Family relationships
Mental health
Sibling separation
Transition (aging out)
Well-being

"Improving Mental Health and Well-Being for Foster Youth & Alumni": Expert Insights from Lived Experience Leaders

System Change Team
Feb 4, 2025
 | 
Filed under
Public Policy
Four women smile and laugh while blowing bubbles and holding colorful pinwheels on a sandy surface with a concrete wall in the background.

The National Foster Care Youth & Alumni Policy Council creates recommendations that child welfare leaders, workers, and policymakers can use to improve and support the well-being and mental health of children and youth who experience foster care. The priorities created in 2012 by the Council elevated how effective youth engagement can support increased well-being for young people in foster care. 

This year, Council Members continued to raise awareness and provide education on actions that can be taken to improve the well-being and mental health of children and youth in foster care. Members pressed for urgent action:  

“I grew up with a lot of peers who will never get to see the things or the stages that I’ve seen,” said Aliyah, “Many are dead, many are in jail, or just missing… because they feel like life on the street was better than the injustices that they were seeing every day."

The Council joined state leaders in an event that supported connections between child welfare and behavioral/mental health leaders. Members elevated recommendations from their most recent priority, Decriminalize Being in Foster Care, and honored three teens who lost their lives while in foster care: Cedric Lofton, Cornelius Frederick, and Ma’Khaia Bryant. These three young people could and should have benefited from our Council recommendations. Council members called for an urgent response: 

“We often say kids are falling through the cracks;” said Rimy, “Kids aren’t falling through cracks anymore; those are now craters. . . Kids just like me. Kids just like [us].”

In addition, Council members called attention to the specific needs of immigrant children and youth in foster care, highlighting recommendations from Supporting Immigrant Children and Youth in Foster Care.

In the Region 5 Roundtable, the Council conducted a peer-to-peer review of past priorities and raised actions that need to be taken: 

  • Provide support that meets our mental health needs BEFORE foster care.

  • Ensure removal does not happen simply due to the way one worker views our family.

  • Connect​ ​our​ ​families​ ​to​ ​services,​ ​even​ ​when​ ​we​ ​are​ ​not​ ​removed​ ​from​ ​our​ ​family​ ​and​ ​after we​ ​have​ ​been​ ​reunified​ ​with​ ​our​ ​family.

States and jurisdictions should use standard decision-making tools, such as the Structured Decision Making Tool, and programs that can support families such as Sobriety, Treatment, and Reducing Trauma (START) and Home Visiting. 

  • Remember we are children and teenagers who sometimes break the rules.

  • Understand and prevent “adultification” of Black and Brown youth in care.

  • Educate and inform us about our choices with medications and mental health treatment plans. Provide us with youth-friendly information.

  • Establish accountability measures for our well-being within the system (not only the absence of negative outcomes).

Leaders and workers can utilize peer support through Chafee Independent Living Programs, increase accountability measures when medication is included in care for young people (including through the court), and provide education to young people that involves informed consent. 

  • Engage us in our transition planning.
  • Educate those who are supporting us in our transition.
  • Partner with us so we understand and can access important resources, documents and all we need to transition to adulthood successfully.

Child welfare systems can take action to make sure eligible young people can stay on Medicaid until age 26 without interruption, provide tuition waivers that support a young person’s educational journey, and ensure transition planning happens with young people far before the federal requirement of 90 days before exit. 

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