Meeting Young People’s Greatest Needs with Trusted, Credible Voices

Alonie will never forget the day she nearly lost her home. 

Her apartment’s new management company moved her rental payment dates from the 15th to the 1st of each month. Alonie had relied on mid-month payments from a government program to pay her rent. Alonie was also caring for her young daughter and trying to find a full-time job. Unable to make the next month’s rent, Alonie was on the verge of homelessness. 

She reached out to Beautiena Mataele, a peer advocate for transition-age foster youth with Children’s Law Center of California (CLC). Mataele was once in foster care herself and knew personally the challenges Alonie faced. 

Mataele and CLC’s housing team supported Alonie by providing one-time financial support to avoid eviction and connecting her to financial literacy and job readiness training. Thanks to their help and immediate intervention, Alonie never experienced homelessness and landed the job she had wanted. 

“If you are constantly worried about where you are going to live, you cannot focus on anything else,” says Mataele. “Our clients need to be housed to be successful.”  

A Los Angeles-based nonprofit, CLC has about 600 staff, including 25 staff with lived experience. These positions are all filled by people, like Mataele, who have directly experienced the child welfare system.  

“Hiring people with lived experience and infusing their experiences into our work was a game-changer for us,” says CLC’s Executive Director Leslie Starr Heimov. “We learn so much from them every day.” 

CLC exclusively represents children and youth in the child welfare system using a unique multi-disciplinary model. In Los Angeles, CLC represents 24,000 young people in court cases that can determine whether they are separated or reunited with their families. Launched in 1990, CLC has expanded its work beyond in-court representation to address a multitude of their clients’ needs, including but not limited to educational advocacy, parenting support, services for trafficked youth, and mental health and wellness. 

While most transition-age youth need a lot of support, meaningful support can only be provided once trust has been established. That’s where CLC’s model excels. 

“There’s an understandable distrust, and when our youth are meeting with someone who has lived experience, there’s a different level of understanding because they actually have walked in their shoes,” Heimov says. “They can relate and provide empathy and be a credible voice.” 

CLC also engages in policy advocacy to improve the system. They are working to advance racial equity in the child welfare system and create a future where families of color are no longer separated at higher rates than others, Heimov says.