Date

12-2020

Document Type

Capstone Project (Open Access)

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

Department

Health, Human Services and Public Policy

Major

Collaborative Health and Human Service - Social Work

Abstract

Court Appointed Special Advocates of Monterey County pairs community volunteers with foster youth so the youth has someone who can advocate for them in their personal lives, while pursuing a safe and permanent home. The primary goal of foster care is to reunify youth with their biological families, but this does not always work out. Some of the reasons children come into foster care include the opioid crisis, current immigration policy issues, and general child abuse/neglect. Youth are often confused about what their options are after reunification fails. This confusion causes some youth to have mental health issues, gang involvement, or other criminal activity. Barriers to service include, the lack of appropriate foster families as well as the housing crisis. My capstone project was to create the curriculum for a training that would explain the options after reunification fails to our CASA volunteers so they can be better prepared to help their youth through these transitions. The training was successful in that I saw a 20% increase in knowledge on the topics that were discussed. My recommendation would be to send out email blasts about the training as early as possible to increase participant turnout and survey responses. I would also change the phrasing for some of the questions on the post-survey to be more answer friendly.

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