Taylor Sartor is a staff attorney at the L David Shear Children’s Law Center in Florida, where...
Rebekka Behr works in Human Resources within the Florida Department of Health and is the Statewide Chair...
Molly McDonough is the senior creative services manager at a large law firm. She previously worked as...
Published: | August 22, 2023 |
Podcast: | Talk Justice, An LSC Podcast |
Category: | Access to Justice |
Experts from Bay Area Legal Services and Florida Youth SHINE discuss developments in access to legal information for foster youth on LSC’s “Talk Justice” podcast. A new website and app, FosterPower, enables Florida’s foster youth to easily access information on their rights, and the state of Florida has passed a bill requiring more information for foster youth.
[Music]
Rebekka Behr: During my time in the foster care system, I faced adversity after adversity, constantly fighting to be a normal 16-year-old. I lost about 90% of my rights when I entered the foster care system, and I was not educated on what was normal versus what was not normal for foster youth, and I felt like a prisoner and didn’t know that’s not what I was supposed to feel like.
Intro: Equal access to justice is a core American value. In each episode of Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast, we will explore ways to expand access to justice and illustrate why it is important to the legal community, business, government, and the general public. Talk Justice is sponsored by The Leaders Council of the Legal Services Corporation.
Molly McDonough: Hello, I’m Molly McDonough. I’ve spent my career as a legal affairs journalist and communications professional. I have a special interest in exploring how our systems can more effectively meet the legal needs of underserved populations, and I especially enjoy speaking with leaders and innovators in this space. Today, I’m speaking with two guests who are working to improve the lives of children in foster care.
Taylor Sartor is a staff attorney at the L David Shear Children’s Law Center in Florida, where she represents children in foster care. She specializes in issues related to human trafficking, disabilities, commitment in psychiatric facilities, aging out of foster care, school to prison, pipeline prevention, and more. She also is the creator of FosterPower, an app and a website that informs kids about their legal rights, benefits, and protections.
We also have Rebekka Behr who works in Human Resources within the Florida Department of Health and is the Statewide Chair of and serves as a peer specialist with Florida Youth SHINE, a youth led, peer driven organization that empowers current and former youth in foster care to become leaders and advocates within their communities. Rebekka is also on a few other foster youth advisory boards at the statewide and national levels. Her interest in foster care reform and youth advocacy dates back to her own time in foster care.
Welcome Taylor and Rebekka to Talk Justice. I’m excited to have you both.
Taylor Sartor: Thank you.
Rebekka Behr: Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Molly McDonough: So I have a special interest in this. Flaws in our foster care system and the long-term impact of those flaws on children were topics that we recently covered in another recent episode of Talk Justice involving excessive removals of children in New York. So, I kind of view this discussion as an opportunity to dive a little deeper into the issues involving foster care itself. And you both have really interesting backgrounds and driving advocacy in your own unique ways, and I would love to hear a little bit more about your backgrounds. Taylor, you started working on FosterPower back in law school. Can you talk a little bit about what prompted you to get active in this space?
Taylor Sartor: Yeah, so it started in college when I became a guardian ad litem volunteer, like the day of my 21st birthday I took my first case, and I knew I was going to law school, I knew I wanted to help people. I just didn’t know who I wanted to help and how I was going to do it. I found very quickly that I really liked advocating for children, and it was a passion of mine. In between law school and undergrad, I served as an AmeriCorps member in a title I high school, and I worked in an English classroom, and I also tutored after school for college and career readiness and mentored. And that’s when I realized I really, really liked working with teens, and I became the guardian ad litem of a teenager that I was teaching. And then, I went on to be guardian ad litem for some teens while I was in law school. And I knew after the first youth that I became guardian ad litem for when I was his teacher, that this is it. This is what I want to do. I want to be a lawyer for teens.
