What We Do
We are working to drastically change the systemic challenges that youth who are or have been involved with the foster care system experience.
How It Started
Creating Actionable and Real Solutions (CARES) is an initiative of the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP). CSSP is a national, non-profit policy organization that connects community action, public system reform, and policy change to create a fair and just society in which all children and families thrive. Learn more about CSSP here.
Our Approach
On any given day in the United States, there are more than 400,000 children in the foster care system—and more than 82,000 are youth older than 14. These young people, specifically transition-age youth of color, are more likely to experience disparate treatment and outcomes. It is our belief that, with the right combination of innovation, authentic engagement of youth, and community collaboration, we can start to change that.
Learn more about our approach to the work here.
Continue scrolling for more detail on our specific areas of work.
Cultivate Youth Power
CARES Youth Ambassadors, selected in Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; and Atlanta, GA (each of the cities in which we are conducting our work), function as advisors for this work. By working directly with them, we ensure that our work is both authentically youth-serving AND empowering. CARES Ambassadors are deeply involved in all steps of this work, and their advice, guidance, and experiences are centered in all parts of the co-design process. Their lived experience is the most important resource we have to authentically proceed in this work.
Identify Structural Challenges
Using an adaptation of CSSP’s Institutional Analysis methodology, CARES conducted a strategic analysis designed to understand how communities are able to affirm, include, and support youth transitioning out of foster care. Investigative teams applied qualitative tools and analysis to understand how communities are organized to support youth aging out of the child welfare system. As part of the analysis, teams also examined current concepts, theories, policies, initiatives, and accountability mechanisms that serve to create the current conditions youth are experiencing and provide the opportunities for improvement.
Read CARES: Understanding How Transition Age Youth Experience their Communities here.
Advance Anti-Racist Policies
Working directly with Ambassadors, we co-designed a national anti-racist and intersectional policy agenda: A Policy Agenda for a Nation that CARES for Young Adults. This agenda centers youth experiences and prioritizes the needs of youth currently in and previously involved with the child welfare system. Reflecting the goals and priorities of the Ambassadors, the agenda includes policies beyond child welfare as youth are impacted by multiple systems.
Read A Policy Agenda for a Nation that CARES for Young Adults here.
Disrupt Harmful Narratives
With help and guidance from the Ambassadors, we have co-designed a national narrative change campaign designed to address and change the existing negative narrative—or damage imagery—about youth who are or who have been involved in the foster care system. Visit our blog and follow us on Instagram to see the latest.
#CARES4Power
Follow us on Instagram to learn more about our work, the CARES Ambassadors, and the policies we are building to advance change for all transition age youth.
We know that children and youth do best when they are able to remain in their homes and communities. And when families do become known to the child welfare system, it is the system’s responsibility to partner with families in ways that promote autonomy and provide supports and resources that keep families together.
For LGBTQ+ youth and their families, this requires having a system, including staff, that engage youth and families with dignity and are affirming and responsive to their needs, as well as partnerships with a broader network of community-based supports that can meet families’ needs.
Check out our full statement on how Systems, policies, and communities play an important role in affirming LGBTQ+ young people in the foster care system on our blog. 🔗 in bio.
Young people want to be seen for their whole selves and deserve to feel encouraged, affirmed, and supported as they make their way in the world.
Join us TODAY from 2:30-3:45 PM ET for a panel discussion hosted by @chcidc to talk about opportunities to support and affirm #LGBTQ young people in foster care, featuring LA Ambassador @danie.rose_
Learn more and register at https://bit.ly/3VcAbA07m
Back with our #DITL series featuring Shoshana, one of the New York CARES Ambassadors. Here’s Shoshana`s busy day as a nursing student, taking selfies🤳at clinical, catching the sunrises🌅 and sunsets🌇, walking to the train🚇and more!
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#CARES #CARES4Power #NY #NYYouth #CARESAmbassador #Nursinglife
Check out #Atlanta CARES Ambassador Vlad speaking 🗣️ about how he feels about creating policies that help transition-age youth. “Something that I’ll say I enjoy a lot about being a CARES Ambassador is improving people’s lives and giving opportunities. Making policies that will help youth and people in need.”
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#CARES #fostercare #policy #youthpolicies #CARESAmbassador
Check out a #DITL with Atlanta Ambassador Tiffany as she grocery shops 🛒📝for the elderly people in the health care home 🏠where her grandma lives!
#CARES #CARES4Power #ATL #ATLYouth #CARESAmbassador
Here is our “Day in the Life of a CARES Ambassador” series featuring Levi, one of the ATL CARES Ambassadors. Here’s Levi babysitting a pup 🐶, going to the gym 🏋️, and taking a quick selfie 🤳 in college!
#CARES #CARES4Power #ATL #ATLYouth #CARESAmbassador
Check out CARES Ambassador Joseph Mariscal talking about some of the challenges with accessing benefits from state to state and what universal policies should be protected for transition aged youth. #CARES #fostercare #healthcare
#tbt to President Leonard Burton winning the high-five challenge at @ctrsocialpolicy’s 2023 Constituent Convening!
