Helping Foster Care Survivors ‘Weather the Storms’

Anthony Pico was homeless, unemployed, and had aged out of the foster care system when he started seeing a therapist weekly from A Home Within.

Today, the Los Angeles resident is a nationally recognized keynote speaker on child welfare and works for a social care network that connects people with programs. He credits his therapist with helping him transition to “enjoying stability and happiness for the first time.”

“My therapist has been my anchor through this storm,” Pico, now a board member of A Home Within, says. 

The national nonprofit was born nearly 30 years ago in San Francisco out of a recognition that foster youth deserve the opportunity to build a long-term relationship with the same licensed therapist through weekly, one-on-one sessions. A Home Within also has a large Los Angeles chapter and a robust partnership with UCLA, where post-doc psychology fellows are paired with clients for the duration of their program. 

“There’s a really big need for therapists in Los Angeles,” says Mia Lewis, A Home Within’s Director of Communications. “We have a pretty significant waitlist for clients in L.A. because it’s the biggest county in California.”

For foster youth who often bounce around from place to place, the concept of “home” is fraught and changeable, Reed Connell, the nonprofit’s President and Executive Director, explains.

“We are establishing lasting relationships for young people that transcend the many challenges and changes they go through,” Connell says.

Clients voluntarily request therapy, express their preferences, and, once matched, partner with their therapist to determine the goals and duration of therapy.

A Home Within serves foster youth as young as three years old and former foster youth through middle age. Most A Home Within clients, however, are young adults who have aged out of the foster care system and are no longer eligible to receive services.

The average “match” between client and therapist lasts three years, though many last much longer. The nonprofit has served some 1,800 clients in California since its inception.

“A Home Within is helping people who have already survived a lifetime of rough waters build on that experience and see the strengths they have now, rather than the things they never had,” Pico says.