On May 16th, 2014 FSM held it's 3rd Annual Statewide Summit where our network discovered - 1 Thing: Transforming Your Practice, Transforming the Education to Career Pipeline. 

Thank you to all of those who were able to come out and show support, the Summit was a huge success! This toolkit provides you with many resources that were relevant at this year's summit. 

You will find: Presentations from the workshops, handouts that were given during the workshops, links to FSM's guides, the FSM stories page, and relevent news articles discussing people first language and the experience of foster care as related to higher education. 

FSM 2013 Program Summary

This document summarizes the activities that FSM did in 2013. It is broken out into resourcing, supporting, and networking activities - the three strategies that FSM has identified. It also notes the national activity that occured during the year. 

Student Summit - Identity Development Powerpoint

The Student Summit focused on Identity Development through various story telling activities. Students were able to share the story of self, story of now, and together discovered the story of us. This powerpoint is an overview of the student summit activities

Session 1: Funder Insights Powerpoint

Caroline Altman Smith and Chera Reid from the Kresge Foundation facilitated the Funder Insights workshop. The Powerpoint gives an overview of Kresge, types of foundations, how funders make decisions, preparing for and writing the proposal, what to do if you do or do not get funded, and what to do once the grant period is over. 

Session 1: Policies Affecting Youth and Alumni of Foster Care

Michele Corey, the Vice President of Programs at Michigan's Children shared her insights on advocating for polices that affect youth and alumni of foster care. The powerpoint goes over effective advocacy strategies, how to engage policymakers, as well as opportunities for advocating in 2014. 

Session 1: How to Be a Supportive Adult Powerpoint

Joi Rencher and Brittany Bartkowiak from the Eastern Michigan University MAGIC Program and Emily Flinkstrom from the Michigan College Advising Corps collaborated for this workshop. Their powerpoint covers reasons why support for youth from care is needed, how to create a mentoring program, and specifics about the mentoring relationship. 

Session 2: Working with Students as Parters

Jamie Crandell, Traning and Certification Coordinator at the Center for Fostering Success and Ronicka Hamilton, Sr. Campus Coach, Seita Scholars Program at Western Michigan University deliver a workshop on effectively working with students as partners. Their powerpoint includes statistics on coaching as well as helpful visuals from the coaching model. 

Session 2: Building Your Network: High School and College Resources Powerpoint

Khadija Walker-Fobbs from Michigan Youth Opportunities Initiative (MYOI) and Sarah Anthony and Christi Taylor from Michigan College Access Network (MCAN) delivered infromation on high school and college resources. This powerpoint provides information on both MYOI and MCAN and their related activities in efforts to increase high school and college resources. 

Handouts

From Session 2: Build Your Network: High School and College Resources

• MYOI Coordinator Contact List
• Stronger Nation Michigan
• College Application Week Takeaway

From the Student Summit

• Student Summit Worksheet

Links

From Foster Care to Graduation and Beyond - The NPR news station for Southwest Michigan, WMUK, interviewed the Director of Outreach and Training from the Center for Fostering Success about events taking place for Foster Care Awareness Month. You have the option of reading the article, or listening to the interview. 

What's 'People First' Language - and What does it have to do with Foster Care? - Michigan Radio State of Opportunity reporter Sarah Alvarez discusses the importance of using people first language when speaking about students who have experienced foster care. Sarah was in attendence at this year's Summit and was able to speak with many of the students that were present from across the state of Michigan. 

Fostering Success Michigan Stories Pages - On our stories page, we showcase stories from students and have special sections for Brittany's Blog and stories of events from the Leadership Retreat. If you were at student who participated in this year's summit - we would like to hear from you! Send us an email at fostering-info@wmich.edu for more information. 

FSM Guides - As part of our resourcing strategy, we have created a number of "Getting to know.." Guides for our partners to increase their knowledge of higher education attainment for students who have experienced foster care. The guides include: higher education resources, Affordable Care Act, financial aid, youth and alumni of foster care, and a transition checklist. All guides are available in a PDF format. 

Summit Speakers - Did you miss the summit and want to hear the inspirational speakers that took place? Or, did you really like what someone said but cannot remember the words? Well no worries, we were able to video tape the morning speakers. The links are provided below for WMU President John Dunn, Caroline Altman Smith from the Kresge Foundation, and Brittany Bartkowiak the FSM Student Ambassador. The video of Brittany is also embeded as seen at the bottom of this toolkit. 

What's your "1 Thing?"

Did you not get a chance to fill out your "1 Thing" post card? No worries! Go to this link and we will send you your "1 Thing" in six months as a reminder for you: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HXN6HF8

Below, you can access the links and in the right hand column, you will find attachments to the handouts and powerpoints.

Links

• From Foster Care to Graduation and Beyond (WMUK)
• What's 'People First' Language - and What does it have to do with Foster Care? (NPR State of Opportunity Article)
• Fostering Success Michigan Stories Page
• FSM Guides
• President John Dunn Speaking at FSM Summit
• Caroline Altman Smith Speaking at FSM Summit
• Brittany Bartkowiak Speaking at FSM Summit