So, I, throughout law school, kind of went through this process of starting to learn more about the law and be able to research and look things up. And the teenagers that I was advocating for would come to me with questions: What about seeing my siblings? Do I get an allowance? I’m going to be aging out of foster care soon. What’s this about extended foster care? So I went in trying to research and look up the statutes and realize, wow, this is really all over the place. Everything is kind of everywhere. So that’s where the idea for what is now FosterPower kind of began. When I saw that there was no comprehensive guide that explained the rights that kids have in foster care in Florida, and I just then and there just decided to do something about it. So that’s how it slowly began as a booklet that me and a team of law students worked on and then evolved into what it is now throughout the years.
(00:04:57)
Molly McDonough: Awesome. I’m going to come back to that. But before we do, I wanted to have Rebekka talk a little bit about her background and what motivated you, Rebekka, to get involved and become an advocate, and especially for reform in foster care. From what I’ve read about you, your interest started or activity began in college, but your interest was much more personal.
Rebekka Behr: Yes. Thank you. So I had actually been in the foster care system within the state of Florida from the time that I was 16 until I aged out of 18 before I went off to college at the Florida State University. And so, during my time in the foster care system, I faced adversity after adversity, constantly fighting to be a normal 16-year-old. I lost about 90% of my rights when I entered the foster care system, and I was not educated on what was normal versus what was not normal for foster youth. And I felt like a prisoner and didn’t know that’s not what I was supposed to feel like. I was forced to wear the same clothes for a weekend care until I was able to contact my dad to have the police bring me some. I was forced to miss weeks of school, which led to me failing an English class because foster care is non-excuse for missing school. Whereas, I had been a straight A student at the time.
I could not step outside of the group home that I was in and I was not allowed to call, see or live with my siblings for a very long time. And then after I had learned about programs such as the Unconquered Scholars at Florida State University, I actually decided to go off to college and become a part of their organization which they work with students that have experienced foster care, homelessness, relative care, war of state status. And after being there for a bit, I was introduced to Florida Youth SHINE. And so, during the time Florida Youth SHINE had started our first year of educating youth about their rights. And so, after Florida Youth SHINE actually educated me about my rights at the great age of 20, when we were first starting the journey to passing a bill to educate foster youth and those within their cases about their rights, I found my calling.
I believe that all youth should be educated about their rights and that everyone within their case should also be held to a standard of knowing these rights that since then became a passion of mine to educate myself about programs and organizations and finding ways to help reform our different organizations within the child welfare system to ensure that everyone in a child’s case, the judge, attorneys, guardian ad litem, case managers, caregivers and most importantly, the youth are educated on their rights.
Molly McDonough: Thank you. I’m impressed with how quickly you’ve become a leader in this space. You’re still pretty young in your early 20s and you’ve already achieved so much in making some advances and gaining awareness in this space. I’ve had a chance to download the app Taylor and navigate around a bit, and many of the things Rebekka discusses are kind of core features of the app, including things that I was struck by and frankly moved are issues, things that I kind of take for granted, that I would almost assume that children in foster care would have access to, including connection to siblings in some way, and just the sense of normalcy being something that should be accessible to children in the foster system. And it seems like front and center, especially hearing from Rebekka that that’s a major issue, being able to join clubs and play sports, be active in your school community. Can you talk a little bit about choosing those themes and which issues kind of came to the forefront?
Taylor Sartor: Absolutely. I think, I, as a lawyer for kids and I am used to fighting for my clients and their rights, just hearing the things Rebekka was saying, the things she experienced, it already kind of gets me riled up, even though it’s already happened, and it reminds me this is why we created the app. And I think it’s a perfect example because I was thinking about this in advance, and I’m like, how did I focus on, because there are a lot of areas in the law, focus on what we focused on. And a lot of that really is just constant contact with teenagers and hearing the same things over and over again. Not even just my cases, but also other case managers that come to me with questions or doing these, you know, your rights trainings that I’ve been doing on and off for years, where kids will say constantly.
