Young Hawaiians Play Key Role in Passage of Foster Youth Bill of Rights

Hawaii is home to a new law designed to sup­port the well-being of youth in fos­ter care. It’s a piece of leg­is­la­tion shaped by young Hawai­ians who have expe­ri­enced the fos­ter care sys­tem firsthand.

Through their involve­ment in the HI H.O.P.E.S. Ini­tia­tive, young peo­ple pro­vid­ed tes­ti­mo­ny and facil­i­tat­ed meet­ings with law­mak­ers to raise aware­ness about the needs of youth in fos­ter care.

The new law — called the Fos­ter Youth Bill of Rights — aims to serve these needs in a num­ber of ways, including:

• paving the way for young peo­ple to access per­son­al records;
• ensur­ing that young peo­ple can par­tic­i­pate in appro­pri­ate extracur­ric­u­lar activities;
• pro­vid­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion about vital documents;
• encour­ag­ing edu­ca­tion­al stability;
• spec­i­fy­ing rights for young peo­ple who iden­ti­fy as LGBTQ; and
• includ­ing youth old­er than 14 in deci­sions about their lives.

HI H.O.P.E.S Ini­tia­tive, which stands for Hawaii Help­ing Our Peo­ple Envi­sion Suc­cess, is a statewide group of young peo­ple who are or were in fos­ter care. Epic ​‘Ohana, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive site in Hawaii, leads HI H.O.P.E.S. and its work with youth leadership.

The state’s Fos­ter Youth Bill of Rights replaces a set of guid­ing prin­ci­ples that had remained large­ly sta­t­ic over the last 12-plus years. The law also includes updat­ed fed­er­al, state and admin­is­tra­tive poli­cies — such as guide­lines on pru­dent par­ent­ing and ensur­ing young peo­ple in care have devel­op­men­tal expe­ri­ences sim­i­lar to their peers — that were not reflect­ed in the guid­ing principles.

“The guid­ing prin­ci­ples were nice to have,” says Delia Uli­ma, the statewide ini­tia­tive man­ag­er at Epic ​’Ohana. ​“Now, with the Fos­ter Youth Bill of Rights, there is respon­si­bil­i­ty and accountability.”

HI H.O.P.E.S mem­bers were present when Hawai­ian Gov­er­nor David Ige signed the bill into law on July 5, 2018.

“Young peo­ple prac­ticed and pre­pared in a strate­gic way so their voic­es were not only heard but used to fuel sus­tain­able change,” says Uli­ma. ​“The voic­es of the young peo­ple were the impe­tus for this leg­is­la­tion — they had a seat at the table and set the table for what authen­tic youth engage­ment should be.”