Resources for Youth

As a young person with experience in foster care or adoption, you have a powerful story and unique perspective that can help improve and shape child welfare processes and programs that impact youth as well as educate your community about what being a teen in foster care is all about. Hopefully, you have already been encouraged to get involved in your agency's recruitment or training efforts in some way. There may also be other opportunities for you to share your voice and provide input in ways you have not yet considered, such as joining your local foster care alumni chapter, helping with staff or resource family trainings, or becoming trained as a media spokesperson.

Below are some resources to help get you connected and involved as well as specific ways you can share your own unique story most effectively.

Transition (Aging Out): 21 Things: It's T Time
FosterClub (2017)
Provides information and tools to help youth successfully transition from foster care. The website regularly features information about higher education and scholarships, permanency pacts, independent living, and more.

What You Gotta Believe Offers Youth
You Gotta Believe
Highlights TV and radio shows for young people where youth talk about the challenges of foster care, finding a family, and being part of a family. The website also features You Gotta Believe’s Facebook page where young people can connect and share stories with other teens who have been in foster care and now have permanent families.

Youth Advocacy
Juvenile Law Center (2018)
Offers two youth advocacy programs, Youth Fostering Change and Juveniles for Justice. These programs recruit and train young people with current or past involvement in the child welfare or justice systems to lead advocacy and policy reform efforts in their communities.

Sharing Your Story
North American Council on Adoptable Children
Offers examples on how youth can share their foster care to adoption story with others.

(Back to Top)