I didn’t know I could see my sibling. I haven’t seen a sibling of mine in four years. And again, it’s like, from an outsider perspective, you look at that and you go, “Well, of course, that’s crazy,” but in child welfare, there’s a lot of these things, just like being enrolled in school, you have the right to immediate enrollment. That’s federal law when you are a child in foster care and I can’t tell you how many times I have on my own cases. My caregiver calling me, my client calling me, “I can’t get enrolled in school. They’re saying they have to wait for my records.” and that’s not the law and this is really that way to provide that access to it, but it is just those reoccurring topics that I hear over and over that came to the forefront of FosterPower, and I think it’s just working in this space for all of these years and having that pretty much daily contact with youth, with other case managers, with whether it’s youth I represent, or just being in the space, just knowing these are the things that are in the law and are very often ignored by people.
(00:10:10)
And a lot of it is they don’t know, and especially the kids, because the kids are the ones that need to know what their rights are so that they can stand up and say, “Hey, wow, I didn’t know I could go to court. I can go to court and tell the judge I’m not seeing my siblings.” And then something can be done about it. So but yeah, just hearing what Rebekka said just kind of continues to resonate with me of this is just so important because there really are. No one is giving kids this information, or they weren’t until now, that there is FosterPower.
Molly McDonough: I was curious about that. Now, you had some resources that were available in Florida, but they weren’t necessarily accessible to pretty much anyone unless you were digging for them. Is that correct?
Taylor Sartor: Yeah.
Molly McDonough: So you took advantage of some of these resources that somewhat existed, pulled them together in a more meaningful way. Can you talk a little bit about why you packaged it with the audience you did, rather than going through caregivers or schools or other advocates, why you’re focused on children?
Taylor Sartor: The way that we compiled this information is just all from legal research. There wasn’t like a template that we used that somebody else had created of anything. It was really all just looking at statutes and administrative code and compiling all of the law together, which is why it took a very long time to do and continues to take a long time to upkeep. But the reason that we focused on the youth, I mean, for me, I am a lawyer for kids. My job is to fight for my clients and to listen to what they want and to make sure also that they know what they’re entitled to, because I can’t always issue spot what their problems are. They might not even know something is a legal issue to tell me. So they could not be getting their allowance at their group home, and it’s being withheld when it shouldn’t be, and that’s not what the law says, and they might not know to tell me that. And it’s a very long list to go through every single thing that’s in the law I can’t get through in every client meeting. So for those kids also who don’t have lawyers to be able to really just have access to this information.
Of course, we want child welfare professionals to be able to access it as well. Case managers, judges, attorneys, it’s definitely made in a way that anyone can understand, but my goal has always been to empower youth and young adults who are still involved in child welfare, whether extended foster care, other programs to become their own advocates. Because one thing I also saw that I was increasingly frustrated about was the guardian ad litem, teenagers that I advocated for back in law school. They would be expected to the second they turn 18. Okay, do everything, be your own advocate, do all these things yourself now. And no one ever gave them the tools to do that. So starting as being in care, being able to have this information, being able to advocate for yourself can actually help that transition to adulthood as well.
Molly McDonough: Rebekka, can you talk a little bit about your experience and whether you felt like and whether you’re seeing more youth understand their rights with tools like these or with this tool?
Rebekka Behr: Yes. So, for myself, obviously, I did not have those education tools while I was in the foster care system. I did later on in my second group home start to learn and understand some of my rights. Not that they were told to me, but just that they started showing them where they basically got me enrolled into doing things like the senate page program, house messenger program in Tallahassee, along with meeting with programs such as Florida Youth Leadership Academy, which is essentially a program that works with youth to basically create a project to educate foster youth across the state, and where we brought 600 duffel bags the year that I was a part of it, and that group home did have more of a sense of educating us youth about things that we can do, like we can go to college, we can do this, we could do that. Can be so successful that I currently own my own house and own car, thanks to the education tools that I received from my second group home along with my independent living services program. But reviewing FosterPower and even getting to hear from FosterPower, I believe it was last week with Florida Youth SHINE, we had Taylor come in and talk to us a little bit about the app and everything, and youth were asking really good questions because we do have kids under the age of 18 that come to Florida Youth SHINE events. And so, these apps and websites actually truly provide the education tools to youth and those in their case plan, and it makes it so readily available, it makes advances for kids to find their voices, feel the ability to speak up, and can feel more of a sense of power when talking to their judges, caregivers, and find a sense of normalcy in a not so normal situation.
