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Dear Fostering Promise Partners and Collaborators,
We hope you found time to rest and recharge over the summer and are headed into a beautiful fall! We are thrilled to share some exciting updates with you. Your support is fueling our momentum as we put into action the powerful plans developed at our Co-Creation Workshop held at Netflix, the subsequent work group meetings, and the release of our two-year Strategic Focus and Implementation Plan.
Research Updates: Effective Housing Readiness Plans
We have made tremendous progress on Policy Priority #1: ensuring that all youth in foster care have housing readiness plans by age 16. Our research project with Just Advocates successfully concluded in July, with their wonderful UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy interns producing a report, Effective Housing Readiness Plans: Listening to the Voices of Transition-Aged Youth to Improve the System.
Based on interviews with TAY service providers and input from youth with lived experience in foster care, this report provides concrete recommendations on the elements that a housing readiness plan needs to include. It also lays out key components for the online housing readiness mobile solution that Fostering Promise will create to help youth produce their housing plans. We are grateful to Just Advocates for providing us this fantastic resource!
I recently had the honor of speaking at the California Alliance of Child and Family Services conference, which provided an excellent opportunity to gather input from TAY service providers across California on the key components for the mobile solution we intend to create.
Work Group News: Moving Our Work Forward Together!
Our 2024-26 Strategic Focus and Implementation Plan lays out what we aim to accomplish together over these next two years. It provides a two-year road map driven by our work groups, one for each of the four policy priorities. For an update on the current work in progress and what we have accomplished so far, please refer to this detailed work group update.
Work groups meet once a quarter. Find one that aligns with your interest, expertise, or passion, and join us! If you have not already participated in a work group, please email Melina Andreas today to contribute to this vital work!
Advocacy in Action
As we shared in our last newsletter, I wrote an op-ed, published in March in the San Jose Mercury News, encouraging Governor Newsom to make good on his commitment to raise the SILP (Supervised Independent Living Program) direct cash payment that foster youth can use towards housing. Together we prevailed, and Governor Newsom has announced that the SILP rate, which in FY 2024-25 is $1,258 per month, will increase to $2,288 in 2027, a 54% increase. This will make a big difference to the thousands of young adults exiting foster care in California over the next several years.
We were also grateful to see the House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Protecting America's Children by Strengthening Families Act. This is a comprehensive Title IV-B reauthorization bill which, among other reforms and funding increases, would require states to include people with lived experience in shaping child welfare plans—a value that Fostering Promise wholeheartedly believes in and upholds. The bill now goes to the Senate.
Funding the Mission
Our development work is yielding some excellent resources to fuel our work. Recent successes include:
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$20,000 TECHequity grant from Destination Home to support the creation of our online one-stop-shop housing repository
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$75,000 from Health Trust to hire a policy director
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$25,000 grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (Sand Hill Endowment Fund) for capacity building to hire four young people with lived experience in foster care to lead our work groups.
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San Jose Mercury News has selected Fostering Promise to be featured in their holiday Wish Book for community donations. Look out for the article coming out in November!
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Sutter Delta Medical Center has joined ranks with Fostering Promise to eradicate homelessness through a partnership with Roots Java. Now every delicious cup of coffee purchased at Sutter Delta Medical Center helps support foster youth.
Thank you to those who are partnering with us! We have submitted six other proposals since August, and continually seek new funding opportunities.
Sharing the Vision
As we ramp up efforts to secure foundation funding, we are also seeking private donations from individuals who are passionate about helping young people aging out of foster care find a safe place to call home, providing them with the foundation to thrive into adulthood. As our beloved community of supporters, you are excellent messengers, and we kindly ask you to forward this email to friends and colleagues who also care about young people.
While we are confident in our ability to secure foundation funding to support our mission, private contributions from inaugural supporters are crucial in this first year to make that vision a reality. Please consider making a donation, and sharing our work with your network.
Do you know a foundation or corporate partner we should connect with? Would love your help in making the introduction. Together, we can end homelessness for young folks aging out of foster care.
I'm proud of our growing team of strategic advisors and board members, and hope you'll consider joining us! Click here to see who's behind the curtain. We recently welcomed Mica Eades Mayo to the Board. With over 20 years of experience in technology, as the co-founder and CEO advisor at Untapped Investing, Mica has been instrumental in supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs. We are excited to welcome Mica and look forward to her invaluable contributions to Fostering Promise.
As I like to say: Bring your talents and your treasure, and get your hands in the soil!
Together, we are creating transformative change as we cultivate a future in which every foster youth ages out with a safe place to call home, the support of a caring mentor, and hope for a promising future!
Thank you so much for all of your ideas, energy, and support!
André Chapman, M.A.
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