What’s the big deal about a slumber party?

 

Social activities with friends are often off limits for kids in foster care due to liability and requirements imposed by the child welfare system. Consistently, young people have emphasized that their foster care experiences are far from normal. What they need — but too often do not receive — is what their peers not living in foster care typically have, including daily experiences and extracurricular activities with friends, like sleepovers.

This is where the young ladies from the Beta Omega Chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta at Colorado College stepped in with a plan. The Thetas recently hosted a “slumber party” for 15 foster teens supported through CASA’s Milton Foster Children’s Fund. Since the girls were not allowed to sleepover, the Thetas decided to simulate the experience as closely as possible all before 9pm with chaperons in tow. The Thetas and foster teens had fun doing hair, nails, henna tattoos, eating pizza and cookies, and learning some amazing new dance steps. The teens had the time of their lives and didn’t want to leave when it was over.

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We are grateful to the CASA volunteers and the Theta’s who created special memories for the girls, and for providing a little normalcy in their lives.

The Kappa Alpha Theta Fraternity has supported the CASA cause nationwide since 1989.

Additional information:
The Annie E Casey Foundation and Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative recently released report that highlights the importance of normalcy to the overall healthy development of young people in foster care and how young people view normalcy and foster care.

Read the report: What Young People Need to Thrive: Leveraging the Strengthening Families Act to Promote Normalcy