Foster Care to Prison Pipeline Part 3: Jaylyn

Transcript:

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (00:00):

I didn’t end up in care because my bio family didn’t love me or didn’t care about me or didn’t try. It’s that they were failed by the system as well. And that cycle is so easy to perpetuate.

Chynah Boise (00:14):

Hello, you are listening to the social work lens and I’m Chynah h Boise. The social work lens is a collaboration between the University of Vermont’s child Welfare training partnership and the state of Vermont. Today we have the thrilling conclusion of our three-part series, examining the idea of the Foster Care to Prison Pieline . Our incredible student intern Mackenzie has guided us through discussion with Dr. Sherri Simmons-Horton and her powerful work looking at national impact. You can listen to that in the first episode of this series. Mackenzie then met with some of the leaders in Vermont’s family services division to look at how Vermont is working to reduce harm for these youth. Today you will hear Mackenzie as she speaks with an important individual as well as a returning guest Jaylyn. Jaylyn shared their voice with us back in season two to talk about youth voice stigma in foster care. And we will be sure to link to that in the show notes for new listeners, without further ado, please take it away. Mackenzie.

Mackenzie  Leonard (01:21):

Thank you, Chynah, and welcome back Jaylyn. It’s very exciting to have you here. So I wanna start off by giving you the chance to do your introduction.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (01:31):

Yes, thank you. It’s very exciting to be here. My name is Jaylyn. I spent five years in the Vermont DCF Department for Children and Families foster care system. And I’m currently a senior at Champlain College studying social work.

Mackenzie  Leonard (01:50):

Alright, so to start off our conversation, I wanted to connect to the previous interview that you had done through the social work lens. Talking about stigma, specifically the idea that you brought up of people thinking, what did you do to end up in foster care to be part of the system and how that then relates to the foster care to prison pipeline?

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (02:15):

Yeah, definitely. I think there is, there is a lot to it. I think the notion that somebody must have done something wrong in order to be able to access care, I guess was always something that was so confusing to me. ’cause I know it’s not 100% of the cases that, you know, go through DCF, but I guess my comprehension of foster care was always that it was an opportunity for safety. And when you blame the victim of trauma for the impact <laugh> of that trauma, it gets really confusing to the person who’s experiencing it to the foster youth. It’s like, well, what did I do? Did I do something wrong to end up here? Like is it my fault? And I think we’re already struggling with that concept ourselves. So when I was in high school and that one kid was like, oh, you’re in foster care. What’d you do? I was like, asked for help <laugh>. But I think that stigma is really, really conducive to the foster care to prison pipeline that we see, or all of the negative impacts that come out of the negative circumstances that foster youth are already at risk for such as homelessness or substance abuse. And ’cause when you make someone think that they’re doing something wrong, a lot of times it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. So when you consider that on top of the lack of resources and role models and supports that youth in care have, especially when they’re aging out, what more would you expect? I guess that’s, that’s <laugh> that’s my conclusion.

Mackenzie  Leonard (04:03):

Yeah. And then going off of that, you mentioned some barriers, housing, you mentioned lack of supports, role models, and I’d love to touch more on that and what other things you notice for barriers.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (04:17):