(00:15:07)
For me, this would have meant that I could have spoken to my judge one on one about how I felt and hopefully been taken out of the situation that I was in, whereas I had no one in my corner. And I wanted to say thank you so much to Taylor and everyone at FosterPower for creating such a tool that could be used because even during my time in care, for part of it, I didn’t have a phone, so I wouldn’t be able to use the app. But hearing that there’s a website that creates another way that youth can actually access this when they go to school, if they log into the library, they can just check it out. And so, I think that moving forward, this will be a great tool, especially with Florida just passing our Nancy C. Detert Champion for Youth Bill Act, which is basically educating youth about their rights within care. And I believe that at least I hope the Department of Children and Families will utilize FosterPower for their website and app and educating at an age appropriate level for foster youth.
Molly McDonough: Wow, that’s quite a bit to unpack there, too. I’m curious with that age group, you said these are still under 18. Do you feel like that these outside of the youth? Taylor, you had mentioned that something that struck me was something you said earlier was that it sounded like the school wasn’t following the law. So I’m looking at kind of who else is starting to understand and use these tools. It’s a very easy to navigate website and app, and the art is great. You’ve got a fabulous mascot who I want to ask you about, so I’m interested in how you’re planning to kind of build this out and reach larger audiences.
Taylor Sartor: Yeah, well, we just launched in May, so we’ve been doing a lot of local outreach. I’m planning a lot of trainings locally and also trying to get some statewide trainings in like I just did with Florida Youth SHINE. And then we also have our social media accounts and doing some digital marketing on there as well. Get FosterPower or TikTok and Instagram that we post the short form videos of former foster youth themselves giving information about the law and their own experiences. So those are all located in the app, but we also post them on the social media. But we’re really doing at this point just a lot of on the ground level trying to reach people however we can. So I’m going to group homes to do trainings, and as Rebekka mentioned, it was all really just 100% coincidental timing that our launch happened just as this bill that Rebekka, I don’t want her to be too modest, has been championing for years, has been working on getting this bill passed, and it is an incredible milestone in Florida that now kids have to be educated on their rights in foster care, and that’s something that Florida Youth SHINE was working really hard on.
So I know that with that new law and hopefully with FosterPower, whatever’s going to be done, whether it’s additional materials or somehow utilizing FosterPower to accomplish that too on a statewide level, I really hope in Florida we are really changing the conversation and focusing more on kids and their rights because at the end of the day, the things that are in the law, there’s nothing arguable. This is all things that the state of Florida has decided we need to have for kids to be safe and reach permanency and have good outcomes.
So putting all this information in one spot to be able to access it is really just making sure that we have all the information to serve kids the best that we can and that kids have that information themselves to advocate for themselves and stand up when something isn’t right, but the outreach is continuing to happen and we get more downloads every day, which is great, and we’re just trying to continue to spread the word, but it certainly is a challenge because the group that we’re trying to reach ultimately is a hard group to reach. It is hard to find all of the kids in the foster care system in Florida. And again, as Rebekka said, some don’t have phones, or might be in a group home that turns off the WiFi at night or turns it off if one kid gets in trouble, and that’s actually why we made the app downloadable and can be accessed without WiFi, but you do need WiFi to download it in the first place. So we tried to work on those accessibility issues because it is a hard to reach group, but we’re hopeful that we can reach every child in Florida that needs this information.
(00:19:56)
Molly McDonough: Rebekka, I’d love for you to talk a little bit more about the legislative advocacy you’ve been doing and especially kind of what you envision in terms of when and how youth in foster care will be educated and be made aware of their rights.
