Children's Bureau Express

Prize-Winning Essays by Teens in Foster Care

(Youth Communication)
The Winners: 100 Prize-Winning Essays by Teens in Foster Care

The perspectives and experiences of teenagers living in foster care in New York City are captured in a recently published anthology. The Winners: 100 Prize-Winning Essays by Teens in Foster Care presents 20 essays and 80 excerpts from winners of the Child Welfare Fund Awards for Youth in Foster Care contest from 1999 to 2001.

The essays are organized into the following categories:

What the public should know about young people in foster care
Ideas for improving the system
How we've helped others
Advice I would have given myself
You can overcome the madness.

Mario Drummonds, one of the judges, wrote the last chapter "You Can Overcome the Madness." Drummonds spent 17 years in foster care and encountered various obstacles in achieving his goals. He is now the executive director of an agency that provides health care for children and parents. His advice to youth in foster care is:

Create a vision of yourself beyond your current circumstances
Transcend fear
Be willing to work harder than the average person
Be willing to embrace change.

To order the publication, complete the form located on the Web at http://www.youthcomm.org/Publications/ CWF-TheWinners-OF.htm, or contact:

Youth Communication
224 W. 29th St.
New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212-279-0708
Website: http://www.youthcomm.org

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