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  • Educational rights for youth in the child welfare system | Quick Guide

    Educational rights for youth in the child welfare system | Quick Guide


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    The story has been updated to clarify that the total number of children and youth in the child welfare system.

    Over 70,000 children and youth in California have an open case in the child welfare system, according to the most recent point-in-time count, with over 51,000 of them also in foster care.

    Many come under supervision of their county Department of Children and Family Services after a reported allegation of child neglect or maltreatment, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation or emotional abuse; for others, it happens when a parent voluntarily requests support, often due to a child’s behavioral challenges.

    Children in an out-of-home placement in the child welfare system have access to particular educational rights. This is meant to ensure stability for them during a time of uncertainty.

    A child under the supervision of the Department of Children and Family Services often comes into contact with multiple individuals. Depending on the details of their case, this could include social workers, child advocates, police officers, detectives, attorneys, judges and others. If they are removed from their home, they might be placed in foster care. While not all youth in the child welfare system are in foster care, all foster youth are in the child welfare system.

    “When these rights were established, the purpose was to keep children in some kind of consistency, some kind of security, or something that felt just familiar to them,” said Jessica Gonzalez, youth justice program manager at CASA/LA, a national organization of court-appointed special advocates for youth in the child welfare system. CASA volunteers are sometimes appointed as educational rights holders for children. Even when they are not, they often advocate for education rights to be enforced, Gonzalez said.

    A child’s case might also enter the juvenile dependency court. While the primary goal for youth in dependency court is to “preserve the family” by keeping a child either in the home of their parent or a relative, they might be placed in foster care or adopted.

    Child welfare cases are complex, and outcomes depend on a multitude of factors, including the caretaking ability of a parent, whether a relative is able to take in the child, if an appeal is filed, and more.

    This story includes information on whom the educational rights apply to as well as general insight into some of these rights. Many were implemented with the enactment of AB 490 in 2003 yet remain difficult to understand for many families due to the complexity of the child welfare system.

    How many children are in the child welfare system?

    There were 51,339 children and youth with an open case and in foster care as of April 1. The count was published by the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, a data and technical assistance collaboration between the University of California at Berkeley and the California Department of Social Services.

    This point-in-time count includes those who are under the age of 1 up to age 21 and who have “an open child welfare or probation supervised placement episode” in California’s Child Welfare Services/Case Management System. The count peaked in 2016, with nearly 63,000 open cases. The lowest number of open cases occurred this year.

    Allegations of child maltreatment are much higher, however; between April 2022 and April 2023, there were more than 442,000 reported allegations.

    Which children in the system have access to particular educational rights?

    Youth in the child welfare system and in an out-of-home placement have access to specific educational rights. An out-of-home placement can include foster homes, group homes, shelters and hotels through the Department of Children and Family Services, and other similar placements.

    The purpose of these rights is to accommodate the child’s education as much as possible during a time of instability.

    What are some of the educational rights for those in the child welfare system?

    A child in the welfare system and in an out-of-home placement has access to the following rights, among others:

    • School stability. This includes the right to remain enrolled at their school of origin, which is the school they were enrolled in at the time their child welfare case began, and the right to be transported to that school.
    • Enrichment access. Youth have the right to access the same type of enrichment activities as their peers. This can include academic resources and extracurricular activities.
    • Placement in the least restrictive setting. Students have the right to be placed in the academic setting that’s least restrictive, or least strictly controlled, for them to be able to achieve academic progress and success.
    • Immediate enrollment. Regardless of whether a student has all the enrollment documents ready, or has had contact with the juvenile justice system, or has any outstanding fees — they have the right to be immediately enrolled in school.

    Each of the rights above are nuanced and dependent on each child’s case and the decisions of their educational rights holder.

    Additional information for families and children can be found by contacting the county Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program (each county’s contact can be found here) or at the California Foster Youth Education Task Force.

    What does it mean to place a child in the ‘least restrictive’ academic setting?

    While a least restrictive academic setting depends on age and whether a student has disabilities, it’s often considered the academic environment that’s least strictly controlled.

    For a high school student, the least restrictive setting might be a traditional public school where students walk from one classroom to another on their own, with sports and special events such as prom and field trips. A more restrictive academic setting is often a nonpublic school that provides a more strictly controlled environment in an effort to assist students who have specific behavioral, emotional or academic needs.

    As Gonzalez described, students are often pushed out to a more restrictive setting if they exhibit ongoing behavioral challenges — which, she says, are often a result of trauma in that child’s life.

    But students “have the right to be in a setting they feel safe in, they feel comfortable in, and they’re able to learn in,” Gonzalez said. “And so, if the child has demonstrated that they’re able to do this in a very restrictive setting, we have to give that student the opportunity to then be able to practice those skills in a less restrictive setting.”

    Who holds the educational rights for youth in the child welfare system?

    Every child has an educational rights holder with decision-making authority regarding their education. A parent often continues having the right to make educational and developmental decisions for their child even if they lose physical custody. Biological parents lose educational decision-making power only if they are explicitly limited or restricted by the juvenile court, if parental rights have been terminated (i.e., the child is up for adoption), or if the child is in a legal guardianship.

    Parents “are not always encouraged to continue to be a part of their child’s educational journey, so a lot of times what we do as CASA when we’re appointed to a case is facilitate that engagement with a parent to preserve their involvement in the child’s education,” Gonzalez said.

    Most often, organizations like CASA encourage relatives to hold educational rights. This is because once a child welfare case is closed, CASA is no longer the rights holder. Advocating for the biological parents or other relatives to remain as educational rights holders helps provide continuity in the child’s life, according to Gonzalez.

    In the absence of parents or relatives, the educational rights holder role is often filled by a court-appointed special advocate, which is where CASA’s name comes from.

    The person assigned as the educational rights holder is entitled to have “all of the educational decision-making rights normally held by a parent or guardian,” according to a recent fact sheet compiled by the California Foster Youth Education Task Force.

    How are educational decisions made?

    All educational decisions should be made with the child’s best interest in mind.

    For example, a child can remain in their school of origin if they prefer to. But if they’ve been placed far from that school and they would need to spend hours on the road to reach it, then it may be in their best interest to be enrolled in a new school.

    The educational rights holder can request a best-interest determination meeting that would include school district personnel, such as the school psychologist, before finalizing any educational decisions.

    How can an educational rights holder avoid roadblocks in advocating for a child?

    While educational rights are outlined, the rights holder may experience roadblocks in enforcing them.

    For example, information about a child, like academic assessments and individualized education programs, might not have yet been finalized at their school of origin and a new educational rights holder might face pushback from the new school.

    In such cases, children, their families and educational rights holders can contact an education attorney through the Educational Advocacy Unit at the Children’s Law Center. If the child is also in the juvenile justice system, they can contact a juvenile resource attorney through the public defender’s office.

    A significant barrier is that while foster youth liaisons at schools are designated staff members who support students in the child welfare system, they are often overwhelmed by the number of students they serve.

    Gonzalez said, “It’s a lot of just constantly showing up to the school, advocating, contacting, emailing, you know, all of those follow-ups to make sure that we’re getting the right support for each child that we serve.”





