Enrichment . . . To make more fertile; to add a desirable substance to

...Partnerships...Awareness...Lifelong Connections...

Connected For Life envisions a world where:
• Every youth emancipated from the California foster care system has developed a life long connection to a family or caring adult, and...
• The general public develops a greater awareness of the plight of older youth in foster care and opens up their hearts and homes to these youth.

The most desirable outcome for children and youth placed into foster care is reunification with their birth family. If reunification is not possible, Connected For Life will partner with county child services agencies to insure that youth who have not been reunified with their biological family, adopted, or placed with a legal guardian, are given the option to develop a permanent relationship that provides a safe, loving, nurturing and life long connection to a family. Currently, more than half the youth emancipated have less than $250 to their name, no family (connection), and no place to go. Connected For Life, in partnership with the counties and advocacy groups like California Permanency for Youth Project, are committed to changing these dismal facts.

A former foster youth associated with the California Youth Connection organization recently wrote, “The one experience that defines foster youth culture more than any other is the experience of being displaced from one’s family of origin”. Displacement from one’s family has severe behavioral implications including distrust, avoidance of forming personal relationships, a deep-seated feeling that no one cares, and you are ultimately and truly alone in the world.

Connected For Life will create real and lasting social change one foster youth at a time by connecting youth with a family or caring adult prior to emancipation. This connection allows the family time to nurture, encourage, model behavior, mentor, and love the youth for several years before emancipation. The process of building a life long caring and loving relationship will help the youth overcome the severe implications created by their displacement.

Michael O’Leary is a California native. He was born in San Francisco and grew-up in Santa Rosa. After graduating from San Jose State University in 1968, Michael joined IBM. He spent the next 35 years traveling around the world as a salesman/sales manager for high technology hardware and software Silicon Valley companies. In 1999, Michael and his wife became certified foster parents and eligible to participate in the Alameda County Foster/Adopt program. In December 1999 the O’Leary’s became foster parents to an 11-year-old girl. Their intention was to adopt her. Their experience with this foster child has taught them first hand about the patience and commitment involved to nurture, to care for, to guide through trauma and to love a child, who, through no fault of her own, was physically and sexually abused, neglected, and abandoned by her birth family.

Michael wants to use the entrepreneurial skills developed in high technology to change the plight of older youth in foster care. During his career in the high technology environment, he was employed at three pre-IPO and two turn-around companies. He is no stranger to risk-taking. His passion for the idea that has lead to the creation of Connected For Life began about three years into his relationship with his prior foster daughter. It was about this time that “her emotional commitment to us, her trust level of the relationship, her ability to say thank you, her willingness to hug us, her expectation to be with us on summer vacation was becoming apparent” states Michael. It was then that he began to think about the fact that the foster care system must be full of youth who did not want to be adopted, but are in desperate need of a permanent family connection.

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