Every year, 25,000 of our nation's youth age out of foster care and are forced to be on their own. In most cases, these young people leave the foster care system to become homeless, incarcerated, or forced into welfare.

When they age out of the system, these young adults lack the self-sufficiency skills needed to make it as contributing assets to society. To succeed, they must learn to take control of their own lives and become self-advocates..

On Your Own as a Young Adult is an outstanding educational program that empowers youth by offering the skills and creating the desire to find a better path through life by employing self-advocacy. Several critical components of self-advocacy include setting goals, exhibiting strengths, analyzing the setup of organizations, depersonalizing issues, finding and using allies and mentors, and understanding others' needs..

The curriculum achieves its mission through creating an understanding of the self-advocacy process and how essential it is for reaching one's goals. Features of this book include

• Easy-to-use format that enables young adults to read, discuss, and then practice skills such as setting goals, exhibiting strengths, and depersonalizing situations.
• Real-life scenarios that illustrate young adults fully engaged in work or education environments, providing models that reinforce the readers' awareness that they too can fit in.
• Interesting topics and approaches that keep both young adults and facilitators involved in active discussion and critical thinking.
• Relevant case studies that use narratives to further establish understanding of the self-advocacy process.
• Engaging projects that enable young adults to make connections and collect advice on achieving long-term career goals.

About the Authors. Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff, lawyers for children in family court, founded Youth Advocacy Center (YAC) in New York City in 1992 because of their deep belief in the aspirations and potential of teenagers in foster care..

YAC developed a philosophy and program of self-advocacy which empowers individual teens to take on significant responsibility for planning for their futures. This program has helped many young adults in foster care, but also has helped struggling youth in difficult family situations. The center has been so successful in its mission that it has gained national attention..

142 pps. Also available: Facilitators Guide, DVD

On Your Own as a Young Adult provides a set of tools that every youth needs, especially those from challenged backgrounds. The book's "Socratic" method patiently teaches—in a "non-teachy" method—a disciplined but fun approach to engaging the world, for a job, for a career, for a successful life. Every youth agency should be using this approach. We do.

David Johnston , Senior Program Associate for Life Skills, Casey Family Services, New Haven, CT

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