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  • Foster, homeless youth lose disproportionately more instruction to suspensions

    Foster, homeless youth lose disproportionately more instruction to suspensions


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Students in precarious living situations — especially foster and homeless youth —are much more likely to be suspended and lose instructional time vital to their academic success, according to a report released by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the National Center for Youth Law. 

    In the 2021-2022 academic year alone, California students lost more than 500,000 days to out-of-school suspensions, where students are sent home as a form of discipline, the study said. 

    Across the state, foster youth were disproportionately at the receiving end of the punishment, and they lost more time than “all students” across the board to suspensions — about 77 days of instruction for every 100 students. 

    Specifically, for every 100 African American foster youth enrolled, 121 days were lost while, African American homeless youth lost 69 days of instruction, according to the report which was released Oct. 30. Meanwhile, homeless students overall missed 26 days per 100 students. 

    Regardless of whether they are in foster care, students with disabilities lost 23.8 school days per 100, a rate higher than the general population. Dan Losen, senior director for the National Center for Youth Law and co-author of the report, said that missing a day of instruction could result in loss of these students’ access to disability-specific supports, such as counseling.

    “A regular day might be one of the most important days of the week for the students with disabilities,” Losen said. “So, in some sense, they’re getting a harsher punishment and being denied more.” 

    Challenges for foster youth and homeless students 

    K-12 students across the state have already lost a lot of ground academically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; Losen said that missing even more days to suspensions is detrimental.

    Losing instructional time “is harming their educational outcomes, not just in the immediate, but it makes it less likely they’re ever going to graduate,” Losen said. “It puts their academic and personal futures at greater risk.” 

    According to the report, suspending a student — even once — is associated with diminished chances of graduating from high school and attending college, as well as an increased probability of being arrested later in life. 

    Losen added that suspensions are more likely to cause delinquent behavior than curb it. 

    “Suspending a student out of school is really a non-intervention. It’s no guarantee that anything will happen. They’re just going to come back to school three days or two days later,” Losen said.

    “Not that you should put up with misconduct, but there’s got to be a way to support these kids, especially those from these unstable home environments.” 

    To make matters worse, these students who are being disproportionately suspended are already likely to have experienced trauma outside of school, Losen said. 

    “The more (adverse experiences) you have, the more likely it is you’ll have a form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and that definitely affects behavior. … Some of them might withdraw into a shell, but others might act out in ways that they might normally not act out,” Losen said.

    Discrepancies across districts 

    The report shows records varied from district to district — from Kern High School District where 23.3 days of instruction have been lost per 100 students to Los Angeles Unified School District, where only 0.7 days of instruction per 100 students were lost. 

    “Racial biases (in student discipline) are prevalent, and they don’t have to be intentional,” said Losen, noting that homeless and foster youth are disproportionately Black and brown. 

    That implicit bias “means you’re not aware of how you may be biased in not just how you punish, but who you’re looking at, who you’re expecting to exhibit problem behavior, whether shouting in the hallway is interpreted as a bullying event, or just kids roughhousing,” he said.

    Kern High School District — based in Bakersfield with more than 42,000 students — had the highest rate of instructional time lost among African American students, totaling 80 days per 100 students.  

    EdSource reached out to the Kern High School District regarding the study’s findings, but district spokespeople did not respond by EdSource’s deadline.

    Kern’s number is disappointing, said Ashley De La Rosa, the education policy director for the Central Valley-based Dolores Huerta Foundation, which previously sued the Kern High School District over its disciplinary methods. But she said she’s “not surprised either.” 

    “The current board of education seems more focused on monitoring and policing students than actually seeing what the teachers or the administrators are doing,” De La Rosa said. “… When students are not in class, they’re not learning, and our educational attainment in Kern County is one of the lowest.”

    She noted that the Kern High School District made some progress after a 2014 lawsuit alleged its higher rates of suspension for students of color were discriminatory. 

    According to an announcement released by the Dolores Huerta Foundation, a 2017 settlement had required Kern High School district to “implement positive discipline practices to address disparate discipline outcomes and provide discipline-related training to all staff and personnel operating within the school environment.” 

    But after the terms of the settlement expired and the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the district took a major step back and out-of-school suspensions began to increase once again, De La Rosa said.

    But following the 2017 settlement, the district said in that “certainly, KHSD has not engaged in intentional systemic racist student discipline practices against African-American and Latino students.” 

    “Rather (Kern High School District), like most public school districts nationwide, has been reviewing its student discipline data as it impacts minority students, and reframing its student discipline practices in order to address the statistically disproportionate suspension and expulsion of students of color,” the district’s statement noted. 

    By comparison, LAUSD’s rate of lost instructional days for African American students was 40 times lower than Kern’s, and no single demographic group lost more than three days per 100 students, according to the report. 

    A district spokesperson and community activists have attributed LAUSD’s reduction in out-of-school suspensions to the elimination of  “willful defiance” suspensions 10 years ago, which was achieved through a School Climate Bill of Rights. 

    Willful defiance suspensions, advocates argued, were used as punitive disciplinary practices for small, subjective infractions such as talking back to a teacher or refusing to spit out gum. 

    Since the bill of rights passed, the district’s suspension rate has dropped from 2.3% in the 2011-12 academic year to 0.3% in 2021-2022, according to a district spokesperson. Meanwhile, LAUSD has worked to incorporate alternative disciplinary methods rooted in restorative justice. 

    “I’m proud of the progress LAUSD has made and the recognition in this report, and I also know that our progress resulted from years of community pressure and advocacy to treat students like the learners they are. As they learn literacy and mathematics, they also learn behavior expectations, conflict resolution skills and restorative practices,” LAUSD board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said. 

    “If we can shift the hearts, minds and skills of nearly 70,000 employees in LAUSD, then surely other districts can too,” she said. 

    Still, LAUSD remains “far from perfect” and has reported students to the police at higher rates than average, according to the report. 

    “We’re often punishing those that need the most support. So this is a (really) important opportunity … to do more radical listening, making sure that we have the right wraparound support necessary for students to thrive, particularly those students who are often in the shadows, often neglected and nothing more,” said Ryan J. Smith, the chief strategy officer at Community Coalition. 

    He also stressed that the district should prioritize support services, including psychiatric social workers and counselors, to uplift more vulnerable students who often make transitions from one home and community to another. 

    Looking ahead 

    According to the California Compilation of School Discipline Laws And Regulations, suspensions, regardless of whether they are out-of-school suspensions, should only be used as a last resort — and can only be used if a student exhibits certain behaviors, including causing physical injury to others or possessing illegal drugs. 

    Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 27, which aims to halt all suspensions for one of those categories, willful defiance, for middle and high school students across the state. 

    Losen said that despite statewide attempts to end willful defiance suspensions, he is still concerned that “violence with no injury” suspensions could take its place as another subjective, umbrella category that could disproportionately harm marginalized students. 

    “California has made some progress, but there’s a great amount of work to be done, and much more that could be done. I don’t want to lose sight,” Losen said. “Modest progress shouldn’t kill the initiative to really make more lasting, substantial changes.”





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  • Two types of housing vouchers for foster youth | Quick Guide

    Two types of housing vouchers for foster youth | Quick Guide


    Credit: Lisa Fotios/Pexels

    In California, where affordable housing is increasingly difficult to find, youth exiting the foster care system disproportionately face higher rates of homelessness, according to CalYOUTH, a study on foster youth conducted from 2012 to 2022.