Yeah, definitely. I think that probably the most important barrier is housing. In my opinion, in my experience anybody without housing is unable to provide the necessary emotional and mental effort, power, what, however you wanna call it. It’s when you don’t have a safe place to go where you can shut off your fight or flight that is constantly active because you’re on the street or you’re stuck in your trauma because you were never provided proper mental health support or you are using to try and cope with that mental health or the lack of supports that you’re receiving. There’s no way to actually confront those things when you don’t have a place to live. When you don’t have somewhere to rest your head and feel like, I can take a breath and I am safe and I am ready to confront all of those fundamental needs that I have that weren’t met throughout my adolescence or my childhood. It’s just not attainable. And it is, you know, I guess I shouldn’t say that across the board, you know, I mean, kudos to those who have been able to do it without having housing first. But I don’t think that should be an expectation.. I think it’s a very unrealistic expectation that someone who literally is living their day by day, they’re living their life day by day. It’s trying to figure out, so where am I gonna sleep tonight? How am I gonna get food tonight? How am I gonna survive through the winter? Like, it’s, it’s not really something their mental health support and their trauma, like, it’s not something they’re able to confront in those circumstances. So I really believe that housing is probably the first barrier that’s the most impactful. And I think another one is the lack of adult support that youth have outside of social workers. I think that having a really dependable social worker makes an incredible difference when you have someone that’s doing their due diligence to check do those monthly check-ins and to show that care and interest in your wellbeing makes a huge difference. Because when you don’t feel like anybody cares, you’re not going to care yourself either. It’s you know, it just, it feels easier to not care <laugh>. It, it takes a lot of effort to care to want to be better. I’ve spent the past 10 years in therapy. It is a work in progress every single day. I mean, I have my own struggles and I’ve been able to access pretty much every resource I’ve needed due to the privilege of being adopted. Basically. I have my permanency, I have my adult support. I have someone that, like at the end of the day, if I need a place to live, I can go live with my mom if I needed money because I, something happened with my car or my rent or whatever, it’s, I have someone that I can call for that support. And a lot of youth in care or aging out of care don’t have a reliable source of support. And it’s too many go back to their biological families. And not that that is a bad thing to have that relationship with them, but to have them as your only support when it’s clear that they’re unable to give that to you, not unwilling but unable, ’cause That’s an important difference is everybody, you know, most people give what they have. And that was a lesson I had to learn throughout my experience and care and, just the past couple of years in college is that like, I didn’t end up in care because my bio family didn’t love me or didn’t care about me or didn’t try. It’s that they were failed by the system as well. And that cycle is so easy to perpetuate. So I think having adult support and having housing can make an incredible impact and the outcome of a youth who’s aging out of care. Because You’re not just on your own and trying to figure out how to fix it all on your own. Because adulting is hard. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have my mom. It is hard. And that’s with the support I have. So it’s like <laugh>, I think about, I think about the people who don’t have that support and you know, I, I really empathize and can understand why they’re in the situations they’re at. Because if you need to steal food to eat that night or you need to break into somebody’s abandoned vacation home that they’re not using in the middle of winter to have a dry and warm place to sleep. It’s the expectation that like homeless people or people in need aren’t. We’re all just trying to survive. And everybody is deserving of that help and those resources. And it takes actually a lot of work to access those resources. We don’t make it easy. And I think that is probably the biggest contributor to youth out of care entering prison or youth out of care entering homelessness. And then don’t even get me started on the rates of like, oh, you’re homeless. You’re so much more likely to encounter the criminal justice system. And again, just going back to why housing is so important for youth aging out of care. Because It’s, that’s already being homeless is a risk factor itself to the prison pipeline. So it’s, there’s a lot of, a lot of prevent prevention could be happening <laugh> with really just the implementation of housing security and proper case management.

Mackenzie  Leonard (10:08):

Yeah. meeting the very baseline needs.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (10:11):

Yeah. You can’t, like it’s, it’s, I mean, I think about Maslow’s like hierarchy of needs.

Mackenzie  Leonard (10:16):

Yes.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (10:16):

And it’s like <laugh>, we’re expecting these youth to fulfill those top tier needs when their bottom tier needs aren’t even being considered. And it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t work that way.

