Empowering Foster Youth to Be Change Agents

Janay Eustace found herself in the foster care system as a new high school freshman, juggling her duties as class president and rally commissioner – all on her birthday week in 1999. 

As her mother battled addiction, Eustace was first sent to an intimidating children’s receiving home in Sacramento, and after a few weeks, was placed with her grandmother on the other side of town. 

After hearing other foster youth talk about having gone to a concert of R&B singer Usher through the California Youth Connection (CYC), she joined the nonprofit as a youth member at the age of 14.

“I wasn’t thinking about advocacy. I wasn’t thinking about leadership development. I was thinking about Usher,” Eustace, today the executive director of the California Youth Connection, admits with a laugh. But the nonprofit helped her find support, community, and empowerment during a traumatic time in her life. “Without CYC, I would have been really isolated and confused.”

The statewide California Youth Connection is a current and former foster youth-led organization that focuses on transforming the child welfare system through policy, practice, and legislative change. That Eustace, who experienced the system itself, now leads the organization is a testament to just how much youth leadership is programmed into CYC’s DNA. 

“Our vision is that every young person [in the system] be a part of all decisions made in their life so that they can grow up into thriving adults,” Eustace says.

CYC, which has some 33 chapters throughout the state including in Los Angeles, works to change local, statewide level, and even federal policy. As a high school student some 20 years ago, Eustace visited Congress members and advocated for extending the foster care program and benefits to youth until age 21. In 2008, Congress did just that and two years later the California legislature passed Assembly Bill 12, which now offers thousands of California foster youth benefits past the age of 18. 

Many organizations center youth voices and partner with young people experiencing the foster care system, Eustace says. But CYC is “completely unique in the way our members decide and develop and bring to life organically the issues that are facing system-involved youth who are experiencing foster care.”

Ricardo Ortega joined CYC several years ago as a foster youth and high school junior. That allowed him to travel outside his community for the first time, connect and network with statewide policy makers, and get valuable advocacy and legislative experience. 

Today, the Cal State Dominguez Hills political science student is active on CYC’s Member Executive Commission, which helps the nonprofit’s administrative staff make decisions about its operations. He works for another nonprofit supporting mental health clients in Los Angeles County, serves on the L.A. County Youth Commission and is an immigration commissioner for Assemblyman Mike Gipson.

“CYC encouraged me to go outside of my comfort zone,” Ortega says. “It allowed me to feel empowered, and even though I was young, to create impact for foster youth across the state.”