    Two federal programs, the Family Unification Program (FUP) and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative (FYI), work to reduce these rates of homelessness by providing targeted housing vouchers commonly referred to as Section 8.

    But FUP and FYI vouchers go largely underutilized in California, according to a recent report from John Burton Advocates for Youth, or JBAY, a nonprofit focused on supporting California foster and homeless youth.

    According to the authors of the report, child welfare agency representatives from 37 of the state’s 58 counties responded to the survey, and the counties that responded are in charge of 93% of the state’s FUP and FYI vouchers for eligible young people.

    The results from the survey provide critical insight into these two housing vouchers for former foster youth, such as how often they are being distributed and various challenges with more widespread issuance. Some of those challenges include a lack of awareness regarding recent policy changes that simplify the voucher distribution process and insufficient funding for the supportive services offered in coordination with the voucher.

    This quick guide provides insight into what the FUP and FYI programs are, how the housing vouchers can be accessed, the challenge of California’s current housing climate, and where additional information can be found.

    What do the FUP and FYI housing vouchers provide?
    Both the Family Unification Program and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative vouchers provide eligible youth with up to three years of housing assistance, plus additional support such as locating available housing and covering some move-in costs. The housing vouchers, known commonly as Section 8, pay for all or part of the youth’s rent.

    A three-year voucher can be extended for an additional two years if the youth meets certain criteria. Those criteria include opting into a Family Self-Sufficiency program if one is offered by the local public housing authority issuing their voucher. In an FSS program, these youth can receive additional support services, including child care, job training and transportation. If a family self-sufficiency program is not offered, or if it’s impacted, youth can also meet the criteria by fulfilling education or employment conditions.

    More detailed information regarding those education or employment conditions can be found on Page 9 of this report.

    Who is eligible for the FUP and FYI?
    The Family Unification Program, or FUP, was established in 1992 and provides housing vouchers for families involved in the child welfare system and for transition-age former foster youth.

    The Foster Youth to Independence Initiative, or FYI, launched nearly three decades later in 2019, is specific to transition-age youth leaving the foster care system.

    In order to qualify for both programs, transition-age foster youth must be between the ages of 18 and 24 and cannot have reached their 25th birthday. Additional eligibility requirements include having exited the foster care system or being about to do so within 90 days and being homeless or at risk of homelessness at age 16 or above.

    It should be noted that transition-age foster youth age ranges might be different for other services, depending on the specific resource and the person’s location. In Santa Clara County, for example, some foster care transition services are available for 15-year-olds, while the city of San Francisco offers support for some former foster youth up to age 27.

    How many youth have been administered housing voucher?
    There has been a 54% increase in vouchers administered in the past two years: from 870 in 2021 to 1,341 as of Oct. 1, according to the JBAY report.

    Why don’t more eligible California youth have a housing voucher?
    There are multiple reasons for these housing vouchers being largely underutilized in California.

    One key challenge is that not every county chooses to participate in the FUP and FYI voucher programs. While those youth may likely still be eligible for other state or county-funded housing support, such programs are hard to get because they are utilized at higher rates.

    Additionally, the FUP and FYI vouchers are linked with offering supportive services and, despite new designated allocations to cover those supportive services, the costs remain prohibitive.

    Some county representatives are also unaware of key details that would facilitate the issuing of more vouchers. For example, about 65% of county child welfare agencies remained unaware that vouchers can be extended from three to five years for all youth with a voucher. Plus, recent federal policy changes have simplified the process that county agencies must follow when requesting certain vouchers, but many of the county representatives interviewed in the JBAY survey were unaware of those changes.

    How long does it take for youth to find adequate housing if they are administered a FUP or FYI voucher?

    The length of time for identifying housing ranges from less than one month to over six months, with 45% of California counties that responded to the survey indicating that the average search was one to two months. The range includes the beginning of the housing search to the moment the housing is secured.

    Finding adequate and affordable housing in California is increasingly one of the most significant barriers to using or even issuing the vouchers. Transition-age foster youth are particularly susceptible to this challenge, as they often have little to no income to rely on, no rental history and are less likely to have a co-signer to rely on.

    How can transition-age foster youth apply for FUP and FYI housing vouchers?
    If a transition-aged former foster youth thinks they might be eligible for a FUP or FYI voucher, they should connect with their child welfare or independent living worker. A direct point-of-contact for their county, if they offer vouchers, can be found at this link.

    Their local public child welfare agency makes the referral to the public housing authority and certifies whether the youth is eligible, based on their history in the foster care system.

    If the youth is eligible and the housing authority has FUP vouchers, that’s the type of voucher offered to the young person. Otherwise, an FYI voucher is requested from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Once housing is secured, the FYI voucher is administered to the landlord.

    Where can additional resources and information be found regarding housing vouchers for transition-age foster youth?

    Those potentially eligible for a FUP or FYI housing voucher can find contact information for their county on this spreadsheet compiled by JBAY.

    This fact sheet by the Youth Law Center provides an overview of the housing resources available in California for current and former foster youth.





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  • Advocates warn against cutting housing subsidy for former foster youth

    Advocates warn against cutting housing subsidy for former foster youth


    Jovenes Inc., a Los Angeles-based organization, supports transition-age youth in accessing housing.

    Credit: Courtesy of Jovenes Inc.

    The lack of stable housing is often cited by researchers as a significant barrier for current and former foster youth to continue attending school, and studies have shown that those exiting the foster care system face disproportionately higher rates of homelessness in California.

    Even so, two reductions totaling millions in funds targeted toward preventing homelessness and housing instability among youth exiting the foster care system are detailed in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2024-25 state budget. The governor’s cuts to extended foster care housing programs would help close only a sliver of the state’s projected $68 billion budget gap.

    “It’s unclear to me why programs that help support the housing needs of some of our most vulnerable residents would be singled out for elimination,” said Debbie Raucher, director of education at John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY), a nonprofit organization that advocates for homeless and foster youth.

    Among the proposed cuts is $18.8 million from the general fund that’s intended to help youth (ages 18-21) in extended foster care with supplemental funding to cover their housing costs. Those millions were approved last year to be implemented in 2025-26; the governor’s latest budget proposal, however, eliminates them before they go into effect.

    There is also a proposed cut of $13.7 million from the Housing Navigation & Maintenance Program, formerly known as the Housing Navigators Program, effectively eliminating the program whose entire annual budget in the past two years was $13.7 million.

    This program, often referred to as HNMP, offers supportive services to current and former foster youth ages 18-24 who receive a federal housing voucher. The vouchers are funded by the federal government, but participating states are mandated to provide supportive services for young people who are granted a voucher.

    The services vary by region but could include recruiting landlords who might be open to renting to someone with no rental history, help with security deposits, answering questions the foster youth tenants might have about their lease, and more.

    “It’s important because you almost can’t make use of their voucher without support. These are young people that have no rental history. They are at an age where many landlords are not excited to rent to them. They’re college age, they don’t have co-signers because they don’t have families that are supporting them, and they have no experience finding housing on the private market,” said Simone Tureck Lee, director of housing and health at JBAY. “So to expect them to just take a voucher and sort of turn it into housing is largely unrealistic.”

    The proposed budget cuts seem to ignore the housing needs of this population of California’s youth and their vulnerability to homelessness, say Tureck Lee and other advocates.

