CareerX: Connection, Community, & Confidence for Los Angeles Foster Youth

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

The average foster youth changes placements 8 times before emancipation, with some experiencing up to 50 placements. This instability causes significant trauma, increasing the risk of homelessness, incarceration, trafficking, and a variety of mental and physical health challenges. Educational and employment outcomes for transitional-aged foster youth are particularly concerning. Only 24% of foster youth graduate high school, 10% enroll in college, and 3% graduate college. Without strong support networks, many foster youth face tremendous challenges when transitioning to adulthood. Roughly 20% of foster youth experience homelessness shortly after aging out of the system, and many struggle to find jobs that pay a living wage. Over half of California’s 60,000 foster youth live in Los Angeles County. Addressing the challenges these youth experience requires a concerted effort to provide comprehensive support to help these young people thrive.

CareerX provides capabilities-based training, social support and resources to help foster youth achieve personal and professional goals. Youth are paired with trained volunteer coaches to guide them through Foster Nation’s 27-lesson curriculum. Partnerships with corporations and community organizations enhance our curriculum and enrich the lives of foster youth. From Cohort 5 (Sept ‘24) onward, we will integrate the below program updates to better address the needs of the youth we serve:
An advanced matching algorithm and learning management system to pair coaches and mentees based on psychological factors and improve coach training.
Plan to pilot with Compton Unified School District for pre-emancipation foster youth age 15-18. A curated curriculum will support younger foster youth during their final high school years to ease their transition into adulthood.
Partnering with the LA Department of Children and Family Services to create a more direct support pipeline for foster youth age 16-21 before they age out.
Community and relationship-building are critical to our foster youth, so we are increasing in-person meetings and opportunities for connection in future cohorts, especially as we expand into serving pre-emancipation youth.
Current staff capacity–a program manager and program coordinator–allows us to serve 100+ foster youth and 100+ coaches yearly. With our new DCFS partnership, we hope to expand our reach to serve the roughly 723 youth emancipated annually in LA County.

Each Cohort of foster youth has validated and affirmed the importance of meaningful connections to help youth reach their potential. Connections formed in CareerX spark professional development, foster knowledge exchange, decrease social isolation, and instill resilience and confidence for foster youth and coaches. This not only improves the individual lives of foster youth, it also benefits the greater Los Angeles community. Foster care has historically contributed to societal challenges like incarceration, unemployment, mental healthcare costs, and sex trafficking. By increasing the skill and capabilities related to career and financial literacy, improving educational and/or professional attainment, and improving mental wellbeing and hopefulness about future prospects, CareerX aims to provide a holistic, transformative experience that offers Los Angeles foster youth a community that allows them to transform “impossible” to “I’m possible.”

We employ comprehensive evaluation methods to assess program outcomes. At the end of weekly sessions, foster youth and coaches complete Scorecards to assess material comprehension, coach effectiveness, and session enjoyment. We also conduct pre-, mid-, and post-program surveys to evaluate content retention and program effectiveness, focusing on key outcomes (e.g., improved career & financial literacy skills, educational & professional attainment, mental wellbeing). After each cohort, we host focus groups to gather qualitative feedback about program improvement. Lastly, we employ a proprietary Net Transformation Score (NTS) to gauge whether our program has significantly transformed participants’ lives. Quantitatively, 90% of CareerX participants saw an overall improvement in work performance, 91% secured employment, 81% saw improvement in overall wellbeing, and 7.9/10 was the overall NTS for youth who felt empowered to transform their lives for the better after participating.