In the Life: Ep. 2202, "Foster Care's Invisible Youth"

[Narrator] "In The Life" is funded in part by the H. Van Ameringen Foundation, Arcus Foundation, The Estate of Richard W. Weiland, Gill Foundation, and by these funders and by the annual support of "In The Life" members like you. [Host] Tonight on "In The Life." [Young woman] I was born in the system. [Young man] I was five years old when I went to foster care. [Young woman] When I came out there was a lot of conflict. [Host] LGBTQ youth in the foster care system. [Unknown woman talking] Some of the challenges that LGBT youth in care faces- one, they're invisible. [Unknown woman talking] It's not safe for kids. [Unknown man talking] Kids who are harder to place are older, of color, are gay or lesbian. [Host] At the intersection of race, family and identity... young voices are speaking out. [Young woman talking] Give the kids a voice. Form them into leaders. [Young woman talking] We're normal kids and we just need love just like everybody else. [Main title music playing]. "We brought everybody together." "ACT Up!" "Health care is a right." 'We're married." "There is nothing for me to hide." "Make a promise." [Main title music playing]. [Music playing]. [Host] Organizations like "Families Like Ours" in Seattle are working with LGBTQ youth in foster care and helping them navigate a system that doesn't always accept them. Anwar is one of those youth. [Anwar Bible] I was five years old when I went to foster care so that's fourteen years ago. [Bible] He was saying, "Some people just don't get it" and I'm like well, "That's the thing with... you don't need to get it." I've known I was gay since I was five years old. So, by 11 I already knew that I was going to have to come out. But I just didn't know when and I didn't know how easy or hard it would be. [Holly Luna] The foster care system is not a safe place to question your sexuality really. There are some kids who are really lucky and they end up in homes that are ready to love and support a questioning youth. But what happens more often is that when the child has been placed with that foster family uh the family may not have had a thorough assessment as to figure out whether or not they're going to be able to support a kid that comes out in their home. [Host] At age 11 after a string of foster and group home placements Anwar was placed with a foster family of Jehovah's Witnesses. [Bible] Living with them made me kind of miserable. Coming out to them was a problem. Eventually I just stopped caring... because they kept assuming that I was wanting to be with their son and stuff. I was like, "No, I don't want...I just need a brother." I haven't seen my brothers in about 11 years at that time. I stayed there for five years and they couldn't accept me for me. Feeling so unaccepted like that you, you... at the age I was at you...contemplate suicide. Foster care was one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through. Yeah... and if there somewhere I can make other kids transition out of foster care easier... I would. [Music playing]. [Host] Anwar is preparing to start college in the fall. [David Wing-Kovarik] Let's see what we can get set up and I know over at the college there's some tutors... [Bible] Yeah... [Kovarik] Who can get you set up there as well. [Bible] Finally the math tutor... [Kovarik] I know [Host] With few other options he moved back in with his biological family. [Bible] Since then I've been struggling a lot. But there's a lot that I've accomplished and there's a lot that I'm ready to set out to do. [Luna] When kids come out in care and their family rejects them our system is not well equipped to ensure that they are treated appropriately. We are trying to repair the damage that was done by a family where they felt they were supposed to be included and loved. Older kids need and want families. I would be hard pressed to identify an individual who doesn't want to belong to a family. We have a moral obligation to provide them with permanent families and we have a moral obligation, in my opinion, to make sure that all kids know that.. that, that what's it within them is valuable. [Host] There are over 400,000 youth like Anwar in foster care in the United States While all youth in foster care face challenges LGBTQ youth face unique hardships based on their identity. [Tracey Little] Some of the challenges that LGBT youth in care faces- one, they're invisible. I was doing outreach to foster care agencies a lot of the staff and people would say we don't have LGBT youth here. Unbelievable. [Gerald Mallon] The reasons that they come into foster care in the first place is like...all children. Some of them live in families where there is abuse and neglect. Some of it having to do with sexual or gender orientation. Some of it not having anything to do with that. Some of them are literally thrown out of their homes when they come out. I mean, we still see that a lot. [Host] Some groups are over-represented in the foster care system. African-Americans, for example, make up approximately 14% of all American children but 29% of all foster care children. Many claim that LGBTQ youth are also over represented but an exact count is unknown. [Adam Pertman] So when you look at