Mackenzie  Leonard (10:30):

And on the thought of those needs and a little bit talking about some of the other barriers, I know one thing that we’ve talked about before is education as well, and the statistics around that and education for those involved with foster care. And it’s known that when you have not completed your education to a certain level, there is a higher chance of you being involved within the criminal justice system. So that’s another add-on to that because statistics have shown that when you’ve been involved with the foster care system, there’s more likely chance that you won’t finish high school. Much lower chance that you’ll get a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (11:12):

Yeah. Definitely. It education is a huge aspect. And education, lack of education. It, it, it leads Yes. There’s that connection to the prison pipeline as well. And there’s also the connection to instable housing again. It’s, it’s my capstone is on the housing first approach and specifically why it’s a good idea for youth aging out of care. And in that research, I’ve come across a lot, a lot to do with the outcomes of foster youth compared to the general population. And foster youth are much more likely to obtain lower paying careers. And part of that is due to the, the barrier of education, there’s, how can you afford it in this economy and in this society. Education is not only unattainable for foster youth, but like the average American, I would say is, is really putting in a lot of work to get there. And they get a lot of help most of the time to get there. And so when you think about foster youth accessing higher education, you have to really consider a lot of the root supports that they have. And I don’t know, college is also hard. <Laugh>.

Mackenzie  Leonard (12:36):

Yes, it is.

Mackenzie  Leonard (12:37):

When you don’t have someone, you can be like, God, this class just sucks. Or this homework assignment’s kicking my butt. Like it’s having even just a safe person to vent to. Makes so much difference. And I’m not talking about a peer, I’m talking about a tangible adult support that can, you can actually look to for advice and that can actually provide you the emotional support you need. You can talk to your peers all you want. They don’t have the solutions you need. They’re going through the same thing. And expectations in high school specifically, I, I would say that schools fall really short in supporting youth with trauma. And I think that there needs to be a trauma-informed approach and pretty much every aspect of social work, but especially when you’re dealing with youth in foster care. And I think we need to stop punishing youth for expressing signs of that trauma. Because The way I like to think about it is when there’s disruptive behavior or deviant what, however you wanna label it, there is a need behind that something is not being met. And when foster, well, not when, when schools, public schools or whatever criminalize that behavior, basically it’s, it’s just the beginning step to that foster care, to prison pipeline I feel like it starts in schools. It starts in getting sent to the principal’s office. It starts in missing out on recess. It starts in being held in detention. Because adults are missing signs of missing signs for opportunity to connect, missing signs for opportunity for a youth to, to access support. There’s a lot, there’s a lot of missing steps. And I feel like school settings really try and prioritize the greater learning of like you know, like the majority. Which is, you know, great in ways, but it also can become incredibly dismissive of those who are seeking help. That’s how I like to label it. I don’t, I don’t like to label it as disruptive behavior. I like to say label it as need seeking.

Mackenzie  Leonard (14:58):

Yes. They want support. They need support.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (15:00):

Yes.

Mackenzie  Leonard (15:01):

Everyone needs support.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (15:02):

When you have trauma, you aren’t, 90% of the time you have not been taught how to regulate your emotions. And you are not taught how to express those emotions. And you are not, like I, I know I was still learning what my emotions meant when I felt them in my body. And to expect someone to behave perfectly for not most of their life. You, when you are in school, you are in school for more than you are at home. And to expect this like perfect behavior of sitting in class and you know, not speaking out of turn or whatever, it’s like, it’s also these youths opportunity to engage with their peers. So it again, attend like a need seeking. it’s like, okay, you’re being disruptive, you’re talking when I’m talking whatever. You’re seeking connection with your peers. And I think like we need to start rewriting those assumptions so that we can actually better provide that care.

Mackenzie  Leonard (16:04):

I know one thing that I think we’ve talked about a bit before on that is emotional intelligence, but more about emotional responsiveness and understanding the reactivity that’s going on. Understanding you can understand, oh, they have this behavior that they’re doing, but often it seems like they don’t understand any why behind the behavior or try to figure out the why.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (16:28):

Yes. And that’s where the trauma informed care comes in.

