Help Celebrate Youth Graduates! The Department of Children and Families (DCF) will host its 11th annual Foster Youth Graduation celebration at the Governor’s Executive Residence on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. The event will include speeches from special guests, information about resources available to young people who are leaving out-of-home care, food and recognition of our graduates! Direct service providers, DCF needs your help identifying youth to participate so we can invite them to this graduation event! Without referrals from service providers like you, DCF is unable to identify youth eligible to attend. Please forward this opportunity to others in your agency who may also be aware of graduates. To qualify to participate, a young person must: be Independent Living and/or Education and Training Voucher Program eligible, meaning they are currently in out-of-home care, “aged out” of out-of-home care, or were adopted or entered Chapter 48.977 guardianship after age 16; AND have graduated since the last celebration on July 19, 2022 or be expected to graduate by the time of the celebration; graduation may be from high school (or equivalent) – or higher. To identify youth eligible to participate, please complete the Jot Form https://form.jotform.com/DCFBYS/FY-graduates-class-of-2023 by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. You will need to complete a separate Jot Form for each individual youth. If multiple agencies serve or are aware of the same graduate eligible to attend this event, please work with all those parties to coordinate one submission per graduate. Once DCF receives your submission, we will send out an e-mail (cc’ing in the individual that helped identify the youth) with a different Jot Form link for the graduate to RSVP for the graduation event. It is therefore crucial that you provide current and correct youth contact information, specifically an updated e-mail address for the graduate and/or another individual that’s in frequent contact with the graduate. This could be yourself or anyone from the graduate’s support system that could assist them in RSVP’ing for this event. DCF requires this two-step process (initial nomination by the direct service provider AND the youth’s RSVP) to successfully plan for the event (e.g. recognize youth as part of the event, distribute gift and materials, food). Also, please work collaboratively with the graduate and their support system to arrange transportation for them to and from the event. Each graduate can identify up to three guests that can attend in their Jot Form RSVP. If the young person plans to attend by themselves, transport themselves via their own vehicle, and does not receive transportation assistance from another partner agency, DCF may be able to provide transportation assistance. Lastly, every year at the Graduation Celebration DCF recognizes two graduates who have been a Champion of Change in their efforts to improve youth-serving systems. This year, we are soliciting from direct service providers nominees for this award. The nominee must be eligible to attend the Foster Youth Graduation Event AND plans on attending this in-person event. You can nominate a graduate for a Champion of Change award in one of two ways: Up until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, July 21, 2023: completing the Champion of Change questions via the Jot Form link (https://form.jotform.com/DCFBYS/FY-graduates-class-of-2023) After Wednesday, June 21, 2023 and until 5 p.m. on Friday, July 7, 2023: via e-mail to dcfoys@wisconsin.gov To nominate a graduate for the award this way, please include the youth’s first and last name and 2-3 sentences explaining what the graduate has done to advocate for change in the child welfare system and/or other youth serving system. If you have any questions, contact dcfoys@wisconsin.gov. We look forward to celebrating the youths’ accomplishment!
