Casey Family Programs and other child welfare agencies are experiencing a rapid increase of collaborations between youth formerly in foster care (alumni/constituents) and professionals. Organizations build better partnerships with constituents by actively incorporating alumni perspectives into their work.
Ideally, alumni input will be included in all of the organization’s planning and decision making around both practice and policy, internally and externally. In order to ensure that these collaborations are meaningful and result in more positive outcomes, all the partners need the right tools to work better together.
Examples of partnerships include:
- Forming a youth and alumni advisory council
- Including alumni in planning and delivering foster parent training
- Establishing an alumni-mentoring program
- Educating policymakers
- Developing curriculum/materials
- Increasing awareness/public education
Better Together curriculum includes hands-on, interactive lessons in how to:
- Add alumni voices to practice and policy development
- Move forward on state Performance Improvement Plan requirements
- Develop alumni skills in strategically sharing expertise on target issues
Better Together is available by invitation. For more information, please send e-mail to contactus@casey.org.