Learn how to support LGBTQIA2S+ children and young people at a child welfare agency.

Use the guide and digital stories from this library with teams and individuals to advocate, inspire, support, recruit, train, and coach towards a better child welfare system. 

Recorded webinar of youth with lived expertise and child and family serving agency leaders discussing strategies to support meaningful youth engagement and integrating family and youth voices at individual, practice, and system levels.

Watch this recorded webinar to learn how other jurisdictions encourage kinship care placements and then discuss kinship support with your team.

Pair this recorded webinar with the discussion guide to learn caregiver and birth parent partnerships and trauma-informed visitation. 

Reveals how advocating for youth makes a difference in system change and in the advocates’ own lives. The Director of Policy and Advocacy at NMCAN and a youth advocate talk about their shared experience in testifying as expert witnesses for state legislative committees and how it created a strong bond between them.

Highlights the advocacy work of state and regional youth leadership councils. Two paid regional and state youth specialists and the Texas Director for Transitional Living Services describe how including youth voice by providing them a “seat at the table” at the state capital enhances the child welfare system. All three discuss the rewards and personal impact of their work.

Underscores the importance of consistency and encouragement in trusting relationships. A Fostering Success peer mentor gave impactful advice to the youth she mentored: Stop listening to the people who don’t believe in you.

Tells the story of the relationship between a youth in foster care and a BraveLife peer navigator. Both talk about the personal sharing and mutual trust that have forged a connection that will last a lifetime.

Demonstrates how showing up and listening are foundational to developing a nourishing relationship with youth. A young woman describes the constant support she and her family received from a social worker as she evolved from a youth into a teen mom and an advocate.

Tells the story of the relationship, initially forged over a shared meal, between a youth and her CASA worker. The CASA worker’s advocacy for concrete supports to meet the youth’s needs helped grow the trust in their relationship.

See how listening and relatability helped build trust between a youth and his attorney.

Explore the supportive relationship between a youth and her attorney.

Learn to prepare transgender children and youth for court and support them in the courtroom.

Examine the benefits of engaging youth voice in practice, peer support, and system-level change.