Mackenzie  Leonard (16:30):

Yes.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (16:31):

It’s, it’s exactly, it’s having, having a response versus having a reaction. I know that like, that’s something that I have, I have spent the last 10 years on doing is being able to like emotionally process and respond to the situation versus just having something go, go wrong and then immediately reacting in a negative way. Because again, trauma impacts the way that you’re able to communicate and regulate. And when you have trauma, your baseline is so much higher, it takes so much less to be set off. It takes so much less to have that reaction. And it’s an adult’s job to be able to put themselves, to take that perspective and be able to be like, oh, okay, they’re reacting this way because I know this, this, and this going on in their life, even if they’re not in foster care. That’s just the approach you should be having to anybody having any kind of those reactions is, okay, I know. Or to connect with the youth and figure out what is going on versus jumping to conclusions that, oh, they just don’t care. Oh, they’re just. Whatever, like and coming up to whatever conclusions you come up to that are negative in reflection of the youth, it’s, it’s about the response you have. And again, meeting those needs.

Mackenzie  Leonard (17:48):

Yes. And then connecting with them that will help build those relationships. And then you see those positive relationships and positive supports that youth need, that everyone needs to have.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (17:59):

Exactly. High school, my high school teachers, I would get to school early on purpose to chat with them, you know, every, I would go visit my teachers from the previous year because I missed them. And I created a lot of strong relationships with them. And that was really important and meaningful for me. And teachers everywhere have the opportunity to take advantage of that as well.

Mackenzie  Leonard (18:26):

That also brings me to like, trust. When you have these adults that you trust, you may feel safer to have these behaviors come out. And also when you have these behaviors going on, I know sometimes, not all the time, of course, it’s very different with situations, but something you can sometimes see is that a youth in foster care will have certain behaviors coming out and it’s almost like they’re testing to see where the line is gonna be drawn. And that can also be something of that line gets drawn and that line maybe ends up with a different home. It ends up with a group home. It ends up with involvement with the criminal justice system.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (19:08):

Yeah. I agree. I think that’s why, it’s correct. It kids will do that. Teens will do that. It’s a subconscious, will you still love me if I react this way? Will you still care if I do this? It’s a subconscious. It’s not, I wouldn’t even say it’s intentional. I, it’s a testing of how far, out of line can I go before you don’t care about me anymore. And I think it’s, that’s where resources and education becomes so important for foster parents. I feel like they are grossly uneducated. I feel like it’s not communicated effectively the task it is to be a foster parent. I think the need is so high that it is actually, what’s the word? I think that oftentimes social workers will underbid how difficult it is to actually be a foster parent. And that’s not, it’s not difficult because there’s anything wrong with the youth. It is difficult because trauma represents itself, presents itself in so many random ways. That even we don’t understand. And I think that it’s important, you need to understand that is that it’s not a matter of like, we don’t know why we’re doing this either. There are unmet needs that come from infancy and there are kids who have been in foster care from a year old, but trauma is so impactful that even just that year of exposure has completely rewritten the neurons in their brain. And their trauma response. It can show up at any time. And I think that’s what makes me the most sad, is when people, foster parents adopt young children out of foster care and they end up coming back into contact with the system due to how unprepared they were to actually deal or uneducated they were to actually deal with the trauma symptoms that started presenting themselves in adolescence. Because It doesn’t just go away. And a lot of times we, we excuse trauma in ways of, again, we’re not identifying it as trauma. We’re just saying that you’re disruptive. We’re saying that you’re argumentative, we’re saying that you’re defiant. And instead of understanding that this is a way their brain was wired due to the experiences that they had to go through, it makes us feel a little less broken. And it also just, it gives you tangible strategies to work on those things when you just excuse it, oh, they’re being disruptive. Oh, they’re, they’re just a bad kid that doesn’t do anything to serve anybody in the situation. And again, very obviously in need is being ignored, being overlooked, whatever it is. Whether the youth will accept that need is another story. You know, like you have to also accept help in order for it to be effective. So, it’s, you have to work with youth to gain that trust that you were talking about. It’s that trust is, it’s really vital and a youth believing you and believing that you are there to help them and not judge them.

