Showing posts with label pomeroy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pomeroy. Show all posts

Monday, June 03, 2013

Pomeroy on Doing the Right Thing and Foster Care

Claire Pomeroy
CIRM photo
On Claire Pomeroy's last day as a member of the governing board of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, she also published an essay on the Huffington Post in which she discussed fleeing from an abusive home at age 14.

Pomeroy, former vice chancellor and dean of the medical school at UC Davis and now president of the Lasker Foundation in New York,  wrote last month,
“For some children, the uncertainty of life on the street is better than certainty of violence at home. It was for me. At age 14, I escaped from an abusive home with no money, nowhere to go and only the clothes I was wearing. I remember staring into the night, standing somewhere between fear and freedom. I became one of the millions of homeless teens, yet I was lucky because foster care ultimately saved me.”

“However, after an emergency placement and three foster homes, the challenges were not over. At 17 I aged out of the foster care system early when my foster parents moved out of state. On my own again, I had to find a job, a place to live and finish high school. Then I climbed the next mountain to graduate from college and medical school.”
Pomeroy said she only recently began publicly talking about her foster care experience. She said she is doing so because “many  people lack an understanding of the harsh statistics and their impact on the country's future. The nation faces a crisis that demands a call to action to start truly caring about foster youth before it is too late.”

She said that she was “lucky” in the foster care system but said that many children, particularly minorities among others such as the disabled, were not as fortunate and “were failed by the system and society.” Pomeroy called them “throwaway children” who were “robbed of their ideals, gave up hope and struggled to find a reason to live.”

Less than half of the foster children who “age out” of the system graduate from high school, she wrote. Only 3 percent to 11 percent earn a bachelor's degree. More than 400,000 children were in foster care in 2011 and have a one in 11 chance of being homeless.

Pomeroy called for expansion and improvement of foster care across the country. “It is time to stop forcing children to be the heroes of their own survival,” she wrote. “Now is the time to do the right the right thing.”
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On a personal note, we have four grandchildren, one of whom was adopted out of foster care as a toddler. The other was adopted at birth. Some of the siblings of those two African-American children remain in foster care today.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Pomeroy Moving On, Will Leave Stem Cell Board

Claire Pomeroy, one of the longtime members of the governing board of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, will be leaving her position at UC Davis and the stem cell board next June.

Pomeroy yesterday announced her departure from Davis as vice chancellor for human health services and dean of the medical school. In a telephone interview, she told the California Stem Cell Report that she is examining a “few select opportunities” to work at a national level on health reform and health policy issues.

Claire Pomeroy
UC Davis photo
Pomeroy, 57, will be spending time in Washington, D.C., working on health issues on behalf of the University of California during the transition period before she leaves her position in California.

Pomeroy came to UC Davis 10 years ago, shortly before the Golden State's stem cell agency was created in 2004. At that time, UC Davis had what she called a “fledgling” stem cell research effort. Today the school has chalked up $128 million in grants from the stem cell agency, ranking fifth among institutions funded by the agency.

She said that creation of the stem cell agency “catalyzed development of our program,” which she said has risen to “national prominence.”

Pomeroy's service on the stem cell agency board was also instrumental in attracting a $100 million grant from the Moore Foundation to start a new school of nursing at UC Davis in 2009. Through her service on the board, she met Ed Penhoet, who also served on the board and was one of the co-founders of Chiron and then president of the Moore Foundation. Subsequently, Penhoet called her for lunch to discuss her thoughts on nursing education, and developments moved on from there.

The $100 million commitment was the nation's largest grant for nursing education, according to the Moore Foundation.


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