    The distribution of two foster youth-specific housing vouchers — the Family Unification Program and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative — increased by 54% in the past two years, from 870 in 2021 to 1,341 as of last Oct. 1, according to a recent report by John Burton Advocates for Youth.

    The increase, according to Tureck Lee, is in part due to changes in federal policies that made it easier for the housing vouchers to be distributed to youth and in part due to an increase in state funding toward supportive services — the very services now at risk of being eliminated.

    “The end game here is to keep people stable in their housing,” said Tureck Lee. Without this funding, she added, the vouchers would still be available, given that they are federally funded, but the growth they’ve seen in voucher distribution will likely be curbed.

    Lillee Taylor, 21, is one of the 1,341 California youth in extended foster care who received housing vouchers and found some stability. She received her voucher just under one year ago.

    Today, Taylor, majoring in psychology at Cal State Fullerton and a single mom to a 4-year-old, also works full time for an Orange County organization as an outreach and engagement coordinator, providing resources for youth and adults leaving incarceration.

    Only four years ago, however, she was 17 years old and sleeping in a 1999 Toyota Corolla she bought on Craigslist for about $1,000.

    She was living there despite having been placed in a foster home. Taylor said she isn’t sure how the foster parent’s home was approved for fostering, given that the woman was uninterested in housing Taylor. So she made a deal with the woman: She could continue receiving the payment she’d get for housing Taylor if she at least took in Taylor’s dog.

    This was the arrangement until Taylor graduated high school and found out she was pregnant. She told the foster mom that she couldn’t live in her car any longer. The woman refused to take her in, so Taylor picked up her dog.

    She continued living in her car, now with her dog, while working full-time as a veterinary technician and saving money. On her 18th birthday, she applied for two apartments in Phoenix and moved there two days later. The apartments were not subsidized, but she moved there because it was what she could afford.

    “There was no possible option that I could find anything in California, it was just super unrealistic, so Phoenix was a lot easier to rent in,” she said. “It was also really close to California so it was easy to come back and forth to see friends.”

    Her daughter was born in Arizona and Taylor relied on funding from a federal program for foster youth to sustain them both, while attending community college remotely.

    Taylor eventually made her way back to Orange County, where she was born and eventually returned after being taken from her mother and placed in foster care, two days before her 10th birthday. It was also the area she spent her teenage years — moving in and out of foster homes and group homes.

    The housing voucher, which she received last year, is perhaps the most critical resource that makes it possible to now live more comfortably with her daughter.

    Without the voucher, she wouldn’t be able to afford her current neighborhood in the southern part of the county — the area she wants to live in because it has good schools for her daughter and is close to her small support system of friends.

    The voucher has also given her the opportunity to choose her living environment. “After living so many years in places you have no choice of being, like foster homes and group homes and just not great situations, when it comes to where we live, I’m pretty picky,” she said.

    Taylor is not alone in her pursuit of a safe and stable home. Of all youth who experienced homelessness in 2022, 29% were former foster youth, says a report from Children Now, an organization that evaluates progress made on California policies and investments.

    “If the foster care system is supposed to do one thing, it’s supposed to ensure that every youth in the foster care system has a roof over their head,” said Raucher of JBAY.

    What would become of Taylor and others in her situation if the voucher is discontinued? Taylor said she’d figure out a way to find stable, safe housing for herself and her daughter. She is resourceful and has, for years on end, found safety for herself and her daughter — first as she navigated the foster care system and then as she fought to place a restraining order on an abusive ex-boyfriend.

    And even though the voucher has not come without obstacles — Taylor has found it incredibly challenging to find new housing even with a voucher, something she’ll be doing once her current lease is up — she’s relieved she has it.

    “Having the support of the voucher gives me the opportunity to be able to go do fun things with my daughter because I do have a little bit of extra money,” she said. “She actually has a pretty decent-sized savings account right now because I’ve been able to save some extra money from what I’m not paying in rent, so that would definitely not be a thing if I had to do everything completely on my own.”

    It’s that support that might be reduced if the governor’s proposed budget cuts are ultimately approved later this year, said Tami Di Paolo, director of youth support services at Orangewood Foundation, which provides support services for youth who might be exiting foster care, experiencing homelessness, or at risk of being trafficked in Orange County.

    “Young adults like Lillee and other youth coming out of the foster care system, they’re able to secure housing, and now they can take a moment to focus on other needs because they feel safe and secure in their home,” she said.

    The elimination of state funds might sunset certain services that Orangewood provides, such as support paying for utility bills, groceries, and hotel stays in between leases, or might lead to a reduction in their staff, said Di Paolo.

    If any of their programs have a gap in funding, Di Paolo said they look to fill it as soon as possible to prevent service interruptions for youth.

    “But that also means that we would not be able to increase other services because we needed to fill this gap,” she added. “We know this is working for the young adults, but that funding needs to come from somewhere.”





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  • Heed youth voices to improve school climate

    Heed youth voices to improve school climate


    A student holds a welcoming sign at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland.

    Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/EdSource

    In June 2023, as I tightly hugged my childhood friends and departed from Saratoga High School, an emotional conflict stirred within me. We had graduated with an intense knowledge of the thrilling and very challenging life of a student in today’s world. As I reflected on the transformative experiences that shaped my high school years, I felt fortunate to have shared and expanded these insights while on the California Center for School Climate’s Youth Advisory Team. This defining moment to partner with peers and experts throughout California to help improve school climate had a resounding impact on me.

    The Youth Advisory Team, which included adult mentors and seven students I collaborated with virtually, examined the challenges that stem from high levels of stress in students and the root causes of it — exploring the daily pressures of academic success, college admissions and competition. As I engaged in discussions and initiatives in and outside my school, it became evident that fostering a positive and inclusive environment is not merely a goal but an urgent necessity.

    Attending schools in both Costa Rica and Saratoga, I witnessed the impact of school climate on students’ emotional and physical well-being. Local and societal prioritizations of social status and wealth led many students, including me, to share a simple mindset: The more we take on, the better we are as people. Rather than using empathy, curiosity and integrity to gauge our worth and that of others, we often rely on a resume to determine a person’s value. While many dedicated school staff and parents attempt to alleviate this taut way of thinking, students often feel compelled to take on as many responsibilities as possible and try to execute them all perfectly, leaving them anxious and exhausted. The need to excel at everything can lead to a negative school climate and internal conflicts where students feel burdened by unrealistic expectations from themselves and others.

    Academic achievement and college admissions should not overwhelm students’ educational experiences. To thrive, students need opportunities and flexibility to discover their own paths. However, students can’t expect adults to properly bring about change if they don’t hear students’ voices — youth need to help guide the direction education leaders take with decision-making, whether this be in advisory committees, one-on-one conversations, school polls/surveys, etc.

    Working closely with the California Center for School Climate and fellow students, our team helped develop resources explaining the importance of school relationships and school safety, designed a toolkit for educators to better support staff and student connection, and attended meetings about topics related to school climate, including school safety, mental health, and well-being, equity and inclusion.

    A key lesson I learned through this work was that in order to co-create school climate resources, adults must actively listen to and engage with students to build trust and meaningful relationships — helping them feel comfortable speaking up in any environment. Breaking down barriers is essential to have these meaningful conversations in which students can begin to see adults beyond their authoritative powers (making rules, handing out punishments, giving rewards) and as real people with struggles. When adults are willing to be vulnerable to the extent that they feel comfortable, it makes students feel like they can open up, too — creating an open and honest space to talk, share and take real steps forward.

    However, a movement toward a healthier future isn’t automatically successful on its first day; it requires us to adapt to our communities’ changing needs constantly. The mental and physical health of youth will only improve through a constant flow of reflection and open-mindedness, tied together by a disciplined will to do something better. I was reminded of this during the center’s annual virtual event in 2023, in which nearly 200 school staff, parents and educators from across California came together in the middle of a workday to listen to our youth panel relay our insights.

    The youth panel members had spent months researching resources (such as toolkits, educational videos, and guides) from a broad range of sources, analyzing our school experiences, and considering different concepts. That day, we shared our recommendations with education leaders on what they could do to help their young people, which included:

    • Integrating mental health discussions/lessons into existing or new curriculums.
    • Revisiting guidelines regarding a balanced amount of take-home work.
    • Ensuring that school clubs and sports are healthy environments.
    • Creating online open channels of communication and in-person events with parents to educate them on the pivotal role home life plays in student well-being and success.

    The members of our audience were willing to take the time to reflect on their own strategies and were open-minded enough to acknowledge and consider new ones.

    Students and adults should aspire to assemble and strengthen bridges of trust and understanding with the overarching goal of committing actionable change. Together, they can forge a path toward a more positive and inclusive school climate where students feel cared for, empowered and ready to embrace their futures.

    ●●●

    Julian Berkowitz-Sklar is a recent graduate of Saratoga High School and served on the Youth Advisory Team of the California Center for School Climate, a state initiative that provides free support on school climate and data use to local education agencies in California. 

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • California’s Youth Job Corps offers a second chance at career, higher education

    California’s Youth Job Corps offers a second chance at career, higher education


    Rubicon Landscape Group, which has a community beautification program in the city of Richmond, hires California Volunteers’ Youth Job Corps service members.

    Credit: Courtesy of Ebony Richardson/Rubicon Landscape Group

    One of Kaelyn Carter’s ongoing challenges these days is working early hours as a landscaper through the cold, often rainy San Francisco Bay Area weather — a world away from the stagnation he remembers feeling when he first arrived in California less than two years ago.

    Then, Carter had just been released from prison after three years of incarceration in Virginia, where he was born. He had made his way to California, which he heard might have more job opportunities.

    He’d tried working, but he’d run into more trouble and once again had a warrant out for his arrest. So he turned himself in.

    That decision led to significant changes in his life, he said, because his probation officer connected him with his current workplace, which is part job and part rehabilitation program.

    The job is with Rubicon Landscape Group, a landscaping company in the city of Richmond that has multiple branches, including a Reentry Success Center which offers a structured 18-week vocational training program where young adults under age 30 who’ve been impacted by the justice system learn about horticulture and landscaping.

    Working at Rubicon, Carter said, offered him a community and the means to provide for himself and rebuild his life.

    Kaelyn Carter, right, works is part of a community beautification program in the city of Richmond as a service member with California Volunteers’ Youth Job Corps.
    Credit: Courtesy of Ebony Richardson/Rubicon Landscape Group

    “It feels comfortable to be able to provide, to buy stuff that you need, (like) hygiene products. You don’t have to go and ask someone to do it for you. You can just go and get it yourself,” he said, and “being able to go to work every day and see a check or some kind of payment at the end of the week, it’s comfortable.”

    The program is part of a larger state effort led by California Volunteers, called the #CaliforniansForAll Youth Jobs Corps, that provides employment opportunities for Californians ages 16 to 30.

    Job placements for service members range from a few months to about a year, a timeline that’s set by each participating city or county depending on the region’s needs. The idea is to create a pathway to careers that may have been previously out of reach for them.

    Priority consideration is offered to youth who are in, or transitioning from, foster care, or have been justice system-involved, or in the mental health or substance abuse system. Participants must also be low-income, unemployed and not enrolled in school. They must also not have participated in an AmeriCorps program.

    Out of over 8,000 total service members to date, about 400 were either in foster care or transitioning out of it, and 702 have identified as justice-involved.

    The #CaliforniansForAll project includes other service programs, such as College Corps, which in its first year included 3,250 students from 46 California community colleges and state universities.

    While the Youth Job Corps prioritizes young people who may not be on a college track, it encourages them to pursue higher education.

    “That’s a goal of the program, and it’s why we focused on those populations,” said Josh Fryday, chief service officer of California Volunteers. “The idea here is creating an opportunity for our young people to serve their community, to make a difference, stabilize them, and then get them on the path to a successful career, which we hope higher education is part of for many of them.”

    Service members are paid at least the state hourly minimum wage, now $16, but their city or county of residence can increase their wages.

    The corps launched in 2022 with $185 million in state funding, with $78.1 million in ongoing funding approved in the 2023-24 state budget.

    Since then, about 8,000 young people have worked in nearly 30 cities and counties that applied to join the list of participating locations, which range from Nevada County to the city of South Gate in Los Angeles County to the city of San Bernardino and more in between.

    Each location either hires the service member directly or works with local community-based organizations that provide connections to careers in city government, climate efforts such as fire mitigation, community beautification by way of landscaping, and more.

    “We really wanted to provide a lot of flexibility for local communities to decide how they were going to engage young people, depending on the needs of the community and what was appropriate for that area,” said Fryday.

    For example, most of the service members in the Los Angeles County city of Maywood were high school seniors or in their early college years, and one was a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

    These participants were given the flexibility to choose placement in a career they were interested in pursuing. Their interests ranged from working at City Hall — which is where the college graduate was placed — to the local YMCA. Even some neighboring cities benefited from this flexibility: a service member worked at a technology center in the next-door city of Bell, which is not on the list of participating locations.

    Maywood, one of the most densely populated cities in the state, is home to a predominantly low-income and immigrant population that most often commutes to work in other regions of Los Angeles County. But at the end of their Youth Job Corps service time, many of the city’s service members were offered full-time jobs in their community.

    “The pay is helpful, the exposure they appreciate, but what I hear that, just to me, is so incredible and inspiring is when they say, ‘I just never thought I had something positive to contribute to my community. I never thought that I had something of value where I could give back, and I could lift up the community I love while also supporting my family at the same time,’” Fryday said. “I remember hearing that specifically in Maywood.”

    It’s a sentiment also shared by Carter in Richmond.

    “It might sound crazy, but Rubicon has been basically a safe haven for me because it helped me with dealing with … I want to say poverty, if that makes sense,” said Carter, now 29.
    His job also helps him address his depression. Rubicon’s wraparound services — such as mental health support, resume workshops — help with housing and transportation, and working with plants helps him feel more grounded, Carter said.

    All Youth Job Corps service members at Carter’s job with Rubicon are justice-impacted, which has given him a community of others with similar life experiences.

    “This cohort, they just really lean on each other a lot,” said Ebony Richardson, a reentry coach with Rubicon. “I feel like they look out for each other as a whole, and it shows in the work they are doing.”

    This community and support is part of what has kept Carter working at Rubicon, rather than returning to the life that led to his incarceration.

    “It helped me build structure as far as my character, as far as my work skills,” he said. “It’s really a rehabilitation program basically for those who need a second chance.”