Rebekka Behr: Yes. So we have actually, for the past five years, been working to pass essentially a Foster Youth Bill of Rights, but we call it Educating Youth Bill. And so, this year, on July 1, officially went into act. And it’s called the Nancy C. Detert Champion for Children Act. And so, our governor actually signed that this year, and it should be going into place well, immediately. They’re already taking some actions. So, the Department of Children Families, Office of Continuum Care, they’re working on creating an advisory board, and they have a lot of us being a part of it. So FloridaShines is a part of it, I believe One Voice Impact and I believe Guardian ad Litem Program is also a part of it. And so, they have us meeting with them regularly to talk about ways that we can implement these types of programs to ensure that youth are educated about their rights, along with guardians and caregivers, everyone at an age appropriate level every six months. And so, we are hoping to see this go into play as quickly as possible, because it took us five years to get here. CCF must have known that, seen us going for five years they should know, “Hey, we should already have this as a game plan. We got to get on it.” But in speaking with them, we do know that they are working hard to get this implemented. And I’m hoping to see the rights posted or education tools posted in group homes and all that kind of stuff, hopefully by the end of the year, and then obviously, educating throughout every six months.
Molly McDonough: A couple of things I want to talk about accessibility partly on the video side, too. Taylor, it’s one thing to be able to read and understand as you’re reading through these topics. I think the art helps, too, if you’re not a strong reader. But the videos are really engaging, and they seem like these are not actors, but folks who’ve been involved in the system and are sharing actual experiences. Can you talk a little bit about the production of those?
Taylor Sartor: So you are correct. They were not actors. They were paid for their time, as if whatever an actor would be paid, they were compensated the same. But they were all former foster youth. And we had one in person video production day, and then we also did some virtual recordings, so we had some former foster youth from around the state participate as well that couldn’t be there in person. And the idea behind these videos was two things. One, reading all the information can be overwhelming and some kids frankly may not read it, it may just be too much, not something they want to do after being in school all day. And this is a way for them to get that information in a shortened format and also for them to see, okay, maybe I do want to read a little bit more about this specific topic and then they can go into the app and do that.
The other idea behind the videos, foster care can be very isolating and one thing that I have always noticed with my clients is a lot of kids don’t trust adults in the system, or adults period, and that’s completely understandable and that’s why we wanted to have these videos from former foster youth themselves so that they can get information from sources that they do trust or they can at least have some sense of trust. This is a person telling me this who has been through it, not just some adult who’s paid to be here and maybe quit or gone the next week or whatever. So that was really important.
And the other thing too is just because again, being in foster care can be so isolating and kids can feel so alone, it is in a way supposed to hopefully build a sense of community just knowing you aren’t alone. Look at all these other people who had been in foster care and experienced it and this is their advice. And here’s some information they’re giving you about the law and just a little something to try to lift them up and realize that they’re not alone in their experiences. So that was kind of the main idea behind those videos. And then as far as accessing them, we do have them on our social media accounts but again, that issue of does everybody always have access to social media and all of that. Within our app, they are there within the app as well and if you download them, you can know watch them again whenever you need. And there’s a way to favorite items and to download within the app so once those are downloaded, they can be accessed without internet.
Molly McDonough: Rebekka, have you had a chance to see some of those videos? I think one of the things that struck me was as I was watching some of them, some of the responses were “Oh well, I just learned that too.” Is there kind of go at asking questions even through the recording. I thought it was interesting and it made it more approachable to me. And I’m wondering it seems like that level of communication showing success and connecting people who’ve been through this system is an important part of the messaging with this.
(00:25:07)
Rebekka Behr: When it came to viewing some of the videos, it definitely, it hit home with me because a lot of what was experienced with these youth I had shared. One of the ones that I did actually know about when I was in care from the very beginning and it was just because I was very stern about it was staying in your school of origin. For myself, my foster home or my group home was 45 minutes from my school that I came from before I was in foster care. And I was very adamant that I wanted to stay there. I didn’t know this was a part of a right, that I had a right to stay there. But they made sure that after that period of time that I wasn’t allowed to go to school, I was being picked up by the school bus every day. I’d be picked up at 5:00 a.m. To get to school by 7:30 A.m. And I would get returned home maybe two or three hours afterwards, but I was just thankful to have some sense of normalcy to have my friends still at the same school and be at the same school was very important for me, along with just seeing some of the advice for foster youth as well.
