Exploring Federal Supports for Transition-Age Youth

Population

• The U.S. Children’s Bureau
• Policymakers
• Youth and young adults with lived experience in child welfare
• Child welfare ecosystem

The Why?

In 2021, Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau, Aysha E. Schomburg hosted a series of convenings with current and former foster youth to establish an equity-focused agenda for the Biden-Harris Administration. She determined four key priority goals:

1. Prevent children from entering foster care
2. Support for kinship caregivers
3. Ensure youth leave care with strengthened relationships, holistic supports, and opportunities.
4. Invest in the child welfare workforce.

As Associate Commissioner Schomburg began to build her work plan for Priority #3, she reached out to Think of Us to help convene young people with experience in the child welfare system to provide insights about their needs and priorities. Think of Us and the Children’s Bureau partnered to find a new way for the Associate Commissioner and her staff to move beyond traditional forms of engaging people with lived experience.

The Challenge

The child welfare system is not designed to meet the unique needs of transition-age youth in foster care. Youth often leave care unprepared for the transition to adulthood, without adequate resources, permanent connections, and support, and nearly 20,000 young people age out of care every year without the consistency and support of a permanent family. As a result of their time in care, young adults face high rates of negative outcomes, including homelessness, incarceration, poverty, and mental illness.

The Action

In February 2023, Think of Us held an in-person convening with the Children’s Bureau and a diverse group of 20 youth and young adult Ambassadors from across the country. The convening created an opportunity to ensure federal child welfare policymakers have the input and expertise of individuals with lived experience in the child welfare system to inform their work in this space.

To prepare for the convening, Ambassadors went through training and were asked to process crowdsourced ideas, advocacy reports, and the perspectives of others with lived experience through the lens of their own proximity. As they worked with federal policymakers to inform the agency's workplan, the Ambassadors were not simply experts in their own stories, but subject matter experts.

Our hope is that this convening will help the ecosystem move beyond simple engagement and toward full integration of lived experience in the policy process. We believe this effort builds on the tireless efforts of the organizations and individuals who fight to give impacted communities a seat at the table.

The read-out report and National Town Hall serve as commitments to this shift and a call to action for all federal, state, and local agencies to take an interagency collaborative approach and pull the community into everything they are doing to support transition-age youth.

Stats

• 20 Ambassadors went through a rigorous process to inform the Children's Bureau's work plan for transition-age youth
• 58 policy advocates, practitioners, and people with lived experience in the child welfare system contributed more than 200 policy ideas
• 52% of youth in foster care ages 16-21 age out of the system
• Only 47% of youth ages 14-21 who are eligible for Chafee services ever receive them

The Results

• Think of Us hosted the in-person convening on February 2-3, 2023 in Washington, D.C.
• Think of Us created a convening readout report of the ideas, perspectives, and insights shared by an esteemed group of 20 Ambassadors  as well as by the 58 policy advocates, practitioners, and people with lived experience in the child welfare system who contributed their expertise to the process.
• Following the convening, Think of Us hosted a virtual national town hall on May 10 on Interagency Investments for Transition-Age Youth. At the town hall, Associate Commissioner Schomburg laid out her priorities for older youth in foster care. She was joined by representatives from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to discuss how their agencies will work together to help youth successfully transition to adulthood.

Centering Lived Experience RTE

For the convening, Think of Us wanted to create a new model to move from engagement to integration of lived experience. In the traditional engagement paradigm, we have asked those with lived experience to rely on their own personal narratives to create insights. With the convening Ambassadors, we asked them to process crowdsourced ideas, advocacy reports, and the perspectives of others with lived experience through the lens of their own proximity.

Key Stakeholders Details

• U.S. Children’s Bureau
• 20 youth Ambassadors
• 58 policy advocates, practitioners, and people with lived experience in the child welfare system who contributed their expertise to the process
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
• the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
• OJJDP

Location

Washington, D.C.

Time Frame Details

January - May, 2023