FosterEd: Santa Cruz County

Judge Denine Guy, Superior Court of Ca., Santa Cruz County, Juvenile DivisionMark Holguin, Family and Children’s Services

Michael Paynter, County Office of Education – Foster Youth ServicesRachel Velcoff Hults, National Center for Youth Law

Jennifer Laird, MPR Associates, Inc.1

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Grantee:

National Center for Youth Law, FosterEd Initiative

NCYL is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California

that works to ensure that low-income children have the

resources, support, and opportunities they need for healthy

and productive lives. NCYL’s FosterEd Initiative seeks to

improve the educational outcomes of children and youth in

foster care.

FosterEd operates in California, Indiana, and Arizona.

The Santa Cruz County project is a pilot for the state of

California.

Grantee Program

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Project Description: Goals and Objectives

Improve the educational outcomes of Santa Cruz County

foster children/youth by ensuring each has an educational

champion with the beliefs, capacities, and behaviors

proven to support educational success, and is developing

educational resiliency.

Ensure that project outcomes and processes are

measurable and regularly measured, with data used to

drive improvement and evaluate success.

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Project Description:Key Collaborative Partners

County Office of Education – Foster Youth Services

Superior Court of California, County of Santa Cruz, Juvenile Division

Human Services Department – Family and Children’s Services

Community organizations and providers, such as CASA

State-level oversight provided by California’s Improving

Educational Outcomes of Children in Care workgroup

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Project Description: Target Population

School-age children/youth who are the subject of an open Santa

Cruz County dependency case and reside in Santa Cruz County,

and their educational champions.

There are approximately 245 such children/youth in Santa Cruz

County at any given time.

To date, the project is serving approximately 60 children.

Implementation is being phased in, with children entering the

project at select points in the dependency process.

Educational resiliency work will be focused on youth ages 11 to

17.

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Project Description: Proposed Services, Activities, Processes, Outputs

Identification of one or more educational champions to

support the child’s school success.

Identification of the educational champion’s and child’s

education-related strengths and needs.

Development of educational intervention plans.

Implementation, ongoing monitoring, and updating of

educational intervention plans.

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Project Description: Logic Model

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Project Description:Key Expected Outcomes

One or more educational champions are identified for each child

in foster care in Santa Cruz County.

Educational champions develop the beliefs and expectations

needed to support the child’s school success.

Educational champions develop the skills and capacities needed

to support the child’s school success.

Child’s educational needs are increasingly identified and

addressed.

Over time, educational outcomes improve (i.e. attendance rates

and grades).

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Evaluation Approach

External Evaluators: MPR Associates Key Research Questions: 1. Who participates in FosterEd?

For the target population of foster children/youth, what portion of them

has an educational champion who participates in FosterEd?

Who are the participating educational champions, and what are their

relationships to the child/youth (e.g., biological parent, foster parent,

relative caregiver)?

2. What activities are associated with the implementation of FosterEd?

What services are provided to educational champions through

FosterEd, and by whom?

What factors enhance or detract from the implementation of FosterEd? 

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Evaluation Approach(continued)

Key Research Questions

3. Do educational champions who participate in FosterEd demonstrate

growth over time in beliefs, behaviors, and capacities associated with

educational success?

If so, what is the nature of that growth?

Did participants perceive activities related to FosterEd to be beneficial?

4. Do foster children/youth with educational champions in FosterEd

demonstrate improvement in educational performance?

For children/youth with educational champions served by FosterEd, is

there demonstrated improvement in rates of school attendance,

California Standards Test (CST) performance, and school behavior? How

do these rates compare to district, county, or state-level student

performance?

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Research Design: Mixed-method approach (quantitative and qualitative)

Leveraging merged child welfare and education data

Quasi experimental Evaluating a number of comparisons strategies

Assessment of short- and long-term outcomes Example of short-term outcome: increased skills of educational

champion to support child’s or youth’s education

Example of long-term outcome: increased school attendance and

grades

Evaluation Approach(continued)

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Opportunity to provide meaningful, individualized support

to foster children and youth and their educational

champions.

Opportunity to raise education as a critical part of the

dependency court case plan and service provider focus.

Opportunity to develop tools, strategies, and best

practices that can be used in Santa Cruz County as well as

other counties throughout the state.

Expected Opportunities

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Effective engagement of birth parents who are facing a diverse

range of challenges personally and within the court process.

Develop individualized intervention plans with incremental

goals.

Present involvement in education as a positive way to support

and provide stability for the child.

Identify and engage caregivers and others as “co-champions.”

Gathering and reviewing data for large numbers of children and

educational champions.

Focus on inter-agency collaboration and systemic and

technological communication.

Develop standardized tools to screen for and track strengths,

needs, and goals.

Expected Challenges & How to Address Them

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Sustainability Plan

Implementation is being carried out by Santa Cruz

County agencies, largely through use of existing

resources.

Grant-supported staff will model educational coaching,

case management, and project management strategies

for social workers, FYS staff, and existing service

providers (train-the-trainer approach).

Investment in development of assessment/screening

tools, technological infrastructure, and practices for

ongoing use beyond the grant period.

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Dissemination Plan

Distribution of curriculum and related materials online

(see www.foster-ed.org/resources), through state-level

leadership team, and through trainings (such as state-

wide FKCE program training)

Development and distribution of toolkits for project

implementation in other counties, with support from the

Child & Policy Institute of California and state-level

leadership team.

Dissemination of final evaluation report.

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Questions for Fellow CWED Grantees

What strategies do you recommend for effectively engaging and

collaborating with school district and school site staff?

What lessons are you learning, and what advice can you share,

regarding improving data-sharing in your jurisdiction?

Do you have advice for how best to support agency and project

staff as the scope of implementation grows?

° ° °

Thank you for your time and input!

For more information about FosterEd: Santa Cruz County, please visit

http://www.foster-ed.org/ or contact Rachel at rvelcoff@youthlaw.org.