Session: Advocacy & Leadership in Foster Care: An Exploration of Foster Youth Advisory Boards in Three States (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Background   Foster youth advisory boards (YAB) are youth-led advocacy and leadership programs for current and former youth in out-of-home care. Taking multiple names and forms, these boards bring together youth to discuss issues and concerns in out-of-home care and to advocate for child welfare system improvements. Originating from foster youth networks in Manchester, England and Ottawa, Canada, the first foster youth advisory board in the United States started at a time when independent living policy, under the Title IV-E Independent Living Program of 1985, first made federal funding available to states to provide independent living services. In their 1999 review of independent living programs, the U.S. Government Accounting Office identified 22 states with a YAB. The number of states operating a YAB has more than doubled since that time. The child welfare field would benefit from increasing understanding of foster youth advising boards to maintain their momentum. Such specificity is critical given the recent explosion of interest in foster youth engagement as “fixes” to the vexing problems facing child welfare systems.

Methods         This symposium presents the results from three studies that each examined a YAB using a slightly different lens. Two of the studies use an empowerment lens, while the other draws from a perspective on positive youth development. One paper describes the results of a psychological empowerment survey that compared 99 foster youth participating in a youth empowerment program (YEP) in Florida with a matched sample of 94 foster youth that did not participate in a YEP (Non-YEP). The other two studies conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with elected members of a YAB in different states to understand 1) what engages and sustains the participation of 15 youth in advocacy and leadership, and in the third study 2) what 33 current and former elected officers learned from participation.

Results            The results of the first study find that participation in a YEP is associated with increased levels of psychological empowerment compared with foster youth that participated in a non-YEP. Results from the second study indicate that non-familial adults were essential to engaging youth in advocacy whereas cultivating an ideological commitment to give back to other foster youth sustained their participation. The third study identified over a dozen strategies that elected officers use to “give back” to their peers, including education about state and community resources, providing emotional support, inspiring others with their story, and making recommendations to legislators and state agency directors.

Implications              Findings from these three studies shed light on the efforts of youth advisory boards in three states to empower foster youth and make child welfare system improvements. In one way or another, they draw attention to the ways that youth advisory boards engage young people in advocacy and leadership and sustain their participation by turning the individual challenges of foster youth into a broader collective struggle. The findings have implications for informing practice approaches intended to increase the inclusion of foster youth in child welfare systems.