Thriving Into Adulthood

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

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

The Catalyst Center (Center) and CA Alliance of Child and Family Services (Alliance) are addressing critical challenges faced by transition-aged foster youth (TAY) through the Thriving into Adulthood project. These young individuals encounter significant obstacles as they transition into adulthood, including limited access to essential MediCal mental health and substance use disorder services. These barriers are often compounded by past traumas and instability experienced during their time in foster care. A pressing concern is the high risk of homelessness among TAY who age out of the foster care system. Without adequate support and resources, many of these youth find themselves homeless, further complicating their path to stability and independence. By focusing on these issues, the Center and the Alliance seek to improve outcomes for TAY, ensuring they have the necessary resources and support to thrive as they navigate the complexities of adulthood.

Through this initiative, Thriving into Adulthood, the Center and the Alliance aim to address these issues by expanding access to MediCal services, improving the quality of behavioral health care, and providing technical assistance to transitional housing programs. This comprehensive approach seeks to reduce youth homelessness by combining advocacy efforts, policy analysis, and implementation strategies. The Center collaborates closely with local providers and government agencies to enhance service delivery to TAY, ensuring they receive the necessary support during their transition to adulthood.
Additionally, the Center has formed a coalition in Los Angeles comprised of youth, providers, advocacy organizations, academic institutions, and other stakeholders. This coalition aims to advocate for resources that will diminish the likelihood of youth homelessness. They will identify barriers to accessing housing supports and behavioral health services, generate policy briefs and convene strategic discussions to propose solutions, and make recommendations to local government entities. Using initiatives like CalAIM, the Center will engage with LA County stakeholders to address contractual obstacles limiting service access, advocate for improved financing structures, and promote the integration of accessible, high-quality mental and behavioral health services into transitional housing programs.

Improved Access to Services: Transition-aged foster youth (TAY) will have access to essential services and receive the necessary support to address their mental health challenges and substance use issues, potentially reducing long-term dependency and improving overall well-being. Reduction in Youth Homelessness: Decrease in the overall youth homelessness rate in Los Angeles County. Policy and Systemic Changes: Successful advocacy and policy analysis efforts can lead to systemic changes that benefit TAY across Los Angeles County. Enhanced Well-being and Stability: Improve the overall well-being and stability of TAY in Los Angeles County. We seek to create models that can be replicated or expanded throughout Los Angeles County and beyond. This could involve documenting best practices, developing trainings, and advocating for funding and policy changes that institutionalize effective support mechanisms for TAY.

We gathered extensive feedback from youth throughout the project, including quotes gathered after each convening and focus group, to assess the impact and relevance of our discussions. Partners are inspired by our projects success in promoting Thriving into Adulthood through relationship building tailored to young people's needs; a statewide provider organization has sought our consultation on establishing a youth advisory board aimed at engaging young people in policy advocacy and we have become a vendor for UC Davis to train their peer specialists.
We authored AB2802, which introduces gender-inclusive options for housing arrangements within Transitional Housing Placement Programs (THP) serving current and former foster youth over the age of 18. This effort demonstrates our commitment to listening to young people and collaborating effectively with providers and stakeholders to enact meaningful policy and contractual changes.