Fostering hope in forgotten children

   Shadi Rahimi, CORRESPONDENT
OAKLAND -- She lived in the same foster home as her mother, whom she never met. She grew bitter when she heard greeting card advertisements about spending holidays with the family. Her social worker's reports characterized her as someone who believed herself intelligent, but was "at best, marginal." Regina Louise said she felt angry, alone and powerless as a foster child.
Today an Oakland beauty salon owner and author, Louise told 80 foster care children and young adults at a forum Thursday that she requested her 50-page case file from Contra Costa County when she finally decided she needed to stop feeling sorry for herself and take control of her life.
"I thought I've got to come to terms with it, I'm tired of this wrecking me," she said. "I'm killing myself and I don't want to do that anymore."
Joining Louise on a panel about the foster care system were journalist and radio host David "Davey D" Cook of 94.1 KPFA, M-1 of the hip-hop group Dead Prez, and Joshua I, coordinator of Dead Prez's "Get Free or Die Trying" tour.
The forum was hosted by the Celebrity Philanthropy Initiative (CPI), a Los Angeles-based collaborative of ce- lebrity foundations that address social issues related to youth. Audience members asked panelists questions about overcoming adversity and dealing with life in the foster care system.
AnDrea Neal-Allen, legal guardian of a 12-year-old foster child born drug-addicted, said the system is like a "camp for unwanted kids." There should be more thorough background checks of foster parents, and social workers should visit children in different environments, not just at foster homes, she said.
"The foster care system, to me, is designed to hold kids back," she said. "It takes a strong-willed, loving, inspiring person to raise a foster child. Too many people do it for the money."
Louise said children and young adults in the foster care system must understand it is often a "feeder" for prisons. Of the 20,000 youths who age out of the system each year, 52 percent of the men are incarcerated within 12 to 18 months, she said.
"The foster care system is a very, very large monster," she said. Working to improve the system one person at a time, starting with yourself, is the best way to beat it, she told the audience.
"If you make yourself important, be your own advocate, be anything that you have to be for yourself," Louise said, "you make the foster care system better."
Although the forum's focus was on foster care, panelists also gave tips on how to start a music studio and contacts for support when trying to establish their own business.
Throughout the discussion, Cook repeatedly reminded the audience to invest time and money into their communities. He said hip-hop artists such as West Oakland native E-40 are successful because they went back to their own communities for support. "We really need to invest in and lay out things that we can control on our own," he said.
In response to a question about what kept him going despite setbacks he faced when trying to succeed as a hip-hop artist, M-1 told the youths to make a list of their goals, pursue them and have the self-discipline to recognize why they didn't meet one.
"If you keep trying, your dreams will come true," he said.

(c) 2003 The Oakland Tribune. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.