Name of group: California Youth Connection – founding partner of the National Foster Youth Action Network
When started: 1988
Advocating for: the 69,000 foster youth in California
Providing the model for the Action Network: The youth of CYC always wanted to give youth in other states the same opportunities they had – the chance to get involved and make a difference. In 2007, the CYC Board determined that the best way to have a long-term national impact would be to create a separate organization, and the National Foster Youth Action Network was born. Former youth and adult leaders of California Youth Connection launched the Action Network and the process of building a national movement moved into its next stage.
Accomplishments:
- Over 23 years, providing thousands of members with trainings on developing policy recommendations, facilitation, public speaking, leadership, and media among many other training opportunities. CYC has provided hundreds of trainings both statewide and nationally on youth empowerment, leadership and advocacy.
- Winning a fundamental paradigm shift in California by bringing foster youth to the center of child welfare policymaking for the first time in history. California State legislators now turn to CYC’s input on new child welfare legislation.
- Passing dozens of new laws that reflect the priorities and input of foster youth across the state and that have improved the system in ways that would have been impossible without organized foster youth involvement. Some recent legislation includes: AB1393 – Prioritizes foster youth for housing on college campuses; AB1412 – Permanency Planning – requires social workers to ask all foster youth about who is important to them and take actions to maintain those relationships.
- AB 12 – Extending foster care until the age of 21: CYC is ambitious in the process of having AB 12 implemented and bringing the youth voice to the table as the plans for execution of AB 12 come to fruition. CYC has hired a staff member dedicated to the implementation process of AB 12 and former foster youth as interns to lead this charge. AB 12 is the result of federal legislation, Fostering Connections to Success Act, which allows states to receive federal funding for youth until the age of 21.
- Expanding its membership to 33 active county-based chapters
- Participating on statewide committees that set the agenda for child welfare reform
- Professional evaluations by Korwin Consulting showing that participation in CYC helped youth build key developmental assets that will help them succeed as independent adults
- A professional evaluation by Learning Partnerships showing that child welfare professionals attending CYC’s 2008 policy conference were overwhelmingly positive in their perceptions of CYC as an effective organization in the field of child welfare policy reform
