“It takes a village to raise a child,” this now, well-known African proverb aptly describes exactly what is needed in order to help transitioning teens from foster care become happy, healthy and successful adults. Adults who some day will be raising the next generation of little villagers.

In our first installment of It Takes a Village, we discussed Step I: Community Needs Assessment/Environmental Scan. In our second installment, we began discussing Step II: Prioritizing Strategic Needs & Issues. Understanding the most pressing needs and issues of the village will allow us the opportunity of addressing them the best way and to finding solutions.

Last time, we began by discussing the importance of Education in the life of a young villager. Now, we will look at Life Skills/Self-sufficiency Education and those Normalcy Issues of being a healthy developing teenager; who happens to also be growing up in foster care.

Over the years, the term life skills has, many times, unfortunately become synonymous with Independent Living – as in it is the only thing necessary to ensure the smooth transition into adulthood. I believe that life skill training has gained so much consideration (above, at times, education, long term relationship development, and even housing) because in the late 80s and throughout much of the 90s until today, the scarcity of resources could only focus on something as seemingly “doable and deliverable” as life skills. After all, we are not going to change entire educational systems or provide affordable housing to every transitioning teen with the current money available.

Many villages or systems of care have created what I will term adjunct means of delivering life skill or self-sufficiency education. Adjunct in terms of being delivered in a workshop or classroom setting by professionals who only have minimal contact with the individual young person; let’s say, Saturday morning workshops delivered by independent living professionals on how to budget. Sound familiar?

As I was once a young villager, as were all of you, I do not recall Saturday morning workshops. Maybe Saturday morning cartoons, but not workshops. Also, I did learn how a bill became law - I’m just a bill and I am sitting here on Capitol Hill. I do remember my mom and dad, brothers, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbors, coaches, and teachers showing me how to do stuff. My mom showed me how to do dishes and get them clean and how to do laundry and keep the whites mostly white. My oldest brother taught me how to play football and how to stand at attention (he was in the Marine Corps). My teachers taught me not only math and English, but how to study and prepare to become a better student. My coaches taught me teamwork and how to push myself farther than I thought I could go. And finally, my dad showed me how to make scrambled eggs and potato chips. (Ok, so not all lessons are successful, but I did learn that potato chips taste awful when soggy.)

The above examples show how we learn; which is “by doing and practicing what we have learned.” We learn mostly from those closest to us in our daily lives. We learn how to act by watching others who model behavior, good or bad. We pick up life skills and develop into mature adults because those primary relationships in our lives show us how. Young people who grow up in foster care need to learn the same way. They need to be offered in their daily lives, what we in the field have termed, normalcy. They need to have sleep overs, join school teams and clubs, go to dances, have inappropriate TV shows turned off and have the opportunity of screwing up without being told to leave.

In the realm of life skills and normalcy, the primary caregivers of our own lives and their close allies either directly delivered or coordinated activities which taught us how to live well. The same needs to happen for young people living in foster care. Village infrastructures need to be redeveloped when looking at how life skills and normalcy issues are addressed for teens in care. We need to invigorate and replicate the "natural system of caring/learning" of a healthy family and community for teenagers who must grow up in foster care; a foster family or group home situation.

We must expect and demand from our village that any person working with teenagers, 13 and older, such as foster care workers, foster parents, group home staff, and transitional staff, be trained in adolescent development and in delivering developmentally appropriate life skill training. The foster care milieu for teens needs to be absolutely entrenched with villagers who want to work with teens and who are trained to know how to best work with them. Foster parents should be specifically recruited and trained for the teenage population (with possible financial incentives of achieving specific outcomes; as simple as not kicking a teen out when they come home drunk).

To this end, the primary caregivers and care managers must be trained in the areas of adolescent development, developmentally appropriate life skill education (how and when to discuss human sexuality and healthy relationships, etc.), and transitional services. Further, all of the planning for teenagers in foster care must be focused and prioritized in those areas which will have the greatest impact on a successful transition from foster care into adulthood (areas such as education attainment, life skills learning, individual health and hygiene, healthy “age-appropriate” relationships, early employment skills and experience, community networking and knowledge, self-determination and advocacy, and financial literacy).

Finally, to wrap up this edition of village-speak, I am not suggesting that we forgo any supplemental training opportunities such as adjunct life skill workshops. As a matter of fact, let’s better equip care givers, themselves, with life skill training materials – booklets, videos, and links and subscriptions to online learning such as VStreet.com. This way, young people in foster care can still learn how to dress appropriately for a job interview and still be able to eat their Froot Loops while watching Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings.