proactive way recently our committee has heard that the timing of the legislation presents challenges for some of the states given the recession and they haven't played on state budgets and i can testify from my own state as well while i understand the harsh budget realities faced by nearly every state i also know the children in foster care can't wait for time when reform is convenient all of us have responsibility for foster children and we need to squarely meet that obligation so i therefore thought it was a good look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the implementation of the law's new options and requirements committee is particularly interested in learning how states  have extended support to grandparents and other relatives who wish to act as legal guardians for foster kids we are also interested in hearing states intend to extend foster care services up to the age of twenty one as well as extend other support  furthermore would like to know if states have fulfilled the new requirements related to providing greater oversight of the health care and educational needs of all foster kids placing siblings together whenever possible and notifying relatives within thirty days of a child's removal from their biological home additionally we are interested in learning about the experience of those tribal governments who are planning to operate their own welfare system as well as those that are considering such a move and finally were looking forward to hearing about the impact of the law on promoting and increasing the number of kids who are adopted out of the foster care system this was a landmark piece of legislation that included a number of policy changes and reforms without adding one penny to the federal deficit the legislation represents the best for the congress at its very very best it shows what can be achieved when both sides come together to work in good faith to address a problem there are certainly other challenges in the foster care system to demand more energy and commitment and i look forward to hearing from all or witness benefit young people in foster care changes included stepped up efforts to place children with relatives instead of strangers and improved incentives for adopting children out of foster care i'm especially interested in provisions designed to improve the school debility and performance foster youth mothers we need to do a better job of ensuring foster youth stay connected with their school research and common sense suggests that will help more graduate on time instead of dropping out as too without objection although i would point out those subject matters are not before the committee you might want to keep them and also submit them again when we do have issues related to it all members have five working legislation is an opportunity for us to address the implementation of that legislation i welcome all the witnesses but i give a special welcome for my state of maryland to our secretary of human resources in maryland i want to thank her for her leadership in maryland and prior to serving the state of maryland helping foster kids and adoption and protective services she was the deputy mayor of the district of columbia working on these issues as well so she's got a lot of experience  hearing shortly after governor martin o'malley appointed me secretary in february of two thousand and seven i launched a comprehensive child welfare reform agenda known as place matters the premise is very simple and certainly quite consistent with the fostering connections act and that is nothing matters more to a child than a place to call home since the inception of place matters marilyn has made some significant progress in just two years we have reduced the number of children care from ten thousand three hundred to eight thousand eight hundred and reduce the number of children in group homes by forty percent seventy two percent of our children are currently in family settings and we're seeing record numbers of adoptions guardianships every unifications i would like to take my few minutes with you this afternoon to discuss how we are implementing fostering connections in maryland the act underscores some of what marilyn is already doing around subsidized guardianship and support for older  is also spurred activity in areas that marilyn knows must be priorities in this way the act provides a catalyst and a foundation to support further progress nonetheless this is comprehensive and complex legislation have spent many hours strategizing about how to implement fostering connections as ahead of the curve as marilyn is in some ways it should not be a surprise that we're not quite there yet it will be a major lift to work successfully with our state's health and education system in addition we are operating as you mentioned in an economic environment that leaves little room for the new programs unfunded mandates in terms of guardianship program marilyn provided subsidized guardianship payments before the act was passed we began with a five year federal demonstration waiver that was continued with state funding for about five hundred children our initial projections call for a of approximately six hundred thousand dollars annually when the fostering connections guardianship program is fully implemented in our intention is to reinvest those funds to support other child welfare programs in terms of kinship providers currently marilyn makes foster care payments to some seven hundred relatives providing care to about nine hundred children another seventeen hundred children also placed with relatives receive a subsidy through child only tanis dollars if all of these can work to become  licensed as is encouraged under the act this could have a significant fiscal impact and i should point out also that all of our relatives whether they are licensed and receiving room and board payments or tanach only still receive the same services and support for their children and their children are part of our foster care system in terms of older use maryland currently provides a robust support system for older you've already up to age twenty one now of course youth over age eighteen are currently not eligible for title forty reimbursement so the services are entirely state funded when the fostering connections provisions become affective they will generate significant additional federal funds for us to reinvest in critical services for children and famil thank you very much maryland's independent living policy meets virtually all of the new requirements but we still require guidance for a number of things whether we can still make payments directly to you who are in our semi independent living program what can be considered a supervised independent living setting what types of quote unquote medical conditions might opt out of educational work provisions and what types of ongoing court supervision is required and we regulations for those critical elements fostering connections provides a good foundation for supporting educational stability and good outcomes for children in foster care but maryland will need time to rip fully realize this goal we work very closely with our state department of education and our policies are consistent with the act however a full implementation requires considerable cooperation and collaboration with twenty four local education authorities there a number of unanswered questions we have to grapple with issues of attendance records transportation and who is responsible for the associated cost in terms of health care our current health care system many of the federal requirements but we have requested an extension on the full implementation of this summary thank you again for this landmark legislation as i discussed with my colleagues what is missing from and services on everyone's lips we cannot emphasize strongly enough the benefits of maintaining children safely at home when at all  possible another critical need is that all children and families found to be in need of public welfare services we believe should be eligible for federal support and many of the panelists are going to talk about the issue and so i will leave that to their testimony and thank you for your time and i'm available for any questions that you may have this legislation is a big help to accomplish even though we've got our deficit challenges and budget problems in illinois just like a lot of the states it's not going to prevent us from this and national congress american indians is pleased to present our testimony on the implementation of fostering connections act and i want to let you know that our testimony has been drafted and in concert with the national indian child welfare association and association for american indian affairs what we've been collaborating with on the implementation issues of course who are look forward to working with the subcommittee as the act is implement with consultation with tribal nations of course activities regarding the act and also some challenges that we see in the implementation today we have seventy three tribes who have signaled that they're interested in implementing the program and signed a letter of intent to the children we have fifteen tribal entities who have applied for the development grants that support title for readiness activities for up to two years and given the number of tribes that are participating in other kinds of federal similar federal programs like the t implementation one that was eligible this is a very healthy response from indian country and a great interest in moving forward to participating in these programs that we think are very critical to our communities we also have some challenges with these opportunities in the opportunities that create we've seen a lot of things happening as far as improve discussions with states as states work on collaborating on how the implementation will be and who will take responsibility in the coordination and so we see we see an opportunity for improved cooperation and cooperative agreements we also see tribes engaging more in broad trial welfare reform within their own communities really talking about where we are with the seventh generation and how we're addressing the tribal our tribal children's needs and we're looking at additional tribal requests for technical assistance in implementing the program particularly culturally relevant technical assistance that can help us adapt to our community structures and then we've been having forums at the national level with strategies on implementation and trying to share the information and best practices some of the tribes a couple of the tribes see this as an opportunity for totally revamping and really making some meaningful systems change and  though you know one of the greatest challenges of course but all tribes are really having to take time to assess is the in kind contributions and i think that we'll talk a little bit about that but the math requirement and the challenge that gives particularly with  knowing some of the nuances about how those regulations will be developed so what will be an eligible match or not and given the current as you heard from the state directors the current economic conditions of the country affect tribal nations the same way we're trying to get the additional matches that are necessary for us to implement these kinds of programs and we are looking for opportunities to help our communities we know that will have to deal with tribal court and code reform will have to do as i said before with culturally relevant appropriate technical assistance at the local level but clearly developing for the first time the kinds of data and accounting systems that are necessary for coordination parties or for reporting requirements  d so we've been doing a lot of work our organization with other organizations looking at existing systems and federal the federal systems assistance and how that data reporting works and how we can look at streamline those data dialogue as we talk about program implementation and policy development we want to be able to make sure that we utilize expertise in indian country and that their voices heard within the department as they develop their policy regulation and that we ad understand the agency's requirements and expectations but when we get into some of the implementing patient challenges of course we were glad that the committee and congress made sure that tribal consortium were eligible to apply that's a good form for us requirement is probably going to be one of the biggest barriers for the implementation i remember when my own tribe was one of the first ones to take on the town of programs and we struggled as a tribe being able to meet the match we were alaska tribes with very few honored to be given the opportunity to share my story let such impactful and inspiring people today so really thank you for having me among the fourteen members of congress on this subcommittee you have nearly forty children that's a lot hear right but in reality as citizens and as elected officials you also act as mom and dad for the half million children and young adults in foster care and i'm one of them my name is going to anderson i am twenty one years old and was a foster youth in wisconsin i am proud to say that i am currently a junior at the university of wisconsin stout but my educational outlook wasn't always so rosy much of my high school education was attained in hospitals i attended nine different schools during my high school career and six of them were in hospital like treatment facility a school in a treatment facility meant a room designated for us to do homework catch up in not a classroom where i would be a team in the same knowledge as my peers consequently to graduate with my class i took summer school everything every summer as