Furthermore, the National Working Group on Foster Care and Education’s October 2011 report begins with these strong statements: “Success in school can be a positive counterweight to the abuse, neglect, separation and impermanence experienced by children and youth in foster care.  Education has the potential to markedly improve their life chances and their ability to contribute to society as productive adults.”

To give the keiki in your home a head start, download this fact sheet for tips on  Reading Aloud by clicking on the title.

HYOI provides foster youth with financial literacy training.  After a youth has completed the training, s/he receives help in opening savings accounts as well as matching funds.

The HI H.O.P.E.S. Youth Leadership Board helps the HYOI to identify the needs of and advocate on behalf of transition-aged foster youth.

If you know of a young person on Oahu, between the ages of 14 and up to their 24th birthday who are currently or have been in DHS-CWS foster care at least 1 day after their 14th birthday and has the time and leadership potential to participate on this board, please have them fill out and submit an HI HOPES BOARD APPLICATIONas soon as possible. Submit applications to via:

Email: dulima@epicohana.org
Fax: 748-7919
Mail: Delia Ulima, c/o EPIC ‘Ohana, Inc. 1130 N. Nimitz Hwy, Ste. C-210, Honolulu, HI 96817.

Please review the following deadlines and expected participation dates:

APPLICATION DEADLINE:  January 6, 2012

INTERVIEWS (those selected):  January 9-14, 2012

FINAL SELECTION REVIEW:  January 14, 2012 (HI H.O.P.E.S. Board Mtg.)

Visit both the EPIC, Inc.and Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative websites for more resources for our youth or download the application below.

HI HOPES BOARD APPLICATION

This story is written by Lee Cataluna and was recently posted on the Honolulu Star Advertiser.

It is up to us to help them see the possibilities before them. Read this  fact sheet on Higher Education  to learn more about the opportunities foster youth in Hawai‘i have for higher education scholarships and grant opportunities available and how to help your foster youth realize their potential.

Once you’ve entered Amazon though a FPH or ITAO link, we receive a revenue share from all products you purchase during that visit. This includes books, computers, music and  merchandise you purchase during that session.

How does this work?

The Amazon links provided on the familyprogramshawaii.org and ittakesanohana.org sites are specially coded to designate you as an ITAO supporter. We only receive this money if you shop through one of the links on one of the above websites.

You do not need to purchase the book that the Amazon link takes you to for your purchases to count toward ITAO, but you must enter Amazon through a link from either the ITAO or FPH site.

Click here for more details.

MAHALO for supporting our work when you shop at Amazon.com!

See larger image Unfamiliar Fishes (Hardcover) By (author) Sarah Vowell List Price: $25.95 USD New From: $12.95 In Stock Used from: $6.74 In Stock Release date March 22, 2011.

Keeping a child connected to his or her culture is very important, especially children involved in out of home care.  This book can help us better understand our host culture’s history, thus helping us explain current events to all children in our care.

Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an rash of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.

Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d’état of the missionaries’ sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode “Aloha ‘Oe” serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.

With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.

Mentors make a difference.  Guidance from a caring, consistent, non-parental adult can enhance the safety net for youth.  With a grant from the Victoria S. and Bradley L. Geist Foundation, Family Programs Hawaii has launched Mentoring Connections.  We seek to recruit adult volunteers on Oahu who can mentor youth as they prepare to leave foster care and transition into their adult lives.  The goal of Mentoring Connection is to match each teen to a caring adult mentor who is part of their life both before and after they exit foster care.  Mentors commit to spending three to four hours each month with a mentee doing fun recreational activities as well as practical outings to work on a youth’s goals.  All volunteers complete an application and screening process.  Volunteers are offered initial mentor training and ongoing support.  Interested individuals can complete the volunteer profile and background check forms at www.familyprogramshawaii.org.  Foster youth in need of a mentor, can be referred to Mentoring Connection by downloading the referral form on the web site or by contacting the Program Coordinator, Jennifer O’Donnell at 540-2565.

Click here to download the Mentoring Connection Brochure.

See larger image Parenting From the Inside Out (Paperback) By (author) Daniel Siegel, Mary Hartzell List Price: $14.95 USD New From: $7.78 In Stock Used from: $5.03 In Stock Release date April 22, 2004.

How many parents have found themselves thinking: I can’t believe I just said to my child the very thing my parents used to say to me! Am I just destined to repeat the mistakes of my parents? In Parenting from the Inside Out, child psychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and early childhood expert Mary Hartzell, M.Ed., explore the extent to which our childhood experiences actually do shape the way we parent. Drawing upon stunning new findings in neurobiology and attachment research, they explain how interpersonal relationships directly impact the development of the brain, and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories, which will help them raise compassionate and resilient children.

Born out of a series of parents’ workshops that combined Siegel’s cutting-edge research on how communication impacts brain development with Hartzell’s thirty years of experience as a child-development specialist and parent educator, Parenting from the Inside Out guides parents through creating the necessary foundations for loving and secure relationships with their children.

See larger image The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook--What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing (Paperback) By (author) Bruce Perry, Maia Szalavitz List Price: $15.95 USD New From: $9.68 In Stock Used from: $9.63 In Stock

Assisted by a talented science writer, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry presents a series of heartbreaking stories of children severely damaged by trauma. But that’s only one side of this remarkable book. The other side is how many of these profoundly damaged children were assisted to heal.

Perry explains his “neurosequential” approach that sequentially targets brain regions left undeveloped by abuse or neglect. He presents compelling cases to illustrate how the child’s age at the time of the abuse or neglect will determine the gaps in neurological development and how his interventions sequentially target those developmental gaps. For children whose brains were stalled out in infancy, for example, therapy may start with healing touch or rhythm before moving on to higher brain activities.

The focus, always, is on the child’s humanity. Perry explains the importance of listening and letting the child set the pace. He warns of the damage caused by well-intentioned but poorly trained therapists who push children to open up, or who administer punitive interventions in the guise of treatment. Healing is not about a specific technique administered in cookbook fashion but, rather, about love, and restoring shattered human connections.

This is an enlightening and heartening book and a real page-turner to boot. The neurological underpinnings of the trauma theory are presented in clear English accessible to anyone who can read. If you’re a mental health professional, psychologist, or psychiatrist, you’ll love this book. If you’re a parent or a teacher, it’s also for you. Whoever you are, it’s for you. I guarantee you will be engaged and inspired.

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. is the Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, a Houston-based non-profit organization which promotes innovations in service, research and education in child maltreatment and childhood trauma. He has served as a consultant to the FBI and is the former Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital, as well as former Vice-Chairman for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. He lives in Houston, Texas and Alberta, Canada. Maia Szalavitz is an award-winning journalist who specializes in science and health. She is the author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids and Recovery Options: The Complete Guide with Joseph Volpicelli, M.D., Ph.D. She lives in New York City.

This article was adapted from articles by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.  It is from Adoptalk, published by the North American Council on Adoptable Children, St. Paul, Minnesota; 651-644-3036; www.nacac.org.  It was also included in the October 2011 edition of the Resource Advisory Committee’s Building Connections newsletter.