Jim Casey Fellows Lead With Wellness and Community to Transform Child Welfare

Twelve Jim Casey Fel­lows — young lead­ers and advo­cates who have expe­ri­enced fos­ter care — recent­ly com­plet­ed the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Advanced Youth Lead­er­ship Insti­tute (AYLI), a pro­gram of the Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^®. Through AYLI, they’ve deep­ened the knowl­edge and skills need­ed to dri­ve mean­ing­ful change in child wel­fare prac­tice and poli­cies. After com­plet­ing a series of lead­er­ship devel­op­ment sem­i­nars, the Fel­lows applied what they’ve learned by design­ing and lead­ing projects either in their com­mu­ni­ties or at the nation­al level.

AYLI teach­es par­tic­i­pants how to facil­i­tate dis­cus­sions on mean­ing­ful issues, how sys­tem change hap­pens through pol­i­cy and what is nec­es­sary to man­age their own well-being as advo­cates. With con­tin­ued guid­ance from AYLI facil­i­ta­tors, Fel­lows design and imple­ment projects aligned with their pas­sions. Most Fel­lows also engage with Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive part­ner sites and oth­er youth-serv­ing agen­cies across the coun­try to bol­ster their efforts.

“One of the most pow­er­ful con­tri­bu­tions of the Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive over the last 24 years has been the invest­ment in young peo­ple and their lead­er­ship,” said Cather­ine Lester, asso­ciate direc­tor of the Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group. ​“Through the Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive, hun­dreds of young peo­ple have engaged in lead­er­ship expe­ri­ences like AYLI to prac­tice new skills and gain the con­fi­dence to cre­ative­ly address their per­son­al needs and the needs of their community.” 

Pro­mot­ing Well­ness, Finan­cial Health and Community

This year, many Fel­lows chose projects that pro­mote self-care, well­ness and com­mu­ni­ty-based sup­port ser­vices for their peers.

Jim Casey Fel­low Glo­ria Noelle Ladeene Richard­son devel­oped and led a work­shop on the impor­tance of rest. She offered the train­ing at Ready for Life, a Flori­da-based non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that sup­ports young peo­ple who are tran­si­tion­ing out of fos­ter care. Richard­son, who is a pro­gram sup­port spe­cial­ist at Ready for Life, opened the work­shop to col­leagues and young people.

“I real­ized I wasn’t let­ting myself rest. I was just on autopi­lot,” said Richard­son. ​“What I would tell fel­low providers and oth­er young peo­ple is that some­times we have to say, ​‘If I can’t help myself, then I can’t help you.’ At the end of the day, we need to put more into our­selves before we give more of ourselves.”

At the con­clu­sion of the work­shop, each par­tic­i­pant cre­at­ed a ​“rest jar” filled with a col­lec­tion of per­son­al­ized activ­i­ties to sup­port dif­fer­ent kinds of rest. In a moment of stress, over­whelm or exhaus­tion, par­tic­i­pants can extract prompts that offer healthy alter­na­tives in sev­en categories:

• Phys­i­cal: sleep­ing, breath­ing, stretching
• Men­tal: tak­ing breaks
• Emo­tion­al: set­ting boundaries
• Sen­so­ry: lim­it­ing screen time or hav­ing qui­et time
• Cre­ative: engag­ing with art or nature
• Social: spend­ing qual­i­ty time with loved ones
• Spir­i­tu­al: meditating

In Geor­gia, Jim Casey Fel­low Eshon­tee Williams cre­at­ed a per­son­al devel­op­ment course to help her peers build self-aware­ness, reflect on iden­ti­ty and under­stand how invest­ing in per­son­al growth can lead to stronger, more authen­tic part­ner­ships. She pre­sent­ed the course to GA Empow­er­MEnt advo­cates — young lead­ers with the Geor­gia Jim Casey Ini­tia­tive site part­ner the Mul­ti-Agency Alliance for Children. 

Two Jim Casey Fel­lows, Amouree Small and Shar­nelle Ben­nett, worked with state agen­cies to improve finan­cial well­ness for young peo­ple in or tran­si­tion­ing from fos­ter care, who often lack oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn about finances and prac­tice finan­cial deci­sion mak­ing. Small worked with the South Car­oli­na Depart­ment of Social Ser­vices to build and deliv­er a finan­cial lit­er­a­cy work­shop on bud­get­ing and sav­ing. Ben­nett worked with the Kansas Depart­ment for Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies to devel­op and deliv­er a sim­i­lar train­ing, equip­ping young peo­ple with tools to man­age their finances.

Build­ing Com­mu­ni­ty and Sup­port Networks

As part of the broad­er Jim Casey Fel­low­ship, young lead­ers work­ing to cre­ate last­ing change in the child wel­fare sys­tem are offered spaces to come togeth­er, share knowl­edge and exchange ideas for address­ing chal­lenges in their communities.

Draw­ing on their expe­ri­ences, some Fel­lows sought to cre­ate spaces where young peo­ple could feel sup­port­ed and have access to vital resources.

Maky­la Wat­son start­ed a sup­port net­work for Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Mis­sis­sip­pi stu­dents with fos­ter care expe­ri­ence. Her work ben­e­fits recip­i­ents of the Faith Schol­ar­ship, a pro­gram that helps youth who are in or have exit­ed fos­ter care pay for col­lege tuition, fees and room and board. With the sup­port of the Jim Casey Initiative’s Mis­sis­sip­pi part­ner site First Place for Youth, Watson’s sup­port net­work will include peer men­tor­ship, study groups and club activ­i­ties that give stu­dents the chance to learn about on- and off-cam­pus resources and expand con­nec­tions and friendships.

“AYLI taught me how pas­sion­ate my peers are,” said Williams. ​“It was a big com­mu­ni­ty where we’re try­ing to take care of each oth­er while tak­ing care of those who are expe­ri­enc­ing fos­ter care now.”

Learn More About the Jim Casey Fellows