A Year of Advocacy with the National TAY Collaborative
At FosterClub, we talk a lot about what it means to lead through lived experience. Through the National Collaborative for Transition-Age Youth (NCTAY), we got to watch it happen in real time this year.
Taking the Playbook to National Stages
When FosterClub Lived Experience (LEx) Leaders Brina Williams and Dina Santos presented at Achieving Success 2025 and the Child Welfare League of America conference in 2026, they weren't just sharing a resource. They were standing in front of rooms full of child welfare professionals and saying: here is what young people need, and how you can take action.
LEx Leader Maddie Lemay did the same through webinars, bringing the Playbook and the Extended Foster Care report directly to professionals across the country.
“Housing, education, employment . . . These services can be make-or-break for young people succeeding in adult life.”
— Maddie Lemay (she/her), Spent time in New Hampshire foster care system
Walking the Halls of Congress
Another big moment that happened this year? LEx Leaders Brina, Knowledge Grant, and Natalie Clark took to Capitol Hill to advocate on supports and services for transition-age youth.
They educated child welfare professionals and other community interest holders, met with legislative offices, co-facilitated a briefing for Congressional staff, and brought the Playbook and its calls to action straight to the people with the power to act on them.
Teaching Other Young People to Advocate
“The more exposure young people have to opportunities, the farther they will go.”
— Shayne McRae (he/him), Spent time in Kansas foster care system
Youth-led advocacy is at the heart of this work. So this year we made sure more young people with lived experience had the tools to do it. LEx Leaders Jasmine Green, Knowledge, and Brina facilitated workshops walking young people through how to use the Playbook in their own advocacy with the How-To Guide.
Recently, Knowledge and Brina led another workshop on how to use the Collaborative’s latest report on Extended Foster Care through the new Extended Foster Care (EFC) Advocacy Toolkit they co-designed.
A Year in Review
Through the National Collaborative for Transition-Age Youth, our LEx Leaders helped bring lived experience to those directly working with and to change the system: policymakers, child welfare professionals, and advocates across the country. Across each of these and more, here’s a glimpse at the impact we made:
- 81 youth directly educated
- 62,260 youth reached
- 553 adult allies directly educated
- 315,220 adult allies reached
- 267 service hours
The National Collaborative for Transition-Age Youth was formed to improve outcomes for young people who experience foster care and age out of child welfare systems. The collaborative brings together young people with lived experience in foster care, state and county child welfare leaders, advocates and three organizations working with this population nationally — American Public Human Services Association, FosterClub and Youth Villages.