California Youth Connection began in 1988, when seventeen young people who had grown up in California's foster care system decided they were finished being discussed in rooms they had never been invited into. Nearly four decades later, that decision has become a statewide movement: young people with lived experience in foster care and juvenile justice who draft policy, testify before legislators, and train the professionals whose choices shape a child's daily life. Your gift helps a young person take a seat at that table.
The seventeen young people who founded California Youth Connection in 1988 had all lived through the same thing. Where they would sleep, which school they would attend, whether they would see their brothers and sisters, what would happen to them at eighteen: all of it was decided by adults in meetings they were not part of. They started CYC to change who was in those meetings. Today CYC is a 501(c)(3) organization with more than 270 members across 32 chapters and subchapters, from the Bay Area to Sacramento, from Southern California to Fresno. Members are young people ages 14 to 24 with lived experience in foster care and juvenile justice.
Chapters meet throughout the year to identify what members are running into in their own counties and to decide which problems to take on. Members elect representatives to CYC's Statewide Membership Council, where local priorities become a statewide policy agenda. From there members prepare testimony, meet with legislators, work with county agencies on how new laws actually get carried out, and train the professionals making daily decisions in young people's lives.
Our vision is that young people impacted by child welfare have their needs met and the support to grow into healthy, vibrant adults.
It starts with what a member brings to a chapter meeting. A placement that moved a girl four times in one school year. A brother she has not seen since the afternoon they were separated. A driver's license she cannot get because no adult in her life is able to sign for it.
Those become policy priorities. Members draft bill language, meet with legislators, testify at committee hearings, and stay with a law through implementation to make sure it reaches the young people it was written for. Members are currently leading two statewide campaigns: the Foster Stability Campaign, and the Redefining Mental Health Campaign, a ten-point vision for accessible, quality mental health care built by and for the young people who have needed it most.
A child's next year is often decided by an adult she met twenty minutes ago. The social worker choosing where she sleeps tonight. The clinician deciding what she needs. The judge signing the order. The caregiver meeting her at the door with her belongings in a bag. CYC trains those adults, and the people doing the training are young people who have sat on the other side of those decisions.
The Youth Training Project was the first child welfare training program in the country designed and delivered entirely by current and former foster youth. Since 2000, YTP has trained, employed, and supported more than 140 young trainers, who have gone on to train over 7,500 child welfare professionals. It pioneered digital storytelling as a method of professional education in child welfare and is recognized nationally as a model for youth-led training.
The training reaches practice, and quickly. After a CYC training at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, more than 85% of providers reported putting what they learned to use within 60 days. One young trainer stands in front of a room of professionals for a single day. Those professionals carry that day into every case for the rest of their careers.
CYC works with current and former foster and juvenile justice involved youth aged 14-24. Members arrive at CYC having been talked about their whole lives, in case notes and court reports and meetings held down the hall. They leave knowing how to run a meeting, testify before a legislative committee, train a room of clinicians, and organize their peers. Those skills stay with them long past 25. One member described what changed:
"There has been lots of healing… It's been good to be in a room with people who have my back… I carried a lot of shame but am now more comfortable with my identity. My mental health has definitely gotten better being in those rooms, seeing what change I can make, having people listen." — CYC member
CYC also works with the professionals working in and around the child welfare system. More than 7,500 social workers, clinicians, attorneys, judges, and caregivers have learned from young people through the Youth Training Project, changing how they approach placements, removals, and the ordinary daily decisions that shape a child's sense of safety. Following a training at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, more than 85% of providers reported applying what they learned within 60 days.
Every year, nearly 4,000 young people are handed adulthood on a deadline. Once they age out of California's foster care system they are on their own, most of them without a family to call when the car breaks down or the rent comes due. For decades, the system that shaped their lives was designed almost entirely by people who had never lived in it.
Gifts are unrestricted, which lets CYC move at the speed the work requires. When a bill is scheduled with two weeks' notice, unrestricted dollars are what put a young person in the hearing room in time to speak. The proof of this work is written into California law.
Working alongside legislators, CYC-trained young leaders have helped:
The rest of the proof lives in practice. Through the Youth Training Project, more than 140 young people have been trained and employed as professional trainers since 2000, reaching over 7,500 child welfare professionals. Where outcomes have been measured, the training changes how people work. After a session at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, more than 85% of providers reported putting it to use within 60 days. The seventeen young people who started this in 1988 wanted to be consulted. Their successors write the law.
California Youth Connection has been doing this work for more than 35 years without interruption. CYC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with EIN 94-3141616, founded in 1988 and headquartered in Oakland, California. CYC publishes its leadership and staff, financials, publications, program details, and policy priorities at calyouthconn.org.
CYC is contracted by county and state child welfare agencies to deliver professional training through the Youth Training Project, work recognized as a national model for youth-led training and delivered to institutions including the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
