Foster care rarely makes waves among our national concerns. Yet kids who age out of foster care without a family flow into these other crises at disproportionate rates.
Hope IS A Strategy
Go Upstream explores 10 top social wounds and their the correlations to foster care, backed by data and real-life stories.
Even more importantly, the book offers practical solutions for individuals and communities to turn the tide upstream, exploring how helping kids belong by 18 can calm these turbulent waters and reduce their risks for life-derailing struggles.
Why This Book Matters
Concerned about social issues? Kids aging out of foster care face disproportionate risks:
Trafficking
A majority of child sex-trafficking victims (50% to 90%) have been in foster care.
Incarceration
74% of men and 43% of women who were in foster care will be incarcerated at least once.
Poverty
One-third of foster alumni live at or below the poverty line.
Homelessness
20% of foster youth become homeless the day they age out.
Watch Brian’s 30-Min Book Launch
About the Author
Brian Mavis, founder of America’s Kids Belong, is a pastor, husband, father and grandfather who, with his wife, fostered 9 kids and is a proud grandpa to six, half adopted through foster care.
Inspired by a social worker’s challenge to find “more than enough families,” so that the families, rather the kids in care, were the ones waiting — Brian launched America’s Kids Belong in 2015. More than two decades of leadership and lived experience drive his call to help every child find belonging with a family.
Praise for Go Upstream…
As someone who has spent decades working in the child welfare system, I can say that Go Upstream accurately captures the urgency of the crisis and the opportunity before us.
Go Upstream not only shows why foster care matters for the health of our communities, but how ordinary people and sector leaders can make a lasting impact.
This book is a guide for anyone who wants to move from awareness to action.
—Tricia Howell, Child Welfare Senior Consultant
Stories change the world. We’ve seen it through film, and Brian Mavis has proven it through America’s Kids Belong, where thousands of kids have been adopted after their stories were told.
In Go Upstream Brian tells another urgent story—the one of kids who age out of foster care without family. It’s a heartbreaking reality, but it’s also a call to action for all of us to get involved.
—Joshua & Rebekah Weigel, Writers, Producers, and Directors of Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot
Entrepreneurs and investors like leverage, returns, winning and legacy.
Go Upstream presents a compelling case for how commercial ventures can enter into areas of systemic brokenness with strategies that transform lives, cities and entire social category problems for generations.
“
—Mike Sharrow, CEO, C12 Business Forums
The 10 Social Wounds
Trauma – 1 in 4
Kids in foster care will develop PTSD — almost twice the rate of U.S. veterans of war.
Physical Illness – 50%
About 50 percent of former foster youth suffer chronic physical problems.
Suicide – 4x
Adolescents who have been in foster care are nearly four times more likely to have attempted suicide than other youth.
Sex Trafficking – 50-90%
Although statistics vary a majority of sex-trafficking victims — ranging from 50 to 90 percent — have been in foster care.
Addiction – 1/3
One-third of those who age out report current struggles with drug or alcohol, with half admitting to illegal drug use post-foster care.
Poverty – 1/3
One third of foster alumni live at or below the poverty line.
Homelessness 20 – 40%
20% of foster youth will become homeless the day they age out; 40% will experience homelessness within 18 months of aging out.
Incarceration – 43-74%
43% of women and 74% of men who were in foster care have been incarcerated at least once.
Teen Pregnancy – 3x
For girls who have been in foster care the rate of pregnancy before age 19 is three times higher than the national average.
Generational Foster Care
The strongest predictor of a child entering foster care is the mother’s own history with the child welfare system.
Host A Go Upstream Gathering For Your Friends
Would you host 10-15 of your friends, family or colleagues to hear from Brian Mavis about this book and the urgent need for our communities to go upstream and address foster care at its source as a way to remedy many of our other social wounds, from trafficking and incarceration to homelessness and poverty?
Just let us know you’re open to it and we’ll follow up with you to figure out the best timing and format. These gatherings are casual and completely turnkey. All you do is invite your friends.