the population of foster care the kids who are harder to place- are older, of color, are gay or lesbian. [Linda Spears] This is a group of young people who have the same rights, the same needs, the same responsibilities as every other group of kids and they deserve to be treated equitably in the child welfare system. [Music playing]. [Host] Youth in the system are dealing with more than just their sexual orientation or gender identity. They face a complex set of issues including race, class, and family dynamics. That is certainly true for Shaquana who now lives in Queens with her two sisters. [Shaquana Green] I was born into care because my mom was born into care. She was very young when she had me and she herself was in foster care. She really tried hard to care for me and and she was doing things that you know, we're bringing money in stead of home because she wasn't working...selling drugs...selling herself. [Host] After her mother was caught transporting drugs Shaquana was placed in foster care. [Green] I was just like, "Wow, this is like a real family." I never had a mom and a father at the same time both working, caring, loving me and I had all these dreams. I'm gonna go away to college and I'm gonna have that support. After awhile...I started noticing that, that marriage wasn't what I thought it was. I used to witness the husband beatin' on my foster mom. I thought I was going to lose the home and there's no more stability. [Host] Shaquana's foster parents divorced. Her foster mother moved in with a new boyfriend and Shaquana's living situation went from bad to worse. [Green] Her new boyfriend would beat me because I didn't iron my pants correctly. Beat me because the dishes wasn't washed properly. Beat me because my ponytail wasn't correct. I lived that way for a long time, maybe up until I was 13. I never seen a case worker. I never had somebody come and check to see if the home was okay. I didn't even think that someone could come and save me from that. So I decided I wanted to move with my mom And I showed up at my mother's doorstep and I'm like, "Mom, please save me, please take me." They didn't barely have hot water but I just wanted to be with my family, with my blood family. [Host] Shaquana's biological mother took her back and they lived in a shelter before moving into their own house Soon afterwards Shaquana Smother discovered that Shaquana was gay. [Green] She was just like... "You're not gonna be gay in my house" and I felt like I had to hide who I was... gettin' boyfriends. My mother was using drugs and a lot of the times I felt like it was my fault. It was my fault because I was gay. It was my fault because I was rebellious. My mother called me every name in the book- I was... a dyke, I was gay, I was a... a child from hell, I was Satan's child...everything that I really wasn't. [Host] Shaquana moved in with a family friend. With her mother unable to care for her two younger sisters, Shaquana took over some of the responsibilities of raising them. [Green] I just was gettin' myself together preparing for the day I could get my sisters and now I'm 23 and I have custody of my sister's. [Host] She is now going through the process of adopting her two younger sisters. [Green] But things I have experienced I would never want them to go through that, ever. We're not rebellious people. We're normal kids who just was put in a messed up predicament and we just need love just like everybody else, just like every other child that's in care. [Children talking, music playing]. [Flor Bermudez] Young children who are in the system have been failed by their families, sometimes by their foster families, sometimes by the system and you know the small investment that it takes to train culturally competent staff so that there's an understanding of the needs of LGBTQ youth is really going to have a huge outcome by having a young person- number one, stay alive; number two, make it through their foster care experience and then be a happier human being. [Music playing]. [Host] Increasing cultural competency in the foster care system will help LGBTQ youth like Roshawn who lives in Los Angeles. [Roshawn Davis] I was born in the system. When I was 14... I did somethin' dumb, you know, mistake made, I ended up in juvenile hall. [Host] Roshawn went in and out of group home and juvenile hall placements throughout her teenage years, facing discrimination based on the way she dressed. [Davis] I was always a tomboy. The problem that I faced with that is they're telling me, "It's just a phase or oh... this is not who you are, you just confused." It's not, it's not that you know. It's like, "You just think I'm confused because you don't want me to be this way for your own personal beliefs." I remember when I cut my hair the house manager she called her staff over there, "Why would you let her cut her hair this short?" Like you know, she was like, "This is a woman's house and she looks like a little boy." [Music playing]. [Host] After leaving the system Roshawn struggled to make it on her own. [Davis] For like a year, like 18 and 19... I became homeless and throughout that time like, you know, shelter's... drop in spots, get showered up, get some clothes, grab some food, go get some bus