Alaska’s youth advocate foster care reform at Capitol

Benjamin Dahl-Rouzan shares his story of living in foster care before the House's Health and Social Services Committee on Tuesday. Dahl-Rouzan is a member of the Alaska Youth Policy Summit, which is a group that advocate changes to the state's social services. (Photo by Kevin Reagan/ KTOO)
Benjamin Dahl-Rouzan shares his story of living in foster care before the House’s Health and Social Services Committee on Tuesday. Dahl-Rouzan is a member of the Alaska Youth Policy Summit, a group that advocate changes to the state’s social services. (Photo by Kevin Reagan/ KTOO)

Members of the Alaska Youth Policy Summit shared stories of childhood trauma with legislators Tuesday. The group annually visits the state Capitol to give voice to children in the social services system.

In the 15 years Robin Ahqupuk spent in foster care, he lived in 48 different homes.

“I moved around a lot and didn’t feel connected with people…I was a loner,” Ahqupuk says.

The 20 year-old from Anchorage says he wants to make sure another Alaskan child will not have the same experience. Ahqupuk shared his story with the House Health and Social Services Committee.

Ahqupuk was one of five presenters of the Alaska Youth Policy Summit—an advocacy group that recruits young people throughout the state to visit the capital city and inform legislators on problems in the state’s social services.

Presenters spoke of childhood traumas dealing with drug abuse, mental health and being bounced around in foster care.

“I know the struggles of going through and having different case managers every other week, going to see different people, going to different places…having people tell you you’re doing one thing but you’re actually doing another,” says Benjamin Dahl-Rouzan, a 17 year-old from Anchorage.

Dahl-Rouzan spent five years in foster care before being adopted at age ten. He says the system could improve if the Office of Children’s Services collaborated more with community nonprofits to keep foster kids socially active.

Both Dahl-Rouzan and Ahqupuk said easing the burden of caseworkers is a necessary improvement. Anchorage Rep. Les Gara is targeting the workload of caseworkers in House Bills 27 and 28—both introduced this session.

“Alaska is failing its foster youth,” Gara says, “The state is its legal guardian; we need to treat them as we would treat our own children.”

Gara understands foster care problems because he used to be a foster kid himself. He says the 12 years he spent in the system were generally positive, but not without their faults.

“I saw a system that was stagnating,” Gara says, “if not getting worse because social work staff is so overburdened.”

Gara’s legislation tries to keep foster children in the same school after moving to a different home. He says maintaining a sense of permanency is important and that children should be placed in a permanent home within 18 months of being in foster care.

Office of Children’s Services director Christy Lawton says the department is mostly successful at finding permanent homes between 12-24 months—though older youth and those with special needs tend to be harder to place in permanent homes.

Lawton says the number of children entering foster care have increased in recent years.

“As we’re trying to do this work we’re having to increase the number of kids coming into foster care right now, and so that’s putting pressure on the whole system that is going to have more work than one person can reasonably do,” Lawton says.

HB 28 proposes a grant valued at $500,000 to support the staff of the Foster Care Independent Living Transition program. According to Gara, the program currently has six caseworkers helping 300-400 older youth with transitioning into adulthood.

Lawton says her department has not taken a position on Gara’s legislation. She says she’s uncertain if setting new legislative mandates on the department will be effective.

“I hope that we’ll be able to come up with something that will meet everybody’s needs and ultimately will make some improvements in areas that really do need improving,” Lawton says.

When asked how he stayed calm while presenting at the Capitol, Ahqupuk said it comes with living in a system that forces you to grow up too fast.

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