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It Takes an 'Ohana

Hawaii's Foster Care Resource

It Takes an ‘Ohana is a program of Family Programs Hawaii. We provide the latest news in foster care and updates to Hawaii’s child welfare laws. For more information on foster care and strengthening families in Hawaii, visit our main website by clicking the button below.

Family Programs Hawaii

`Ohana is Forever IX: Beyond a Label

Jun 15, 2015

`Ohana is Forever IX: Beyond a Label details:

Friday, July 24, 2015
Ko‘olau Golf Course in Kaneohe, Oahu
Registration & Continental Breakfast: 8:30 a.m.
Conference: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Click here to register on-line by July 7, 2015

Click here for a flyer with more information.

Please join us for this free, statewide, foster youth-focused conference for current and former foster youth and those who support them, including Family Court judges, guardian’s ad litem (GALs), Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs), Department of Human Services staff, resource families, and service providers. Continental breakfast and lunch will be served.

This conference will provide tools to guide youth to rise above past adverse experiences and build a foundation for ensuring a happy future and a positive legacy. Adult workshops include:

• Helping Each Other See presented by Christian Alameda, Ph.D, A.K.A. Dr. Kimo, Cultural Psychologist and former resource caregiver. Dr. Kimo will help us examine the awareness, attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed to learn how labels can limit us and how universals can connect us.

• Defining Normal: Working Together to Improve Life for Young People in Foster Care ~ Panel consisting of HI H.O.P.E.S. Youth Leadership Boards will review the new federal law that sets out guidelines for child welfare agencies to improve a young person’s social capital and give resource caregivers more opportunities to act as a natural parent would in relation to everyday activities. This workshop, developed and facilitated by current and former foster youth, will review the law, provide the youth voice of experience and recommendations for those working with foster youth and resource caregivers. Participants will work in small groups to discuss possible methods and solutions around normalcy and prudent parenting.

• What??? Use a Weighted Backpack??? presented by Valerie Chang of the Department of Health. Valerie will help us understand praxis, the ability to conceptualize, plan, organize, and carry out a sequence of unfamiliar actions, why it is important for our youth and how to help youth develop this skill.

• Beyond a Label ~ Presenter Francesca Weems is a native of the Big Island and entered the foster care system at the age of 8 years old. She has defied statistics for foster children, going on to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications and a Master’s in Education. After living away from home for 10 years, Francesca made her return to islands this year to work as a Sports Anchor/ Reporter for Hawaii News Now. Francesca will inspire you and answer your questions about how she beat the odds.

 

This event is funded by the Hawai‘i Court Improvement Program and the Victoria S. and Bradley L. Geist Foundation, supported by the Hawai‘i Department of Human Services, EPIC `Ohana and First Circuit Family Court and coordinated by Family Programs Hawai‘i.

Taxes – Claiming Children in Care

Feb 18, 2015

Unique tax rules affect resource, foster, kinship care, and adoptive families.  The best information regarding these tax rules that we have seen so far this year come from  NYS Citizens’ Coalition for Children’s website. Click here to see that information

We would like to share and link their statement on taxes that “The most authoritative source for information on whether foster parents can claim a foster child as a dependent is IRS publication 501, Exemptions, Standard Deduction and Filing Information.”

Please Note: Though IRS regulations clearly allow foster parents to claim the children in their care on their federal taxes, many are inadvertently prevented from doing so if they don’t have access to the child’s social security number. The Social Security Administration currently has a memorandum of understanding with the states that prevents the states from sharing social security numbers with foster parents in an effort to protect children’s privacy. Foster parents who don’t know the social security number of children in their care are unable to claim them on their taxes and the state is prevented from sharing the numbers.  This is an issue we need to be working with federal officials to resolve.

More Articles

To the End of June

Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.

“Your Children Are What They Eat!” Training Handouts

In April and September of 2013, the O`ahu Foster Care Training Committee (FCTC), presented a workshop to help families understand the effects that diet has on children. FCTC served nutritious food that was very well received by the families attending the training. We wanted to share the recipe for the most popular dish served as well as this information from the presenter, Stephanie Jurgenson. Follow link to learn more.