well as attending my classes three days a week on top of a part time job my senior year with the scattered scattered educational experience the most i could do was to concentrate on finishing high school when i applied for college i did so on a whim i thought my high school career had been too messy to ever be considered college material until a school counselor told me that i should write a strong essay fill out an extenuating circumstances form and apply anyway i took the a c t in june two thousand and six and after seeing that i did well enough to get excepted i applied for college in july i received a scholarship from wisconsin's department of children and family services in august and officially decided to school that september i had no idea how i would finance the following years of my education i just knew that if this was my ticket out i wanted to give it my best shot when i was placed into guardianship with a relative at age sixteen many of the problems that had initially led to my removal from my family were better but they weren't gone i felt gypped i didn't get the help youth who age out of the foster care system got by also a lot but i also lacked the financial support from my biological family meaning i was left to support myself and it was constant use advisory council meeting in october of last year my state independent living coordinator did a presentation called exciting new legislation when i learned how the fostering connections act would impact all youth in care after the age of sixteen i was ecstatic i remember turning to the girl next to me and excitedly saying this is going to change my life when the fostering connections to success and increase adoption legislation was passed it made it possible for young people across the country who find permanent guardianship to retain their eligibility for services through their independent living program including support for higher education this year was the first time my estimated family contribution on my fafsa coincided with the actual financial contribution my family is able to make the road dollars access to chafey funding and services make it possible for me to concentrate on my studies and not be faced with choosing to drop out of to support myself with a minimum wage job doors have opened because now i am eligible for many more potential grant and loan opportunities my first year of college was the first time i had been allowed to focus on something bigger than merely surviving and although i liked it it was an adjustment i didn't know how not to worry about my family and although i had emotional intelligence i lacked a strong foundation in logic based classes such as math and science college was the first chance i had to receive a normal education not one interrupted by placement changes meetings social workers and court date the college experience is one every foster youth deserves had i not received the additional financial support made possible by the fostering connections act it would have been very easy for me to wallow in self pity about the educational opportunities that were not available to me this semester is the first where i will not be taking out the maximum amount in student loans for living expenses and when i graduate from college i will be in a stronger position to tackle adulthood over this past summer i have had the opportunity to intern as a foster club all star i lead conferences conferences aimed at youth empowerment showing that there is life after foster care and that it can be more and better than they ever dreamed to be able to tell foster youth that there are opportunities out there give kids without a lot of hope something to hold on to i've met so many of my brothers and sisters of the system who are hungry for a better future and you are opening that door for them in one of our workshops foster club asked foster youth who plans to go to college and they raise their hand we always get an overwhelming response usually at least ninety percent say yes it is hopeful to know that foster youth do indeed aspire to pursue their educational dreams but we all know that the statistics don't reflect those dreams being reality for most foster youth foster care and circumstances that lead to beat to it place obstacles in our path that don't always exist for our peers the fact that even three percent of foster youth are going to college is a testament to foster kids resilience i feel like the question that we need to be asking is not why are you failing but more important why do some foster you succeed what resources are they using and how can we help even more foster you succeed for the past two years i have traveled to my state capital with the youth advisory council to advocate for extending foster care until twenty one in wisconsin when i spoke to legislators prior to the passing of the fostering connections act i was often told yes we agree but where is the money coming from for the first time last year i was able to tell them that the federal government would support state legislators decision with funding and they were much more receptive it has been shown through research was mentioned earlier that youth in states where foster care goes until twenty one are succeeding at much higher rates and because of this legislation many states are going to be better prepared to offer their  this year marks the tenth anniversary of the foster care independence back which established the chafey program and created new opportunities for youth aging out of foster care to achieve their goals and the fostering connections that build the legacy of chafey to expand opportunities to more foster youth and allow states to truly foster our potential as a parent what thank you for supporting me and my five hundred thirteen thousand brothers and sisters of the system thank you very much  her wonderful words bring this to reality so that we all understand the concrete nature of the benefits that this program can bring to young people i also want to thank the chairman ranking member  and members of the subcommittee for their work in this regard and for having this hearing today and inviting us to testify as you all know this legislation was passed in two thousand and eight to bring some of these agenda items to the fore i will not go through a detail review of each and every piece of the bill but i do want to highlight for you some of the momentous concerns that we have about some of the progress that we think is being made on the legislation as you know the provisions of the bill as you know each of these pieces is phased in will take some time to implement that many states are struggling with implementation as of that october fourth the legislation will take one step and that is that it will replace i'm going to start where others didn't which is to start with the dealing so we talk about it as a beginning of the october one the legislation will take