Also coming up: the FYA Brown Bag Series for Management Staff presents “Conducting Effective Evaluations.” This training will be held on Thursday, May 4th, from 12:00-2:00 at Ross House, the conference room of Casey Family Programs, located at 485 Ninth Street, Oakland, near the 12th Street BART.

These trainings are joint projects of FYA, Seneca Center and The Chabot FKCE.
To RSVP for these trainings, email Amy Freeman at afreeman@fosteryouthalliance.org or call 510-444-4025, x235.

The FYA Stepping Stones Walk Around Lake Merritt and Resource Fair is sure to be an engaging and fun event. Community members, service providers and other supporters will walk alongside current and former foster youth to raise awareness about the challenges youth in foster care face as they transition to adulthood. Sign up today to walk, and encourage youth to register as well (registration is free for current and former foster youth.) Click here for a brochure and registration form.

To maximize the impact of the event, we are hosting a Resource Fair to be held at the start and finish line.

The fair will provide an excellent opportunity for agencies serving foster youth to talk with youth about your services and engage them in participating. It will also provide a chance for organizations to recruit adult volunteers from among the Walk participants. This is an opportunity to educate community members about becoming foster parents, mentors, tutors and general supporters of your agency.

Please join us for:

The FYA Walkathon and Resource Fair
Saturday, May 20, 2006
9:00-1:30

Lake Merritt Bandstand Area
(across from the Garden Center, near Fairyland.
Turn onto Bellevue from Grand Avenue.)

Click here for a Resource Fair participant form. If you are able to join us, please return the form along with the fee to Amy Freeman, Foster Youth Alliance, 491 Ninth Street, Oakland, CA 94607. If you have any questions, please contact Melinda Clemmons at 510-428-9821. Deadline to sign up for a Resource Table is May 2nd

If your organization would like to sponsor the Walk, contact Melinda Clemmons at 510-428-9821. Organizations sponsoring the event at the $250 level will receive name recognition on the back of the t-shirt and in the program, and those sponsoring at the $500 level will receive name recognition with their organization’s logo on the back of the t-shirt and in the program.

Click here to read an Open Forum in today's SF Chronicle written by Carlos Moreno, the chair of the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care.

Click here to read an editorial from the 4.11.06 SF Chronicle about Assemblyman Mark Leno's AB2489, which would "provide tuition waivers for foster youth at all public colleges and universities, establish automatic eligibility for Cal-Grants, create housing preferences for them on college campuses, and provide state matching funds for the federal Chafee Postsecondary Education and Training Grants." The editorial also discusses AB2488, which addresses barriers in the system keeping youth in foster care from reuniting with their siblings.

For more on this topic, click here to read an article from the 4.7.06 San Francisco Chronicle. An excerpt:

"Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, plans to introduce a bill, AB2489, to help students like Romero and encourage other foster youth to enter college by offering them free tuition at state universities, increased financial aid and on-campus support. The bill is to be heard in committee Tuesday, along with a second new Leno bill, AB2488, that would make it easier for foster youth to find and contact siblings who have been adopted." Click here for the full article.

State and national surveys indicate that gay and lesbian teens are at a significantly higher risk of attempting suicide than their heterosexual peers. But there is help available, geared especially towards the needs of this group: The Trevor Project.

Click here for the entire article.

The Covenant House California Community Hero Awards celebrate individuals who make a positive difference to our community, lead inspirational lives, and demonstrate a concern for homeless and at-risk youth.

This year's honorees are MTV News Correspondent, Sway Calloway; star of stage and screen, Delroy Lindo; and Vice President of Wells Fargo, Dale Golden.

For information regarding this event or to purchase tickets, please contact Esti Iturralde at (510) 601-0465.

For more information, click here.