Molly McDonough: So Rebekka, the discussion kind of melded into some of the experiences and making this information accessible, and I really appreciated the concept of building community through this app and this website. And I’m wondering if that’s part of the messaging that you are sharing in your advocacy, being able to share your experiences in addition to your personal experiences, but how you’ve managed to advocate for yourself and others.
Rebekka Behr: So for myself, I’ve never really thought of myself as a role model or said, “Hey, look at me, this is what I did, so you can do it too.” It’s more of when I hear somebody’s story, I get angry for them and angry with them and I’m like, “No, let’s fix this. This person, I can talk to this person, let’s talk to that person, get your situation figured out.” For myself, in looking at foster care reform, I have primarily focused on creating a larger push for showing ways that youth can actually shine. If you know about FloridaShines a little bit more like we talk about ways to shine. So as the Florida Youth SHINE Statewide Chair, I’ve actually been taking a lead on a Youth Voice action campaign. So it’s called hashtag youth can shine with.
So this was honestly a passion project of mine and my boss’s higher up, of ways that youth can shine that ranges from ensuring that adults in their corner can have all of the resources that they need to ensure that youth are safe, loved and provided with quality and stability so within their lives, to having supports as youth move into adulthoods and having and creating authentic youth engagement. That is truly what I like to focus on because I feel that it’s not so much of a “I’m the role model this is what I can do. You could do it too.” Because when I talk about owning a house, I don’t own a house because I was taught really good budgeting skills or anything like that. I have a house because I was in a car accident, and instead of spending the money that I received from that car accident on things like just fun things to do, I was like, you know what, I’m going to invest and create a house. So I bought a house. And now I use that house to also house young adults that have experienced foster care or homelessness or need a place to stay during gap housing because that’s a big issue within universities. So for me, it’s just focusing on ways that everyone can shine within their situations. Not so much being a role model and saying, just follow what I did to get to where you need to be.
Molly McDonough: Yeah, I think what I’m trying to get at here is that you really seem to be focused on sharing stories, positive stories, connecting communities through some of your advocacy efforts. And thank you for sharing more of what FloridaShines is doing. Taylor, can you talk a little bit more about the response to the website in FosterPower?
Taylor Sartor: Yeah, so far, we’ve had all really positive response, and I always say I welcome any constructive criticism or ways for improvement because that’s what we want to do, too. Like I said, so far, there’s been what we hear a lot from kids and from adults is that it’s very easy to navigate, which makes me very happy to hear because that was just something I spent a lot of time on myself. I didn’t build the app. We have vendors and developers that do all of the coding and all of that. But just looking at it and thinking, trying to put myself in the shoes of a young adult and also having kids regularly review user tests. We did user research before, during and continue to get feedback afterwards to hear what they think about the sections and the content and everything. The name was also chosen by youth. Everything is done with youth input.
(00:30:00)
But yeah, so far, we’ve gotten really good feedback and I’ve just been setting up trainings locally. Case management organizations and our local agencies are all very interested in doing trainings. We’re currently working on incorporating FosterPower into the courtrooms in the 13th Judicial Circuit. All of the judges and magistrates have been really excited about FosterPower. I’ve given them information on it and they have flyers in their courtrooms. And we also are working on a way to be able to screen share for kids to attend virtually so they can get that QR code to download the app. But like I said, so far it’s been all positive feedback and we’ve had some requests and ideas for ways to expand. So that’s something in the works as well that we’re looking towards in the future.
Molly McDonough: With that expansion, have you heard from others in other states? This seems like a model that could be replicated.
