Foster Care Alumni

Foster Care Alumni of America comes to Washington state!

Foster Care Alumni of America Now Has a Washington Chapter

By Mandy Urwiler

Foster Care Alumni of America (FCAA) has come to Washington! They are also an advocacy organization much like Mockingbird, but their age range is a little different: They only require that you are 18 or older and have been in foster care at some time in your life.

"The mission of Foster Care Alumni of America
is to connect the alumni community and to transform
policy and practice, ensuring opportunity for people
in and from foster care."

Foster Care Alumni of America is a national organization that currently has 17 chapters nationwide and has 3,600 members engaged. Members participate in monthly chapter meetings that are established via their Facebook group and advocate for policy reform on the state and national level as well as doing community service work. In November, members volunteered to serve homeless youth Thanksgiving dinner. In February, they came and supported Youth Advocacy Day. In April, they participated in the Sleep Country Pajama Bowl for foster youth. On May 17th, they are having a walk to gain momentum, funding, and members. If you would like to participate, the walk is in Genessee Park in Seattle at 11 am with a barbeque and picnic at the end. Registration costs $25 and includes a free annual membership to FCAA. Click here to register. If you can't afford to register but you would like to come, there are scholarships available. All you need to do is send out a message on the Facebook group and they will make sure you can go.

Currently, the WA chapter has about 50 members in the closed Facebook group and seven active leaders. They would love to have more active leaders and will be holding elections for specific leadership positions once they grow a little more in size.

When asked about the impact FCAA has had, many members answered that FCAA was like a family to them. Here are some of the responses:

"FCAA WA is family, a place to share, a place to grow, and ultimately a place to shine!"

"To me, FCAA-WA represents a chance to work with issues that may not be popular but need to be addressed. As alumni of care, I think that we have a special perspective on issues that can only come from a lot of separation from care. For example, who sits down with a young person from care and has an explicit conversation about sexuality and romantic relationships? The case manager? The foster parent? Schools? In my experience, the answer was none of the above. While I might have had experience with sex ed., who was there to teach me that not every fight with a loved one has to end with someone leaving or being taken away? No one but no one told me that my ability to love a partner would be so severely impacted by my time in care and as a result I almost failed out of college during a particularly rough relationship patch my freshman and sophomore years. That being said, it took me until I was 26 to start to make the connection that there is no one to help you navigate a healthy romantic relationship because the normal ways are often closed to us as youth in care. My hope is that we can draw attention to those issues that don't get a lot of light."

"FCAA WA has had an impact on me by being a place to belong, a place to connect with other alumni and work on things together that hopefully make a difference in youths lives, a place to feel safe and understood when talking about life and foster care experiences, and a place to make new friends "

"The National Board is so excited to have added Washington as an FCAA chapter. They have already proven to be an active group of talented advocates. We expect big things out of the great NorthWest."