Last month, when we introduced our Searching the Sites Program, I hoped that we would turn up newsworthy community initiatives with a strong flavor of Who's Doing What That Works. Well, just take a look at The Mockingbird Society, resident in Seattle, founded by Jim Theofelis in 2001, with a commitment to foster system change on multiple levels.

Its newspaper, Mockingbird Times, is a monthly designed and produced by young people who have experience with the foster care/group home system and/or homelessness. Each edition emphasizes themes significant to children and youth accessing social services across the nation.

Distributed nationally, Mockingbird Times is a voice for these young people, interacting with youth from across the nation by accepting their articles, poetry and art for publication. MORE

And the Mocking Bird Family Model, with its excellent evaluation program, is based on the premise that foster/kinship youth who grow up among "extended family" are more likely to experience the sense of safety, permanence and well-being that allows them to grow and thrive as individuals. The MFM places foster youth in the center of a community of four to 10 foster/kinship homes in a given neighborhood. At the center of the constellation is a Hub Home operated by licensed foster parents who coordinate special events, youth activities and emotional resources to support foster youth and other parents in the cluster. See 5th Year Evaluation here.