Taylor Sartor: We have. I’ve done some trainings that were a national training and we had several child welfare professionals from different states and we do get a lot of feedback of we would love to have this in this state. We are not to the point of being able to figure out all logistics or naming a state yet or anything like that, but we definitely think that what we’ve created could be done in another state and is certainly needed in every state. Because as far as we know, again, having this information in this type of way, we haven’t seen anywhere else in Florida. And as far as having an app to access all this information, it’s not being done from all the research we’ve done anywhere else in the country.
Molly McDonough: So some of the initial funding came from a TIG grant. I’m curious if you’re getting other grants or how this is being funded, especially with expansion and development.
Taylor Sartor: Yes. So the majority of our funding is from a TIG grant. We’ve also received funding from Community Foundation of Tampa Bay and they have helped fund us as well. We continue to look for grants and opportunities. We don’t have any announcements of specific grants or the direction we’re going yet, but in the nonprofit world, we are just always applying, applying and crossing our fingers that we can get the funding we need to continue doing really meaningful work. So that’s what we’re hoping for, that we can continue to get grant funding in the future when this grant period is over.
Molly McDonough: Rebekka, what are you hearing in your space? I mean, it sounds like you’re just flooded with opportunities, and especially with this new legislation, I’m wondering kind of what’s next for you in this space.
Rebekka Behr: So, within the advocacy world, I’ve been currently spending some time working with a local youth shelter to find some ways they could be more resourceful for youth to find a more stable environment and become more successful young adults. So I actually recently moved to Kentucky, so I am relearning the child welfare system here. And so while FosterPower would be amazing over here, I know that doesn’t fully focus on the rights over here. So I’ve been looking at the different rights and what things that they can do to help ensure that their youth are experienced as much normalcy as possible. And I will be continuing the hashtag Youth Can Shine with campaign and participating on local, statewide, and national foster care initiatives. And my dream is actually to work on national initiatives to ensure that youth have benefits across the country. And I’m also working on an international level to find more ways to better our child welfare system as well.
Molly McDonough: That’s fabulous. So what’s the best way for listeners to kind of learn more about your efforts, Rebekka?
Rebekka Behr: To learn more about my efforts, I would definitely say check out Florida Youth SHINE’s social media page. You can always check out my LinkedIn. I typically post there often.
Molly McDonough: That’s great. Taylor, for you, what’s the best way to stay in touch or to give feedback about FosterPower?
Taylor Sartor: Yeah, so we have our social media pages get FosterPower. We have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, so whichever you prefer or all of them. We do post regular content on there. We do have something new being posted soon about the first document automation that has been created for kids to request funds from their Master Trust account to use for items they want or need. So that’s a form that we created within the FosterPower app that we just put in. We’ve been working on it for a while now, so that’s something we’re going to be publicizing. To get in contact with us, though, we have a Contact US button [email protected] or just contacting me that goes to me directly, but you can contact us through our website or our app and just stay up to date with everything that’s going on FosterPower through our social media accounts.
Molly McDonough: All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much. I think that’s all we have time for today, and I really appreciate you joining us.
(00:35:03)
Taylor Sartor: Yeah, thank you so much.
Rebekka Behr: Thank you for having us.
Molly McDonough: And Rebekka, I’m very excited to see what you’re going to do in Kentucky. I have a feeling that you’ll do great things there, too.
Rebekka Behr: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Molly McDonough: Thank you, Taylor and Rebekka, for joining me today. And thank you, listeners. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Talk Justice. If you like what you’ve heard, please take a moment to rate us and subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or wherever Podcasts can be found, so you won’t miss an episode. Until next time.
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Outro: Podcast guest, speakers’ views thoughts and opinions are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the Legal Services Corporation’s views, thoughts or opinions. The information and guidance discussed in this podcast are provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. You should not make decisions based on this podcast content without seeking legal or other professional advice.
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Talk Justice, An LSC Podcast |
In each episode of Talk Justice, An LSC Podcast, we will explore ways to expand access to justice and illustrate why it is important to the legal community, business, government and the general public.