Former foster youth to share her story
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

ADVOCATE- Author Ashley Rhodes-Courter, left, standing with "Good Morning America" host Diane Sawyer, will give the keynote speech for the United Women's Leadership Council at its second annual event, "Turning Compassion into Action," March 19 in Oxnard.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nearly half of her life in the foster care system.

The Florida resident had lived in 14 foster homes in nine years, until she was adopted at age 12 by a couple with two adult children.

In 2003, when she was in high school, Rhodes-Courter wrote about her experience for a New York Times magazine essay contest and won first place. Her story attracted the attention of book publishers.

While in college, working toward degrees in communications and drama, she wrote her memoirs for Simon & Schuster. The publisher released "Three Little Words" in January, a month after RhodesCourter's college graduation.

"I think it was a very therapeutic process," said Rhodes-Courter, now 22, in a phone interview from Florida last week. "It's raising a lot of eyebrows and making people take a second look into the foster care system."

Rhodes-Courter has won awards for her advocacy work on behalf of foster youth, and she has been featured on national television talk shows, including "Good Morning America" with Diane Sawyer. She's been on a national speaking tour since the book's publication and will give the keynote speech for the United Women's Leadership Council at its second annual event, "Turning Compassion into Action," March 19 in Oxnard.

"I do think that she has an inspiring story that gives our foster youth hope," said Lydia Ledesma-Reese, the council's chair. "We're very excited about her coming."

The council, formed last year by a group of volunteers, focuses its resources on projects vital to women. It identifies gaps in social services and works with public and private sectors to fill them. The council operates under the umbrella of the United Way of Ventura County.

Rhodes-Courter's experience as a foster youth fits in with the council's first venture: identifying the needs of girls transitioning out of Ventura County's foster care system.

Every year some 80 young women turn 18 and age out of the county's system. Their futures tend toward homelessness, pregnancy, membership in gangs and/ or addiction to drugs.

Nationally and statewide the results are just as dismal. Half of all the country's emancipated foster youth become homeless sometime during the first 12 months. About half of California's foster youth complete high school; most become homeless and unemployed, and fewer than 3 percent attend college.

RhodesCourter said the system is failing foster children. Often caseworkers will take the easy way out and "dump" a foster child into one stranger's home after another rather than take the extra effort to find the child's relatives, work to get them approved as foster parents and bring permanence to the child's life, she said.

"I think it would be wonderful if we could eliminate the foster care system altogether," Rhodes-Courter said.

Her message to foster youth? "Their ideas do matter," she said, adding, "It doesn't matter where they come from or what background they have, they can still be successful."

The public is invited to attend the United Women's Leadership Council's "Turning Compassion into Action," scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Wed., March 19 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Oxnard. Call Amy Fonzo of United Way of Ventura County at (805) 485-6288, ext. 230.

Michelle Knight is a member of the United Women's Leadership Council.