Mackenzie  Leonard (22:47):

One other thing that that just brought up for me was something else we’ve talked a little bit about around resiliency and your thoughts on that.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (22:55):

Oh God. Yeah. I hate that word.

Mackenzie  Leonard (22:57):

Yes. <laugh>.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (22:59):

I think it really undermines the effort it takes to be quote unquote resilient. It takes a lot of work and just because somebody, a youth presents themself as resilient or in other words, behaving good, gets good grades, behaves nicely, doesn’t challenge authority has friends, is likable. It’s really damaging, to you don’t know youth’s experiences and you’re like, the amount of times I have had a teacher say, oh, Jaylyn, you’re the definition of resilience in a room full of people, a room full of my peers, a room full of youth is crazy. You, like, you’re inadvertently invalidating everybody else’s experience. As well as mine. Because when I hear, oh, you’re so resilient, it makes me think, wow, do I really look like I’m not struggling because I am <laugh>? It’s, there’s a lot going on here and there’s a lot, there’s a lot of work, a lot of work I’m putting into being better. To working on my mental health and, and building coping strategies. And just because someone else doesn’t have the same resources that I do that led me to being able to attain those skills doesn’t make them less deserving. It doesn’t make them less worthy, it doesn’t make them less valuable, and it sure as hell does not make them less resilient. They are surviving. There are only two options, resilience or not being here. And when you pit youth against each other, basically by creating this unattainable concept of resilience and <laugh> success, it’s, it’s equal to success. That’s what kids hear. And when they hear you calling another kid resilient and they don’t hear that language in your vocabulary when you’re talking to them, they’re going to assume that they’re doing something wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with having trauma. It’s not your fault. And there’s nothing wrong with not knowing how to deal with that on your own. And I think what people should be noticing instead is, wow, what do you need? What supports are lacking here that I can help you with. So that you can be successful too.

Mackenzie  Leonard (25:25):

So the next thing I wanted to ask you about is how you think your perspective on this has changed and developed and what you know, has changed a bit since the time where you were lost on this when you were an 18-year-old versus now you’re 23 and you have a social work education, you’re almost graduated with A BSW, which is bachelor’s of social work. So I feel like there’s been a lot of development in what, you know.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (25:57):

Oh, for sure. I, I’ve been involved in foster youth advocacy since I was 14. I, I think firstly have gained the language needed to understand a lot of the stuff going on in the system, and my personal experience, all of the above. And, I’ve been able to identify social work practice outside of social work obviously through my classes. Teaching me what that looks like, and I’ve been able to do a lot of reflection on just what that looks like and why it’s not practiced in specific DCF cases a lot of the time I feel like it’s just, it’s a hard question honestly. I feel like most of it is I finally have the words to the feelings and I have the confirmation through my education that all of the solutions I came up with would be effective.

Mackenzie  Leonard (27:01):

You have the knowledge to back it up now.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (27:03):

Yes, exactly. Iit wasn’t just, you know, teenage Jaylyn daydreaming, it was teenage Jaylyn identifying.

Mackenzie  Leonard (27:11):

yes.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (27:11):

Attainable solutions that adults in our local government and federal government and all of the above still don’t understand. And I guess that’s where it gets a little frustrating. I’ve gotten more frustrated as I’ve gotten older. I was a lot more hopeful and it, seeing how far the system falls short with, you know, I mean that’s what we’re talking about, the foster care to prison pipeline, is the system failing? It is straight up, it’s the system failing and it’s the system failing youth in foster care incredibly disproportionately. Not to mention youth in foster care who are people of color. There is so much against them and there’s not a lot working for them. And the things that are working for them are incredibly difficult to access and there’s not enough people there to help them access it. So yeah. I guess, I hope that answers your question,

Mackenzie  Leonard (28:11):

It does. I not so much change, but there’s been growth

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (28:15):

Yeah.

Mackenzie  Leonard (28:15):

With the knowledge.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (28:16):

Definitely. Definitely.