one small but important step and beginning where we are to replace the outdated eligibility requirements that now exist in title for phasing out the eligibility link between special needs adoptive children and the nonexistent aid to families with dependent children program we're looking forward to the completion of this work because we believe that there should be extended beyond that to also cover eligibility for children in kinship care and in foster care eligibility in the same way to be a way appreciate the recent acts as a member of the subcommittee congressman john lewis for his recent introduction of thirty three twenty nine which addresses this challenge and we look forward to working with him and his subcommittee on this further positive developments that i want to talk about in the guard to implementation this legislation this is  however at a time as we've already mentioned that is filled with challenges as the nation faces severe recession and states are having to and that cuts in what not only core child welfare services but across the spectrum of programs that affect children and families states in recent years have relied on a range of federal funds to address child welfare services don't need to have these are taken off and the social services block area which are respectively provided nineteen and twelve percent trend take longer and longer after each change the end result of fostering connections has been delay and guidance that is needed by the states to do the implementation that they need secretary talked about many of the requirements and guidance that she would like to have she is still waiting for believes that such an expansive an important reform requires an aggressive promotion and training in regard to what states can and should do and implementing the law we find that as we talk with our members public and private across the country that they are eager to learn about the new law and how the policy changes that it encourages can be implemented based on best practice models but we feel that the nothing  in providing some guidance and clarity around these issues it is encouraging to see that some of the policy changes are beginning to take place despite barriers that may be in their way as of last week the children's bureau indicated that seven states plus the district of columbia have filed plan amendments to extend titles for funding to kinship subsidized guardianship the states are connecticut maine missouri oregon pennsylvania and maryland whose request has been approved along  with in addition to our informal surveys and our conversations with other partner organizations like american public human service association and our discussion with our members we know that illinois michigan oklahoma massachusetts alaska and new mexico are among the states of expressed interest in our doing consideration but how they can move forward on the kinship option we expect more states to take direct action on this at the debate and as guidance is provided in greater detail option even if the child eligible met all the other conditions that are in the law when he or she was place we urge congress to work with the administration to address the possibility that some of these current kinship families when in fact be eligible for federal funding after the state is taken out guardianship option clarify the caisson of this and other possible issues will help states to assess their options and to implement the new provisions some guidance may also be needed with regard to how to structure guardianship assistance payments and the process for stablish ing and adjusting such agreements as well as the relative consultation process states since many states use tanh of through child only grants we hope that by taking the option that the decision making around the use of this program will not be limited to whether or not there is only a financial advantage in t n f or for whether or not the program meets the best interests of the family and the child an additional provision that has taken effect addresses the educational stability and requires that as part of casework plan that when a student when it is in the student's best interest he or she remain in the same school even if sent out instructions to school administrators based on the new legislation and the state still call the state bill two ninety one the foster care education bill of rights which requires schools to designate an education for children foster care the child has rights outlined in the federal act to remain in or near his home school and an outline put options to address the cost of transportation for these children and to pennsylvania as a result of the new law the state issued new guidance in january that among other issues addresses the previous prohibitions on children living outside school district lines from continuing to attend the same school and this guy in the state urges local education agencies to develop policies and agreements to address these issues while we are supportive of the requirement to be truly effective equal responsibility needs to be placed on school and local education as well as child welfare amending the m l mentary and secondary education act will highlight for educators educators how important it is that the needs of this popular population be addressed we also urge that once become leadership is confirmed and both the department of education and health and human services that we issue join that they should join guidance to the states to make sure that these provisions are carried out we also are looking at the transition planning etc we feel it's vital that we make sure that transition planning requirements continue to be monitored we believe that many states have in place the frameworks available to them to do this because of the requirement under j p and prior law we want to make sure that we are able to monitor that and to make sure that that happens appropriately a final element that i will want to talk about just a half a second i know i'm exceeding my time is the planning requirements that were also put into place under the bill these new requirements build on what was already a lot of strength and health and health services for kids making sure that kids in care are screened in the children and that the survey they need are delivered and includes better tracking and monitoring and the use of medication studies indicate that between half of the children in ca foster care exhibit behavior and social competency problems that warrant mental health we are not really sure how well and how much increased coordination and planning between state and medicaid agencies has yet taken place but a recent letter by the that we be more specific in its direction to states regarding the requirements around planning and consultation can take place this will help ensure that the services of the law including screening monitoring