We want to thank the Office of the Family and Children’s Ombuds team for the insights they provided in the 2021 Office of the Family and Children's Ombuds (OFCO) Annual Report.
January is National Mentoring Month – a month dedicated to celebrating mentors and their positive influence on young people. Youth who have mentors experience many benefits. They are more likely to enroll in college and less likely to drink or do drugs.
Did you know being absent from school just two days each month for any reason equates to missing 10% of instructional time and valuable information needed to ensure academic progress? Unfortunately, Washington State ranks among the lowest in the country in regular school attendance.
“It’s important for youth with lived experience to feel heard and empowered because so often they don’t feel empowered, they feel small.” – Mockingbird youth leader
Have you heard about DCYF’s Adolescent Programs division? It’s the agency’s first effort to align client-serving programs into one integrated team. Adolescent Programs focuses on the developmental stage of adolescents and creates programs and strategies to help DCYF provide services more efficiently.
Friends of the Children is a national program in which professional mentors commit to friendship with a child for 12.5 years, no matter what. Every year, local Friends of the Children chapters reach out to DCYF caseworkers for help identifying youth who could truly benefit from the program.
Through his work with at-risk youth, DCYF staffer Zach Corbett realized that having a strong role model and mentor during his formative years made a world of difference in keeping his “head in the game.”
January is National Mentoring Month – a time to recognize and celebrate the incredible impact mentoring relationships have on the lives of youth. DCYF staffer Jessica Hatch has firsthand experience with the lasting change that mentoring can have.
Hundreds of youth, community partners, DCYF leadership and staff attended the 14th Annual Mockingbird Society Youth Leadership Summit last week.
The event, held in Seattle, allowed youth from all over the state to identify challenges or barriers and propose solutions to issues foster and homeless youth currently face.
