Watch out for Brigette's profile on CBS 58's new segment: "Making Milwaukee Great."

This Thursday, May 20 is "Giving Back Has Never Been This Much Fun". This event will be hosted by Brigette Haley, a former foster youth. Brigette will be featured in the CBS 58 Making Milwaukee Great. Watch out for listings. The news crew will also be present at the event on May 20. Come meet Brigette and catch up with colleagues. Please join us at the Nomad World Pub, 1401 E. Brady Street beginning at 7 pm. All proceeds will benefit Kids Matter Inc.

New Threats to Youth in Foster Care: Identity Theft

Children and youth in foster care are facing a new threat: identity theft.

Anyone can be a victim of identity theft. However, children are easy targets mainly because they have no opportunity to use their personal identification information for financial purposes until they become adults. By that time, their information could have been used for years before anyone noticed the fraud.

Children in foster care are the easiest and most vulnerable targets. They may have multiple placements and there are many people involved in their lives. For example parents, case managers, mentors, foster parents, kinship care providers, and treatment facilities personnel may all have access to the children's personal identification information and may be able to use it without anyone noticing. Most foster children do not discover the fraud until they age out of the foster care system. By then, they no longer have legal representation.

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Practice Tips

All the children we work with will eventually age out of the foster care system. To give them a healthy start in life, here are some easy steps we can do take to protect them from identity theft.

• Ensure the credit of a young person in foster care is checked as part of every transition services plan.
• Tell the young person not to carry their Social Security card and remind them to never give out their Social Security number over the phone or on the internet.
• Keep any and all financial statements in a safe and private place. If they do not have a safe place to keep their information, like a locked box or storage container, offer to keep their documents for them in a safe and secure place in your office.
• Instruct them to keep their Personal Information Number (PIN) and password to private accounts private. This includes passwords to e-mail, Facebook, bank statements, and loan accounts.
• Ask them to always shred all pre-screened offers they receive by mail. If they want to opt out of receiving pre-screened offers, tell them to call 1-800-5-OPT-OUT.
• Remind them to always shred all sensitive documents. Throwing these papers in the trash is not enough. Their information can be stolen by people looking in the dumpsters.