of medications medica we need to address and that is the prevention of placement and the prevention of child abuse and neglect card support and continued work on home visitation and other prevention programs that are out so that we can begin to learn education a national technical assistance resource and information clearinghouse on legal and policy matters affecting the education of children in the foster care system i am pleased to appear today at the request of carolyn land president of the american bar association education agencies to implement and enforce policies that help advance a child's right to remain and complete and obtain a high quality education thank you for this opportunity to hear the views of the a b a on foster care and education policy in the same fostering connections act has brought much needed attention at both the federal and state level the poor educational outcomes of children in care and this critical need for collaboration between child welfare and education agencies to improve these outcomes as we've heard from my fellow panelists many state and local child welfare agency are now mobilizing to implement these education provisions in their state some of organized state or local interagency work group and develop interagency agreements to address educational stability some states have adopted or in the process of adopting legislation regulations or guidance to identify the responsibilities of agency and implementing these provisions of the advocates who represent children and those who are working at the systems level are becoming better informed about the laws requirements and have started to advocate for educational stability and immediate as a result some students in foster care already experiencing improved stability and continuity  while much more work needs to be done the past ten months have included positive steps forward to changing both policy and practice to align with these new mandates however despite these significant efforts in the state there are four main barriers to full and effective implementation of the educational provision of the fostering connections number one there is a need to create reciprocal mandates in education law requiring education agencies to coordinate collaborate with child welfare agencies to ensure the stability and continuity of care number two there is a strong need to provide further clarification that the mandate to ensure school stability includes a mandate to provide a range transportation when necessary number three there is a need to provide additional support and resources to states and how to best work together and collaborate across agencies and how to set clear lines of responsibility for each agency would be important at the federal level collaboration between the us department of health and human services and department of education to serve as a model for states some of the collaboration issues states are currently struggling with include determining which agency will make the best and to determination for the child to remain in their school what factors to consider when you're making that determination to identify and involve all necessary individuals including youth in these decisions how to create and fund the clearly identified point of made great strides to improve educational stability there is minimal data to document these advances must collect this critical data and receive support and guidance to track improvements for children in care tracking data such as attendance the number of ch es is necessary to document the implementation of these education provision but they also must be linked to the improvements and track improvements in educational outcomes for children in care without effective information and data sharing across child welfare and education agencies it is impossible to capture this critical information in closing i would like again to thank the subcommittee for the opportunity of the american bar association this is an exciting moment and a real opportunity to listen cross the whole question of education because it's sort of woven through everybody's experience and the decision to keep the child in the whole school that they were going to or trying to place them close to home what kind of problems has that created when you have the youngster when they can still go back walk they want to back to where they a great question and of course every decision we make always has to be what's in the best interests of a child but our experience is that if you can keep a child placed first in their own home community then you reinforce ties to family school church other activities that were are less likely to disrupt a child's life and you know when we first bring a child into foster care the goal for that child always is reunification initially unless there are extreme safety issues and that's what's required on the ass and we're working very diligently within the first twelve months to try to reestablish that linkage with the family and to keep that child connected at the same time that we are supporting the family doing supportive services and rolling the parents and substance abuse and mental health services if that's necessary certainly if there are safety issues in with extreme abuse or any you know any fears of danger our of a bad environment for that child be around then of course we would make a different decision but the vast majority of our children in the beginning we want to keep them close to their home communities and try to avoid the total disruption of their  sort of criminalized despite not having done anything except came from a messy family after that i entered a group home and then entered the foster care system and my foster family was in a different school district from the then the one i was originally from so i've definitely experienced kind of displacement with my education as far as would have been helpful for me to remain at my  home school and also maintain those connections with peers of course definitely would have made relationships with my biological family more than i i did after being transferred out of that school district i think that if if a child is determined to see their biological family they're going to find a way to do that but i don't think i ever considered that my school was the way to to go about thank you for that question we have a number of strategies to notify relatives because that's also part of our place matters philosophy that we want to keep children with their families if we can safely do so or seek out relatives for their care if we cannot and so the first we have implemented our family centered practice which requires family team meetings prior to or removal of a child if at all possible and that a a a process of where we identify the birth parent from the birth parents any other known relatives we have some outreach efforts to try to bring as many people to the table