can get along and work together, but we must listen to each other and work as a team. One solutions to the system's problems could be a Youth Advisory Council. The council would be made up of youth who are currently in the system or who used to be in the system. The main goal of the council would be to inform child welfare officials about our needs and possible solutions to the current problems.

Each agency should have their own Youth Council, which would chose one or more representatives to serve on the main Youth Advisory Council.

CREATING A PLAN: The main Council should meet frequently with top officials of the Administration for Children Services to work on strategies for change and reform. With the help of child welfare officials, the Council will be able to monitor services and work with out side organizations and programs that could help provide youth with better independent living and ten parenting services.

To improve the system, we need to work more closely with educational specialists, housing programs and community centers outside foster care. These resources could take the strain off the Administration for Children's Services. But we need to work together and create a plan and make sure it's followed through.

To do so, each private agency should have one or two youth representatives who can report to the main Youth Advisory Council on problems which occur in their agencies. These representatives will be responsible for meeting with their agency directors and working out strategies for changes to present to the main youth Advisory Council, which will then report these suggestions to the Administration for Children Services.

A NETWORK FOR CHANGE: Youth can also be involved in helping to improve services in individual agencies. In each group, the residents should be allowed to hold monthly meetings to discuss problems. In turn, they could meet with their agency's Youth Council representative to discuss their problems. The agency's Youth Council can then meet with the agency directors to develop solutions to the problems. if nothing progresses from these meetings, the agency's Youth Council can then present the issue to the main Youth Advisory Council, which could in turn bring those concerns to the attention of officials at Administration for Children Services.

In order for any changes to occur, youth and child welfare officials have to stop fighting each other and work as a team. We have to listen to each other. I have listened to the foster care system for half my life, and now it's time for the system to hear me and thousands of other youth in foster care. A Youth Advisory Council that is taken seriously can be the first step.

Sabrina Hines, has been in foster care since she was 10 years old, today she writes for Foster Care Youth United, where she is a Senior Youth Advocate for the Youth Advocacy Center. Foster Care Youth United is published by Youth Communication, which was founded in 1980 to train, inform, and provide a voice to New York City teens through print journalism.

Reprinted from Foster Care Youth United, July/August 1996. A publication of Youth Com munication/ New York Center, Inc 144 West 27th Street, #8R, New York, NY 10001 or call 212-242-3270.

taken from the National Advocate