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  • Homeless youth advocates call for dedicated state funding, local flexibility

    Homeless youth advocates call for dedicated state funding, local flexibility


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Advocates are calling for $13 million in dedicated state funding and for the adoption of a bill that would support homeless students and youth exiting foster care as schools face the expiration of significant pandemic-era federal funding this year.

    The call comes from the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law, which is also co-sponsoring Assembly Bill 2137.

    The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, proposes making it easier for local organizations that serve foster youth to provide direct services. It also mandates those same programs be informed when foster students opt out of applying for federal financial aid, and it requires districts to detail how they plan to increase identification of students experiencing homelessness.

    Youth exiting the foster care system face a disproportionate risk of homelessness, and some state programs dedicated to offering them housing support would be eliminated if the state’s proposed budget is approved as it currently stands.

    “If we do not have the basic infrastructure in the state to identify them and do any preventative work, we are going to continue to fail this population and then see chronic adult homelessness grow, which is the issue everyone says they care about,” said Margaret Olmos, director of the National Center for Youth Law’s compassionate education systems team in California.

    The proposed funding allocation would partially replace the federal money — which must be obligated before October and spent by January next year — while the bill seeks to implement three provisions, directing existing resources toward supporting foster and homeless youth while working to increase their high school graduation and college enrollment rates.

    The bill “really highlights the need that we have to do all we can … to be very intentional about our foster youth and outcomes of them maybe having a pathway straight into homelessness unless we intervene,” said Quirk-Silva. “This is a way to work with them through the education system.”

    The call for state funding specific to homeless youth, which school staff and advocates have long campaigned for, and for the adoption of the bill, come in a year that California faces a budget deficit in the billions and as rates of student homelessness in many counties have surpassed pre-pandemic rates.

    “We’re not deaf to the environment. … What we know is when there is a budget deficit that the number of families and children experiencing homelessness is just going to go up,” Olmos said.

    Advocates see both the call for $13 million in dedicated state funding and the adoption of Assembly Bill 2137 as necessary steps in preventing the rise of youth homelessness.

    State data and recent studies show that students experiencing homelessness and those in the foster care system are significantly more likely to be chronically absent from school, be suspended, have lower grades, experience higher school instability, or drop out of school.

    Dedicated state funding

    In 2021, California received nearly $100 million to aid in the identification, enrollment and school engagement of youth experiencing homelessness. This was one-time federal pandemic-era funding under the American Rescue Plan.

    Since then, school staff have hailed the funding as critical in their efforts to stay current on which of their students were homeless and how to best support them, whether by offering their families short-term stays in motels after an eviction, hiring staff to contact families they believe might be experiencing homelessness, distributing debit cards for gas, and more.

    Students identified as homeless in California are eligible to receive some resources, but the state does not dedicate funding that is specific to this population of students. Some states, such as Washington, have allocated state dollars toward replacing the American Rescue Plan funds before they sunset.

    While the state’s funding formula for education gives some funds for high-needs students, including those identified as homeless, it’s not proportionate to the number of homeless students living across the state. In practice, homeless students account for less than 1% of planned spending in the funding formula, according to a report published last year by the Public Policy Institute of California.

    Additionally, this state funding is tied to first identifying students who are homeless — an effort that school staff say in and of itself needs to first be funded.

    “This is the one subgroup that has to self-identify,” said Olmos. “None of this works if you do not have somebody who is there to count and care about that population.”

    There is some dedicated funding at the federal level, such as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, but those grants are distributed in California as part of a competitive grant process, making them extremely limited. During the 2018-19 school year, for example, just 73 of California’s nearly 2,300 local education agencies were awarded McKinney-Vento funding; only 103 applied for the grants, according to a state audit.

    McKinney-Vento grants to California totaled about $13 million annually prior to the pandemic, and the call for $13 million in state funding would match that amount.

    That amount would not have the same statewide impact that schools felt with the American Rescue Plan funds, but Olmos said that “it’s at least, for the first time, a commitment” from the state.

    Proposal to refine current resources

    Quirk-Silva, the legislator who introduced Assembly Bill 2137, hopes the bill will help prevent youth homelessness by supporting current foster youth in schools. She was an elementary school teacher for 30 years before being elected to represent District 67, which includes cities from Cerritos in Los Angeles County to Fullerton in Orange County.

    “We know they’re part of the population (of homeless youth), and we have to do everything we can before they leave their placements,” said Quirk-Silva. “Some do go to college, and that does help them, but many of them aren’t on that track, and that’s where they become even more vulnerable.”

    In refining existing resources, the bill seeks to implement three provisions with the goal of keeping foster youth engaged in school by addressing their individual needs.

    The first of the bill’s provisions would increase flexibility for county Foster Youth Services Coordinating Programs, which coordinate with local educational agencies to provide resources such as tutoring and FAFSA support for foster youth students, when offering direct support services to students.

    Currently, the county programs, known as FYSCPs, can only offer such services after receiving written certification from the local educational agency confirming they are “unable, using any other state, federal, local, or private funds, to provide the direct services.”

    This requirement, according to the bill co-sponsors, which also includes advocacy organization John Burton Advocates for Youth, is a barrier because many local educational agencies, or LEAs, “are reluctant to provide written certification that they cannot address the needs of foster youth resulting in FYSCPs having to forgo providing these services, even when clearly indicated and when funding is available to do so.”

    The second provision would request that the coordinating programs be informed if students fill out a form opting out of applying for federal financial aid, so they may intervene and advise foster youth about their options post-high school.

    The third and final provision in the bill would require districts to detail in their three-year strategic plans how they plan to increase identification of students experiencing homelessness.

    Assemblymember Quirk-Silva said she expects her colleagues to support the bill. There are currently no estimates for how much the bill would cost, if adopted.

    “What I’ve seen as a classroom teacher is this is a very vulnerable population,” she said. “Often they need the most support and many times they get the least amount of support.”





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  • Q&A: Centering the college aspirations of foster youth

    Q&A: Centering the college aspirations of foster youth


    As California expands services needed to grow the number of foster youth enrolling in college, more work is needed to help those students graduate.

    Julie Leopo/ EdSource

    Foster youth are seldom top-of-mind in efforts to promote broader college access, but many would aspire to attend and have the skills to thrive there, argues Royel M. Johnson, a tenured professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, in his forthcoming book.

    The book, “From Foster Care to College: Navigating Educational Challenges and Creating Possibilities,” features the stories of 49 current and former foster youth nationwide who have enrolled in college, often by relying on the skills they gained while navigating the foster system.

    The idea for the book developed when Johnson was a professor at Penn State University, where his research largely focused on youth impacted by the foster care and criminal legal systems.

    Royel M. Johnson is a tenured professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, with a courtesy appointment in the Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
    Photo Credit: Royel M. Johnson

    “I’d been building an area of work, a program of research around system-impacted populations who are not always thought of as college material, and not always even just centered in national efforts to promote college access and post-secondary success,” he said in a recent interview.

    Johnson was raised on the west side of Chicago in the Garfield Park neighborhood. It is a predominantly Black community with a decadeslong history of disinvestment that has resulted in high unemployment and shorter life expectancy rates.