tokens... [Host] Her mentor, Shalanda King, helped her through this time. Letting Roshawn stay at her apartment when she had nowhere else to go. [Shalanda King] I wanted to make sure that she knew she had a place to go and that she would be cared for no matter what. [Host] After a year of facing homelessness Roshawn found out about the transitional housing program for LGBTQ youth at Hathaways Sycamores. [Davis] Once I got into transitional I felt relieved because pretty much all I really needed at the time was just a stable home. Hathaways Sycamores is my lifesaver. I didn't give them trouble. I was grateful, you know, like thankful like... they gave me a place to lay my head in the comfortable home. [King] How's it in here so far? You like your neighbors and everything? [Davis] Yeah, it's cool. [Host] Now Roshawn has completed the transitional living program and has her own apartment. She currently works for Hathaways Sycamores as a youth advocate. [Davis] They told me that they wanted to start a a program called the Residential Youth Council. That's why to give the kids a voice. "Like, I heard, like two people say some negative you can't let that get to you." The Youth Council is also to form them into leaders. You know, uh...give 'em some kind of responsibility. Make them feel as if like they do have an important role. "We just put the houses in order and basically we're going to let each house choose who they think would be the best house manager." [Nick Ryan] One of the things that is really very important for young people is to have their voice heard. Having peer to peer support groups and youth councils are a terrific way to get young people together who are able to connect as well as to feel like they have a sense of community with other people. [Music playing]. [Host] Group homes for LGBTQ youth are one way that the foster care system has tried to provide a safe community. [Music playing]. [Host] Antoine currently lives in one such home in Brooklyn. His journey is familiar to many kids in the system. [Antoine Brown] I was just coming into like dating the boys like just get into it. So I used to keep a journal and in that journal I used to keep everything like how I felt, like my experiences. [Host] Antoine's mother found his journal and discovered that he was gay. [Brown] She tells me she reads my journal and so I felt violated after that. When I came home it was a big thing. We was arguing and then it became physical. [Music playing]. [Host] Because of the emotional and physical abuse Antoine ended up being removed from his home. [Brown] At first I wanted to go into foster home so that's what they were trying to look for for me. I was kind of worried. I was scared but I thought I wanted the loving of a family. I just felt like I wouldn't be able to find that in a group home. [Host] Despite Antoine's desire to live with a foster family he was placed in a group home for LGBTQ youth. [Brown] You're in the house with strange people that you don't know... uhm... you don't know who to trust. People that come here they look for the love that they missing at home. They look for the family that they don't have anymore. So this is like the legendary stove, like here the legendary stove... so this is where I got do all my concoctions. [Host] The group home houses six LGBTQ youth. They live as a community and learn life skills they will need to live on their own. [Brown] So we sit here...like a family. We say grace. Being here in a welcoming community is very comforting. You're able to be who you are as a person. You don't have to hide it. "My little creation...something." Like a lot of people don't accept the LGBT community and the list. Being here I just feel safe and it's like a haven. [Music playing]. [Host] While at the group home Antoine was able to graduate from high school, begin college and even start to work on rebuilding a relationship with his biological family. [Brown] Our relationship has... rekindled, I guess. I mean you only got one family at the end of the day. We get along, we speak. I feel like I had to learn that I have to love people from a distance. [Host] Although group homes are a common option providers are starting to shift towards finding family settings for LGBTQ youth. [Mallon] in the regular child welfare system we keep talking about kids staying with their family and kids staying in family like settings But gay kids were putting group homes because things were so tough within family context but in reality I realized that was a mistake. I think we needed to really think more about how to preserve family connections with kids who are LGBTQ. Families, in many, cases really do want to love their child and just need to learn how to how to change some of their own mindsets about that. [Host] The Family Acceptance Project in San Francisco is part of the shift towards reconnecting youth with family. They are conducting groundbreaking research about the importance of family acceptance for LGBTQ youth. [Caitlin Ryan] The approach to serving LGBT young people has been to remove them from families or not involve their families. Getting in there early when parents are first struggling with these issues we can help maintain LGBT young people in their homes. But we also