Wednesday, January 30, 2019

2019 Meeting With the Governor's Office

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Link to more photos.

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019, Ohio foster care youth, alumni and allies held an introductory meeting with LeeAnne Cornyn, Director of Children’s Initiatives for the Office of Governor Mike DeWine and Chelsea Cordonnier of ODJFS.

Participants included representatives from the OHIO Youth Advisory Board, ACTION Ohio, Adoption Network Cleveland, and the Columbus State Scholar Network.

The agenda focused on:
  1. Introductions and well-deserved congratulations to LeeAnne Cornyn
  2. Appreciation for Governor Mike DeWine and the many ways that he has served as a champion for Ohio foster youth in his former role as Ohio Attorney General
  3. Creating a statewide Foster Care Ombudsman’s Office
  4. Reforming Ohio child welfare funding
  5. Establishing an ongoing communications mechanism to stay in touch and keep working together


Sunday, January 13, 2019

Training for Huckleberry House

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ACTION Ohio was honored to present a workshop for Huckleberry House on Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, from 10:30 am - noon. 
This invitation came from Kyra Crockett Hodge, who chairs the Cultural Competency Committee. Huckleberry House workers do have some working knowledge of the foster care population – but they want to be as helpful as possible in advocating for this population.

After a discussion of Culture of Foster Care, each participant received copies of the following:

1. 
OAC rule
2.
Life Skills Assessment  
3. 
Youth developed discharge plan
4. 
Permanency Pact  
5. Central Ohio resource list, based on 
resource knowledge that Ohio teens and young adults in and from foster care have mentioned as being vital to their success

We were incredibly grateful that Chynna Kelley could be there to help talk participants through the complexities of the Bridges program. Her insights were invaluable.