    “By way of that, you get exposed quite early to systemic inequities, whether it be policing, child welfare policies, education,” he said. “My own lived experience became the lens through which I developed my curiosity for research and trying to understand better the pathway and structural disadvantages and opportunities that some folks have and other folks do not.”

    While studying political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Johnson met and studied alongside graduate students enrolled in the university’s doctoral program for educational policy.

    They inspired him to remain at the university to pursue educational policy. He earned a master’s degree in the subject there and, ultimately, a doctorate in higher education and student affairs from Ohio State University.

    Johnson, whose book will be published in October, recently made time to discuss how the book project came together and what he learned from the foster youth he interviewed. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

    Where did the inspiration for this book come from?

    Too much of the work on young folks in foster care is sort of around, ‘What explains the failure?’ We need to understand why some students don’t succeed. But there’s also a lot that we can learn from young people who do succeed, and that becomes the model we sort of move from. I wanted to do asset-based work and resiliency-based work versus deficit-oriented work.

    Your book features the stories of 49 college students and graduates with experiences in the foster care system. How did you meet and interview them?

    Around 2019, I launched a national study working with folks who run programs for young people in foster care at colleges and universities. We contacted administrators at universities and asked them to recommend students to participate in the study, we shared fliers and recruited on social media.

    We paid students a stipend to participate. My team and I interviewed them, on average an hour or so each for two to three interviews, to get really comprehensive insights, from their time in foster care to their preparation and transition to college, to the realities of what it’s like to be a college student in foster care. Many of them were young people who were currently in college. Few had graduated, even fewer were graduate students.

    We wanted to cast a wide net of folks who were diverse in racial and ethnic backgrounds because it’s mostly youth of color who are disproportionately impacted, specifically Black youth and native and Indigenous youth. We wanted to oversample those who identified their sexual orientations beyond heterosexual. And diversity in the time spent in care: we know that those who age out of the foster care system are most vulnerable to experiencing homelessness, contact with the criminal punishment system, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, etc. We were really intentional in building a robust cohort of students to learn from.

    Once we started interviewing, many of them recommended their peers to participate in the study, in part because, for so many of them, what they shared is that they have so few opportunities to give voice to their own experiences.

    What did you learn from the students you interviewed?

    One of the things that we learned is that many of the young people in the book choose college through a framework of belonging: ‘How do I identify in institutions that demonstrate value for me and my identity as a young person in care?’ Institutions that have college access and support programs for young folks in foster care — they see that as a signal that that’s a place that they might be able to find community and belong.

    We also see that navigating the transition to college can be difficult, especially when you don’t have familial support moving you in and buying you all the things that you need, so they rely on a really broad constellation of kinship networks — their chosen family. They’re savvy in developing supportive and authentic relationships with not just their peers who become family, but former social workers, former teachers and educators. That familial capital becomes a resource for them in accessing college.

    What did you learn about students in California?

    Going Deeper

    Guardian Scholars is a chapter-based organization on college campuses that helps support former foster and homeless youth. The program supports students with financial aid, basic needs resources, mentorship, career advising and more.

    Guardian Scholars was founded at CSU Fullerton in 1988 and has since expanded to all CSU campuses in addition to community colleges and other universities statewide.

    The national recognition of the Guardian Scholars program and that being so visible is an attractive motivator for young folks in care because it signals to them that that’s a place where there’s going to be people like me and that I won’t be stigmatized in the way that I might be at a different place.

    Most student affairs administrators who work at a college or university may not know about federal funds or state-specific policies and resources that young people in care might qualify for. Those who work in and lead Guardian Scholars programs are keenly aware of those kinds of resources and of many of the challenges that young folks in care experience.

    You include concepts such as “aspirational capital” and “resistant capital” in your book. What do these terms mean in the context of youth in foster care?

    One of the frameworks that I draw on is what’s called community cultural wealth. This is a framework that Tara Yosso wrote about in 2005. What she argues is that people of color naturally have what she says is community cultural wealth, and these are the various undervalued, underrecognized forms of capital that we often use to navigate systems that weren’t designed for us.

    One of those forms of capital is aspirational capital: How is it that people of color are able to maintain such high aspirations in the face of such structural failures?

    Navigational capital is where the experience that we get navigating systems that weren’t designed for us becomes a resource to us, whether it’s navigating the bureaucracy of the welfare system or local politics, or even inequities in school. Being able to strategically manage and maneuver across these systems becomes a resource to us as we get into different situations, like applying to college and persisting in college.

    Community cultural wealth is a framework that lots of scholars of color who are doing work on communities of color have found a lot of value in trying to contextualize the experiences of people of color in education.

    How is it that we successfully navigate this system and structure that isn’t designed for us and that continues to fail us? I think community cultural wealth offers some language for the strategies, resources and work repertoires we draw on in order to maneuver.





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  • Leader steps down from foster youth advocacy group

    Leader steps down from foster youth advocacy group


    Amy Lemley, right, at an April reception for John Burton Advocates for Youth.

    Photo Credit: John Burton Advocates for Youth

    Amy Lemley was still a graduate student at UC Berkeley in the late ’90s when she founded First Place for Youth, the first housing program for former foster youth in California.

    The daughter of a large-animal veterinarian and a hospice nurse, Lemley has long been a force in policy advocacy for system-impacted youth. After First Place, she joined John Burton Advocates for Youth, or JBAY, an influential nonprofit that advocates for California’s homeless and foster youth.

    Amy Lemley

    Lemley joined as JBAY’s policy director at its inception in 2006 and went on to become its executive director, a role she has held for the past eight years.

    A handful of the policy actions led by Lemley during her tenure as executive director include establishing the nation’s first tax credit for foster youth, the extension of foster care from age 18 to age 21, and increasing state funding for housing for former foster youth.

    Lemley, who will be leaving JBAY on Oct. 1, recently sat for an interview with EdSource about her work and what’s ahead. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

    Early in your career, you worked at a group home in Massachusetts for pregnant and parenting youth. What led you to work at the group home?

    I did what I thought you were supposed to do when you left college, which is to go into management consulting. My parents had paid a lot for that degree, and I felt like I was supposed to go get a big, fancy job. I was miserable, and then I remember breaking down with my mom. She’s like, “Why are you doing this job, honey?” And I said, “Because you guys sacrificed so much for me to have this education.” And she said, “You don’t really get what parenthood is. We want you to be happy.” I just remember the weight of the world coming off my shoulders, and I knew what I wanted to do is what both of my parents had done, which is to try and help people.

    I really had to make a hard sell to this nonprofit where I worked because I, clearly on paper, was not qualified. Whether that was responsible to the young people in their care is another question, but it opened my eyes to a whole world of young people who have had this very unfortunate circumstance and kind of set me forth on my career.

    What was your role in the group home?

    I was a case manager, so I had 14 pregnant and parenting young people on my caseload. I remember thinking at the time, “This shouldn’t be hard. I just have to keep them enrolled in school, and make sure they know how to parent, and help them get a job, and help them navigate public benefits, and how hard could it be?” My eyes were opened very quickly about the complexity of their lives. I had young people who would run away from the group home because their younger siblings were at home and they were trying to protect them. There were so many young people who were victims of intimate partner violence, and their lives were extremely complex. I did my very best to help them make progress in these different domains.

    Why did you pursue the path of founding First Place for Youth as a student at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy versus a different path of support for this particular group of young people, foster youth?