know from our work that we can reconnect them and do family reunification. [Mallon] All kids in foster care, you know, if we keep them in group homes and then they turn 18 or 21 and they don't have a permanent connection to a meaningful adult in their lives are gonna have a really challenging time. And that's the responsibility of the agency to make sure that those kids have those permanent connections. [Ryan] Family support is essential. So we have been working with different provider groups, professional associations, government agencies. Most recently we're collaborating with the L.A. Lesbian and Gay Center to integrate our family interventions with their big child welfare reform project. [Host] The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center received a groundbreaking grant to develop the Rise Initiative- a model program for working with LGBTQ youth in foster care. [Simon Costello] The goal of the project is to actually help young LGBTQ people in foster care achieve durable family connections and leading that on to permanent, stable, safe and loving homes. Every young person needs and deserves a loving and stable home unfortunate not every young person gets this. [Mallon] I think the more I researched about LGBTQ youth, the more I realized they just needed the same things that lots of teenagers needed in foster care and outside of foster care. You know... a safe place to live, people that really care about them, that are willing to listen to them. You have to have written policies. That's the most important thing and it needs to come from the top down. It has to because if the top is not supporting this it's never going to change. [Host] One way to increase the number of affirming homes is to create wider acceptance of LGBTQ people as foster parents. [Jennifer Chrisler] Some states, six of them as a matter of fact, have non-discrimination policies in place that encourage people who are LGBT to adopt or foster. But in many, many states the laws are just completely silent and in several states there are actual outright bans on the ability for LGBT people to adopt or foster. [Pertman] The people who are hurt by a restrictive laws are the children. I mean there aren't lines around the block of whatever people perceive as perfect parents for these kids. [Chrisler] More than 60% of foster care agencies say they have never placed with LGBT couples. 40% of agencies say that they will not even accept applications from LGBT people or couples. There are more than two million lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who say that they would foster and adopt if only their States actually encouraged them to do that and if you look at the number of young people that we have in our foster care system, somewhere around 400,000, just opening up the doors to the LGBT community in terms of adopting and fostering would mean that we could actually provide a home for all our kids who are in the foster care system today. [Host] One woman who opened her home and her heart is Mary Keane who lives in Yonkers, New York. [Mary Keane] This is my house. Come on in. This is my daughter, Fannie, who has been with me since '07. I first decided to become a foster parent uh... actually it's 13 or 14 years ago now. I began to find out a lot more about foster care and why kids were in care- they had food, they had clothing and they had shelter but there was no one in their life. No one cared about them. I was in a position to do something. I said, "I'm gonna." [Host] Mary's original intent was to foster lesbian teenagers but through the years she fostered 12 LGBTQ and straight teens [Keane] It's not safe for kids in care. They have a couple of lesbian, gay, queer group homes and things like that but that doesn't solve the problem and these kids shouldn't even be isolate like they shouldn't have to be isolate. They should be safe wherever they are. So my thing was just to provide like a safe place. "All right so this is Fannie's room." [Fannie Hubbard laughing]. [Fannie Hubbard] Two closets, a fire place... [Hubbard] I was in care about eight or nine years before I met Mary. In other homes I wasn't really able to be myself. It wasn't until I really... until I moved here, uhm, where I was able to listen to the music that I wanted to and dress how I want to comfortably and meeting Mary and just coming to live here made that process as a teenager so much easier because, you know, Mary's gay and and even if she wasn't just the house, the kids, the environment were so positive. I feel like I'm the 1% of the foster care system that, that finds that, that safe home where, I mean, you could just relate to your foster parent...on like a, like a hundred percent. It feels like how like, how...like how did I end up getting this lucky chance, like? How come all kids can't have this exact same experience? [Music playing]. [Host] Mary also works with the organization, You Gotta Believe, which focuses on finding families for adolescents in foster care. [Keane] We do one thing...we do one thing only...we try to find a family for youth before they aged out of care. [Music playing]. [Keane] They need, they need families. They should not be in these institutions and they need committed families who were