Mackenzie  Leonard (28:17):

Which I think is really important and valuable for the work you’re gonna do someday. Whether or not it’s within child welfare, you’ve learned a lot.

Mackenzie  Leonard (28:24):

Exactly. I think it’s, well, so the other half of that is, is working with, with the elder population. That I’ve, I’ve expressed interest with… And this exactly the same concepts apply… It’s the, the trauma informed care is, you know, when you’re working with people with cognitive disabilities or Alzheimer’s or dementia, it’s just as important to approach them with trauma informed care. You have, especially when they’re in that state of mind. You have no idea what they’re going to revert back to. And so approaching every situation as if, like acknowledging all of the contributing factors is incredibly important in any line of work. Yeah, I agree.

Mackenzie  Leonard (29:04):

I want to close this out by asking you more of an overarching, what would be your big thing that you want to see done? What would be your call to action? We touched base on a few things throughout, but what is like bringing back that hopefulness? What’s your hope?

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (29:21):

My hope, my hope is my capstone. <Laugh> <laugh>. My hope is housing. I really feel like there’s a large part of me that believes obviously housing isn’t the solution by itself, but it’s a stepping stone. Piece of the puzzle. It’s a piece of the puzzle. It’s a really big piece of the puzzle. And it is a huge, huge empowerment for youth who have bounced around to have a space to call them their own. To have a space that makes them feel safe. A space where they can do whatever they want. A space where they can have whoever they want over, a space where they don’t have to, they don’t have to ask permission to do anything. Freedom and control are things that youth and care do not have

Mackenzie  Leonard (30:11):

Autonomy.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (30:11):

They do not have autonomy. Exactly. It’s, you are so thirsty for control or, or involvement in any aspect of your case, but being in foster care, you don’t have, you don’t have control, you don’t have control of where you’re gonna be placed. You don’t have control of what you, you can say you wanna go to a certain school, but if they can’t find you transport, then guess you’re switching schools. You can say you wanna stay in your placement, but it’s not up to you. You can say you wanna leave your placement, guess what? There’s not another placement. It, there’s, there’s so much that foster kids are left out of and giving them back their sense of control. Who can enter their apartment, what goes in their apartment, how they decorate their apartment. Where they are in their apartment. I’m a bed person because my entire life, I never felt safe to go outside of my room. Guess what? When I had my own apartment, I was sitting on the floor of the living room. I was painting, I was doing whatever I want wherever I wanted because I finally had space that was unconditionally mine. That I was in control of. I was in control of the, the vibes I was in control of what it felt like and how it felt like that whether, you know, like the company I brought over the food, I made the food, I ate the decor, <laugh>, I love decorating. It’s so fun. But when you live in somebody else’s home, there’s so much that feels limiting. I remember whenever I was able to paint my room, whatever color I wanted in my foster home, that was like such a huge thing. It was like, oh wow. Okay. So I get to brainstorm with you, like, what color I want the trim, what color I want the walls. Like that felt like such a huge privilege. And that was in my permanent placement prior to my adoption. So I, you know, again, I had that privilege of having an adult support, but I, I think my, my hope for the future of care is providing more stable housing options for youth aging out. Because I think that is really a huge, huge, impactful factor in their outcome in later in later life.

Mackenzie  Leonard (32:29):

I am not sure how well that’s gonna pick up, but it was clapping. So thank you again so much for being here today. As always, it’s great to talk with you on this topic, and I know you’re passionate about it and that really comes through and it’s amazing.

Jaylyn Van Fossen  (32:44):

I could talk forever. <Laugh>,

Cassie Gillespie (32:50):

The social work lens is produced by the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership and the State of Vermont. Our theme music is composed and performed by local band Brick Drop. And our sound production and engineering has been brought to you by Egan Media Productions. We’d also like to give a special thank you to our in-house administrative production assistant Emma Baird. For the Social Work Lens, I’m Cassie Gillespie, and we’ll see you next time.