On August 8th, members of the ILYA team (Independent Living for Young Adults) attended the YAC (Youth Advisory Council) conference at Delaware State University in Dover. Betty Weir and Lori Cowan prepared a wonderful display for our “vendor” table. This is where team members got to talk with many young people in/aging out of foster care as well as many of their Independent Living Coaches (ILCs).
Cathy Butler (who is now leading the Student Care Package project) handed out many of her new sign-up forms to youth going on to post-secondary education/training. She told the ILCs about the new online access to the sign-up sheet which should be very appealing to the technologically oriented young people.

We also heard a very inspiring talk from Rodger Walker, a man who experienced significant instability and trauma before and during his time in foster care (more than 15 years). His book ” A New Day One: Trauma, Grace, and a Young Man’s Journey from Foster Care to Yale” talks about his experience and how he decided to take control and a new “Day One” of the rest of his life. ILYA is going to place a copy of this book in the church library and urges everyone to read it.
Please take the time to congratulate and thank Betty, Lori, Cathy, Leslie Dickerson and Barbara Crowell for all they did to make our presence at the YAC conference a success.