really going to be there for them. It's unconscionable that we can't do better for these kids. [Music playing]. [Host] One of the youth that Mary works with through You Gotta Believe is Natalie. [Natalie O'Neal] I've basically been in and outta care since I was three years old. I first entered into care when I was really small. My mom had a drug habit and they took me and my two sisters away. I came out in the sixth grade to my mother that I was gay and when I came out there was a lot of conflict, my mom's a Christian. I remember my mother telling me, "I can't wait to you turn 18, I'm kicking you out." So...it was either I just stay there and keep on dealing with the problems or I go back into voluntary care. We had no way I'd be homeless at the age of 18. [Rings doorbell, sound of door opening]. I'd never re-enter into a foster home because they told me a lot of foster parents don't want to take kids at my age. [Host] Natalie stayed in a number of different group homes. She currently lives at Green Chimneys in Harlem in a residence for LGBTQ girls. [O'Neal] My biggest concern right now on aging out is that I still yet don't have my apartment. I can't just go back to my mom's house. At this point I just want to live on my own but I want the family support and I want the family behind me. [Keane] They're still expected to age out at 21 and manage... which is really, virtually impossible. What we try to do is get these youth families, that they need, they're going to need for the rest of their life to get them to move into a family because if they don't the statistics show repeatedly throughout the country that probably more than 50% of the homeless population has come out of foster care These kids don't have an education because the movement that they've had throughout foster care... they, they can't keep up with their education and they get discouraged, they drop out... they wind up living in housing for a while and within six months the majority of them are homeless and so it's, it's the rare kid that is able to pull it off and manage. [O'Neal] I still wonder how I'm gonna be when I move out because, you know, I think I'm ready and still haven't really like dealt with having to pay your rent, having to buy [unintelligible], having to buy groceries... You don't just automatically turn to dope (?) once you turn 21, or even... [Luna] Kids who age out of care talk all the time about, you know, "I got out of foster care and I didn't have anybody to call because everybody that I would have called was paid to care about me." "And now that I'm out of foster care all of those people are gone." "I don't have anyone to call, I don't have anyone to talk to." "I...I can't figure out how to navigate all these different services." [Music playing]. [Host] Despite the challenges they face youth are now sharing their stories and beginning to change the foster care system. [Music playing]. [Green] I kinda came out but I came out only in school. But I was like hidin'. I came out to certain people. I felt like an outcast. For one, I was boyish... [Host] Shaquana shares her experiences at cultural competency training's organized through the foster care project at the LGBT Community Center in New York. [Little] When you talk about loss and rejection and fear it's really big and Shaquana's story really outlines that for people. [Ronald Richter] The most important thing that we as a Child Welfare system can do is talk to our young people. I think that, that sounds very simple and straightforward. It's not always done as well as it could be. [Host] The Center is collaborating with New York City's Administration for Children's Services to increase cultural competency and affirmative policies for working with LGBTQ youth in care. [Richter] We are working every day to try to ensure that our services and the foster care agencies we work with are affirming and to ensure that the foster homes and the group residence's we work with have staff and foster parents that are welcoming and supportive of young people especially adolescents who are often in the process of figuring out who they are. [Little] Shaquana's story... really talks about some of the things that we need to get foster parent's on board with. The Center's foster care project is part of a movement, right. This is a movement in regards to families, in regards to equality and it's really important to bring that next young generation into that movement and empower them in that way. It's necessary for them to be part of this. [Green] I just want kids who are in care to have a voice and without that voice they're not heard. We need to put a real face to this community. [Music playing]. [Host] Thank you for watching "In The Life." Tune in next month as we celebrate our legacy of LGBTQ visibility on public television with our final broadcast, hosted by Kate Clinton. [Kate Clinton]"...and Twister." ["In The Life" end credits music]. [Narrator] "In The Life" is funded in part by... the H. van Ameringen Foundation, Arcus Foundation, The Estate of Richard W. Weiland, Gill Foundation, and by these funders and by the annual support of "In The Life" members like you. [WNET Thirteen station identification music]. [America Public Television identification music].