Young people with experience in foster care, who are primarily black and brown people of color, often experience complex trauma prior to entering foster care, while in care, and when transitioning out of care—yet many cannot access the type of culturally responsive, long-term mental health and wellness support they desire. 

Existing systems and providers often struggle to meet the unique needs of these young people. Treatment relationships frequently end prematurely, before youth are able to experience the full benefit of mental health and wellness care. Providers offering culturally relevant care also struggle to scale their operations to meet the scale of need.

Knowing that foster youth need care more than ever, the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health (OCMH), the Center for Fair Futures, Foster Youth Impact (FYI), and the Public Policy Lab (PPL) are launching an innovative collaboration to improve mental health outcomes for foster care youth. This project will receive overall coordination support from New Yorkers for Children.

Foster youth informed the project scope and will be a guiding voice throughout research, design, and implementation. Foster youth will continue to share their challenges around accessing services, engage in co-design sessions to ideate design concepts that address these barriers, and engage in the process of piloting and implementing the resulting products.