as possible we also do the the formal family finding program in a couple of our jurisdictions and we have applied for one of the grants so that we can extend that state why and that would be very useful and both in terms of a national identification of relatives but also in helping older youth to connect with family as they transition through the foster care system and the other thing is i have the advantage of also overseeing our child support operations for the state and through our child support we have parent locator services so we're creating agreements with our child support folks but they're pretty expert in doing that and have search engines and databases and so we'll be linking with them to ensure that we really fully utilize those resources with the legislation the challenge that we paternal relatives involved earlier on in the process is identify those resources for the children a lot of times the maternal residential treatment so it wasn't really making a lot of sense to keep that residential treatment to juvenile detention back to residential treatment and we started the adolescent foster care program and it's really been upfront and honest with the up front in the recruitment process this is what we're recruiting for this is the resource and this is the job where you find people who are really committed to trying to work with that population and we have a ok yeah i actually had the opportunity to do that this summer through my internship i got to meet you too i looked at them and i was like you are me and the weight of that and the responsibility of that was end and i think through through opportunities such as the one this act is creating it gives them that hope that ok so my situation right now may not be perfect but afterwards there is going to be more waiting for me  the the what we want to do is try to invest as much on the front end but and try to identify families who are struggling and children in need to keep them from coming out of foster care system and of course as everybody knows those are the resources that are hard to get and we have to have a child in foster care before we can claim any federal resources and the other part of your question i think went to the biggest challenge is really having the right placements for children in the right place and in the state of maryland we're going through all the last two years what i call rightsizing our placement resource as we have in some jurisdictions fifty percent or more of our children outside of their home county not just their school district but in a whole nother jurisdiction and that's been because that's where the placement resources have been and we had mapped them before we hadn't really looked at it strategically and all of that is what we're doing now we're now in an enviable position where we do have enough foster families we've had an aggressive recruitment efforts and retention efforts over the last two years where revamping our group homes and making it harder for children to go into group homes but having more resources for them to stay in families and then the outreach and the support now with fostering connections act for more assistance for kinship care all will help to stabilize children in their home communities and just one more thing on the educational piece i mean we have a great deal of cooperation with our state department of education but school are local and it just all depends on the jurisdiction quite frankly and it's going to be for as we only have twenty four jurisdictions but still you know really negotiating jurisdiction by jurisdiction to make sure that we're meeting the requirements of the act and relationships and i think one of things that we're seen out of this opportunity is a greater ability of tribes to really make that assessment do we have the resources the financial resources to meet all the demands the that's going to be important to us and that's why i think the whole collaboration with trying to create incentives that allow for the collaboration of states is going to be really really important because even at the tribe becomes a direct i think that's going to be on point for the implementation but we do need to deal with the challenges that we have i think some of the state requirements are different than the travel requirements particularly when we're shifting a child from a home authorization reservation or whether tribal services will provide you know some of the standards for tribal homes are not the same whether or not we have their own bedroom and those kinds of requirements very much from the reservations in your community so bring to this to the community represent the force of community was noted by me in the short time that i was here and i want to thank you for that and all of you my colleague and i were talking about your budget heroes here at this table for  the work that you do unsung heroes many respects did you do with some of the most challenging lives in america today with thank you for that one of the goals of the force a connection to success and increasing system i believe we must do all we can to provide a stable and trustworthy environment for those children and one way to do that is by encouraging something i've been very involved in the term relationships through mentoring a mentor can provide a constant presence in a for the child's life to different homes as they go through different homes and schools and even to the time when the child ages out of the system and start their own adult but you know we haven't as of yet really developed new mentoring relationships and programs for our kids and and i applaud your support of mentoring our so have a caution in my experience that you know you've got some really great mentoring programs and then you have some others where people to sign up and want to hold a child and babysit and may not necessarily give that kind of stability and so i would be more than willing to have further conversations with you about your and can and experience with mentoring programs and how we can ensure that young people have what i believe what i hear you saying and what those of us in the field know we want to make sure that they have a lifelong connection to someone an adult a caring adult and we are building that and we have a ready by twenty one initiative that is not just for kids in foster care but it's for all youth who are involved in state systems including the juvenile justice system education system but primarily you can foster care and that will be an important component but we really need to to make sure that we are investing in the right kinds of mentoring programs and services mentoring to younger individuals i think that can be very successful again providing that it's not just a short term hit for the student they get there they get a college loan reduction forgiveness and then when the done testimony that are not resolved thank you