While COVID-19 rapidly spreads across the U.S., young people in the foster care system are speaking up about how the crisis is impacting them — and policymakers are listening.
Through the online COVID-19 Command Center created by Think of Us, young people are sending in their personal stories, challenges, or solutions, knowing that their words are reaching key decision makers visiting the platform.
“In crisis situations people will make decisions about people without actually asking people,” explains Sixto Cancel, the founder of Think of Us, who grew up in the foster care system until he “aged out” at 23.
“This is taking proximity to the next level. It’s literally going from the ground to the federal policymakers who are creating plans.”
Sixto Cancel, founder of Think of Us.
In college, Sixto created Think of Us, an organization that asks young people in foster care for feedback through a tech-enabled platform, empowering them to impact the programs and policies that shape their lives. Then and now, in the midst of crisis, he’s working to change the national foster care system.
On March 19, the United States Children’s Bureau and Think of Us hosted a Virtual Town Hall for Older Foster Youth with 1,000 in attendance, including state commissioners, staff and 350 young people. During the meeting, Dr. Jerry Milner, Associate Commissioner at the Children’s Bureau, answered questions submitted by young people in the foster care system about the issues they’re facing.
Sixto introduced the gathering with youth-submitted stories. “I’m out of work due to COVID-19 and probably will not be able to afford my bills,” said one. “My program hasn’t said anything and I’m soon to age out. I’m worried about what will happen.”
Top issues during the COVID-19 crisis, according to over 1,400 submissions from young people in foster care, included food, housing/shelter, and healthcare as of March 19. As the situation changes, those needs have already shifted, Sixto says — and he expects that healthcare will be a growing concern.
The town hall event reflects a “monumental” change in how foster care youth have been involved in the conversations that shape their lives, Sixto says. Dr. Milner echoed the call for putting young people front and center of the crisis response, and addressed his message directly to young viewers. The approach marks a shift from the federal government’s traditional focus on state “compliance.”
On March 19, the United States Children’s Bureau and Think of Us hosted a Virtual Town Hall for Older Foster Youth.
Instead, the Bureau’s new approach allows states more freedom to serve young people in the ways they need. They’re “looking very carefully and closely at all legislative and policy fixes that might enable us to be much more responsive to you and flexible in our responses,” Dr. Milner told the virtual gathering. State commissioners and staff can submit specific questions and visit the COVID-19 Command Center for answers.
The town hall also emphasized community-driven solutions, highlighting local nonprofits’ close relationships with young people.
“I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that local nonprofits are put front and center of this movement,” Sixto explains. “The community knows the resources in their backyard the best and [will] be the best equipped to help. Then those of us at the national level support them.”
The COVID-19 crisis will have a deep, longterm impact on young people in foster care — and potentially the system itself.
Sixto founded Think of Us because he recognized — and experienced firsthand — how the foster care and child welfare system fails to support healing and self-sufficiency for those it aims to help. “It lacks a feedback loop to its primary users: the children, teens, and young adults in its care,” he told Ashoka.
Sixto Cancel served as a chief organizer of the “White House Foster Care Hackathon” in 2016. Credit: Think of Us
The U.S. foster care system was designed not for older youth, but for toddlers — originally intending to mitigate risk of child abuse and to help children be reunited to their families or adopted. As a result, “we actually never knew what the system was supposed to do” outside of those scenarios, Sixto explains. “Decisions are made for them, not with them, and everything is set up to minimize short-term risk — at the expense of building healthy decision-making and agency.”
For the nearly 80 percent of young people in foster care who “age out” of the system, case workers often create transition plans without hearing about their individual goals and dreams. At age 26, 24% of those who “aged out” have high school degrees, 3% graduate from college, and 20% experience homelessness.
“Child welfare is already struggling and not having the results it needs,” Sixto explains. “COVID-19 is going to mean we need to respond to some of the deepest systemic gaps that were already existing.”
“The system was not prepared nor was it ever designed to respond to this kind of pandemic and disruption at that scale.”
The current crisis exacerbates challenges already facing young people in foster care — such as housing, financial resources, and social support — and critically disrupts employment and education journeys.
Sixto and others believe that rather than interrupting their efforts to bring change to the foster care system, the COVID-19 pandemic may catalyze them.
“Like any crisis, COVID-19 is an urgent reminder of how close to the edge many young people in foster care live without the necessary supports,” explains child and family policy expert Mary Bissel, an attorney and founding partner of ChildFocus.
“Nobody would wish for a crisis like this, but we hope that the pandemic will also bring an additional opportunity to educate Congress about why support, funding and services are needed — not just now but in everyday life.”
As part of the child welfare advocacy community, the Think of Us team is working to support policies that all children, young people and families involved in the child welfare system will need to get through the COVID-19 crisis.
While the stimulus package passed by Congress on March 27 included provisions to help older youth in foster care, such as rental relief and food assistance, child welfare advocates believe more is needed. Among other requests, they’re asking Congress to add $500 million to the Title IV-E Chafee program for financial assistance, employment assistance and other supports specifically for young people in foster care and transitioning out of care.
Meanwhile, young people powerfully contribute to these efforts by lifting up personal stories and sharing ideas for solutions, leading advocacy virtually.
“This is an opportunity for us to actually create a new system for older foster care youth,” Sixto says. “And that’s the most important.”
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Interested in learning about other changemakers responding to the COVID-19 crisis? Read more here.