    I definitely have an entrepreneurial temperament. I also really deeply believe, as many others do, that with safe, stable housing, anything is possible. It’s the foundation on which lives are built, and without it, very little is possible. And so seeing the young people who I worked with in the group home age out of care, become homeless and then tragically lose custody of their children, it was clear to me that it’s completely unreasonable for an 18-year-old to be independent. I certainly wasn’t.

    So the creation and opportunity to create something with my very dear friend Deanne Pearn, to do something right, to do it well, to meet the needs of these young people, was very appealing.

    At the time, there was this kind of story we told ourselves, that young people don’t want a program; they want to be free; they just want to do their own thing. But in my experience, when you give young people something of value, something that’s actually helping them meet their practical needs, they’re very receptive to it.

    I’m curious about the transition from First Place for Youth to John Burton Advocates for Youth. Why transition over to JBAY at the time that you did?

    We co-founded First Place and got it to a certain size, and you can really only scale a program so far with private funding. And then I happened to have been introduced to John Burton after he was termed out of office (as a state senator) and really pitched to him taking the First Place program and funding it with public funding. He’d done that a hundred times over. What to me seemed like an impossibility, he had 40 years of experience doing it. So that’s why I left.

    Once an organization gets to be a certain size, as the executive director, you’re not running around doing advocacy. Your whole job really is to manage and maintain the existing organization. I felt like First Place needed an executive director that wanted to do that, and that wasn’t me. I had a different mission. I had the good fortune of meeting John Burton and having the opportunity to kind of pursue that mission together.

    How do you maintain your policy focus when there is so much need and a constantly changing landscape?

    Whether it’s inflation, unemployment during the pandemic or the housing crisis, whatever larger kind of macroeconomic developments occur, these young people feel it the most deeply.

    I think a really important part of our success has been to not try to be experts in everything. We have a specific kind of set of policies that we’re deeply informed about, and that we keep revisiting. We try to be very disciplined in terms of really knowing the body of policy, the public agencies that administer it, the details about the implementation, the different actors that implement it, so that we can develop really smart, strategic approaches that are based not just in a conceptual knowledge, but in a deep practical knowledge of how these programs are implemented in communities.

    I always say we don’t want to be an inch deep and a mile wide. It really means saying no when it’s appropriate and continuing to dig deep into those issues and figure out what is the most pressing need of young people and then how to marry that very pressing need with what is practically possible in today’s economic and political environment.

    What does the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last month in the Johnson v. Grants Pass case, which upheld an Oregon city’s ban on homeless residents sleeping outdoors, mean for youth in California and nationwide?

    Unaccompanied homeless youth are less likely to be sheltered than the general population of homeless individuals. And we know that young people who are unsheltered, even for a very short amount of time, are more at risk of violence and exploitation because of the vulnerability of their age. And so every night that they are unsheltered, they’re in danger. The optimist in me hopes that the ruling can be a catalyst for a more coherent, statewide approach, assuming the federal government isn’t going to provide the level of coordination and funding we require.

    What comes next for you?

    I am going to kind of take a couple months off and then I’m going to raise my head and think about whether I want to try my hand at consulting, potentially working with those high-quality local nonprofits who are doing very high quality service to young people and helping them match that with public funding and public policy, and taking what can be a really wonderful intervention and broadening applicability to all young people.

    I’ve promised my husband I will not found another organization. I already had my wheels turning, and he’s just like, “No, Amy, no.” And I was like, “Well, I’ll try my best.”





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  • My life as a foster youth includes dreams of college

    My life as a foster youth includes dreams of college


    First Star, Inc., guides high-school-aged foster youth through their journey to college, filling in for the support from family and friends that most young people take for granted.

    Credit: Courtesy First Star, Inc.

    From the time I was 8 years old, I lived in countless homes and attended more than five different elementary and middle schools combined and four high schools.

    To say my upbringing was different from the norm is an understatement. But I’m not alone. In California, 68,000 young people moving in and out of foster homes are currently experiencing the same challenges I faced.

    As a former foster youth, my college journey was not easy. Living in so many different foster homes, frequently changing schools, feeling isolated and disconnected, and falling behind in school were just some of the hurdles I faced daily. When you are in foster care, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and abandoned because you don’t have a family to pick you up when you fall down. No one is around to offer comfort or gently push you in the right direction when you need it most.

    I went to a public high school for my first year and then moved to a Catholic school as a sophomore — and would attend two different public schools after that. Because I moved so much, my school transcripts often got lost. For example, in my sophomore year, I attended one school for just two weeks before switching again because it didn’t work out with the foster family. When I started the new school, they enrolled me as a freshman until I advocated for myself and got placed in the sophomore classes where I belonged.

    This constant upheaval left me feeling isolated and disconnected. Each move meant a new beginning, new people and a new environment to adapt to. Even support services from the state, like social workers and lawyers, were constantly changing, leaving me with no stable adult figure to rely on.

    The impact was devastating academically. My struggles went beyond the frustrations of lost paperwork and transcripts. Schools ignored my request to be evaluated for an individualized education program (IEP), which I knew I needed. Despite obvious academic difficulties, like poor spelling and grammar, teachers simply passed me along. As a college student, I continue to face the consequences of these educational gaps.

    The turning point came when I was introduced to First Star, a community-based organization supporting high-school-age youth in foster care by guiding them to college. They provided more than just hope; they offered tangible support that assisted me with the college application process. Even when I moved out of the Los Angeles area, they ensured I had transportation to attend meetings and access to mentorship. They taught me about the real costs of college and how to budget and navigate financial aid applications. I finally had the supportive relationships I needed with caring people I could trust and rely on to prepare me for life beyond foster care. With their guidance, I was able to apply for college instead of giving up on my goals.

    I know my experience is not unique. There are many other youths like me, striving for a better future, aiming for college, and working hard to beat the stereotypes of youth in foster care. This sense of community was invaluable and gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams. Now, I’m attending college while working with children with special needs. My goal is to someday become a schoolteacher.

    A recent report from the Foster Youth Pre-college Collective, “Destination Graduation,” underscores the need for more support for students in foster care. It highlights a stark reality: Nearly 37% of California’s foster youth do not complete high school within four years, and fewer than half enter postsecondary education within a year of graduation. The college-going rate for foster youth is 25% lower than that of the general population.

    This disparity isn’t due to a lack of ambition or desire to learn. We have the same dreams and potential as any other young person. I speak from personal experience when I say what young people in foster care lack is stability and the nurturing attention that many kids growing up with traditional family support take for granted. However, students like me can achieve great things once we receive the proper support.

    My purpose in sharing my story is three-fold:

    • I want other youth in foster care to see that there is a pathway to college and independence. I am an example of that.
    • I want child welfare and education leaders to recognize that foster youth are not just products of their systems. We are young people who require more than odd-fitting clothes and toiletries sent yearly. To achieve our goals and dreams, we need extra help to heal from trauma, focus on our studies, and reclaim our ability to become accomplished young adults.
    • It’s time for public systems to deepen partnerships with community-based organizations who understand us and offer the individualized support, coaching and encouragement we need to get to graduation day and prepare for the future.

    Improving educational attainment for foster youth will change the course of their lives.

    •••

    Andi Mata is a foster youth ambassador and advocate for educational support programs for foster youth.

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