Teen Leadership Foundation

The mission of Teen Leadership Foundation is to empower foster teens and emancipated youth to become better leaders – in their own lives and in their communities. 

Based in Costa Mesa, the Teen Leadership Foundation was founded in 2007 in Orange County by current CEO Lisa Castetter after she learned of the dire challenges faced by foster youth while volunteering at summer camp for teens in foster care. Over time, she saw the overwhelmingly positive impact the leadership curriculum and one-on-one adult volunteer relationships had on the teens' self-esteem. Committed to reaching more foster teens with this powerful camp experience, Lisa left her career as an apparel industry executive to launch the Teen Leadership Foundation.

From its initial leadership summer camps, TLF's programs have expanded to also include mentoring, employment readiness workshops, and transitional housing. TLF has built a network of partners locally and nationally, and has earned a positive reputation among foster agencies and organizations. Social service agencies routinely seek out TLF's activities for their foster youth. TLF serves close to 400 foster youth annually. We accomplish this through three full-time and three part-time staff members, as well as hundreds of volunteers who play vital roles.

In response to community requests, TLF has developed manuals and online trainings for its camp, mentoring and employment readiness programs.

The vision of the Teen Leadership Foundation is to:

• Prepare transitional-age foster youth for fulfilling futures through individualized support services, mentor relationships, leadership development, and housing that feels like home.

• Enhance the level of foster care services within California and across the nation.

• Remove barriers and build collaboration between the faith, government, civic, and corporate arenas to foster youth.

Recent Accomplishments:

- By January 2025, we will have completed an expansion project at our Santa Ana Launch Pad home, which will increase its housing capacity and provide upgrades throughout the home.
Our construction team worked hard to devise a plan that is cost effective yet high impact within the home’s existing structure. The recreation room is being transformed into a two-bedroom accessory dwelling unit (ADU) with living space, a kitchen, and full bath. Other important enhancements include the addition of a case management office and a laundry room, upgrades to the home’s kitchen, and upgrades to the backyard to create a welcoming communal space.

- In 2024, we are concluding a successful year of the Network, an employment readiness workshop for foster youth ages 15 to 18. Our intent is to help them successfully secure and retain their first entry-level jobs through an understanding of soft and hard workplace skills. The half-day workshops were held four times at the Irvine Ranch Outdoor Education Center, with about 35 teens at each session. Among the skills discussed were social media and email etiquette, conflict management, skills exploration, customer service, and interviewing. The teens have been very engaged with the interactive format, and pre- and post-tests show an increased understanding of workplace issues and skills as well as self-awareness of their personal skills and interests. The session ends with ziplining and archery on the education center grounds. In 2025, we will be partnering with the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to offer the program to their students.

Goals:

- Replicate and scale our new Network workforce development program to 300 at-risk youth.

- Develop an ADU at the Santa Ana location of our Launch Pad transitional housing program, replicating the success of the ADU completed at our Costa Mesa location. (See Accomplishments above.)

- Create a Social Enterprise Advisory Board to support the growth of our Framewerk Imaging promotional printing social enterprise, particularly in the areas of operations and project management.

One of our most pressing needs is to expand the Santa Ana location of our Launch Pad transitional housing program, as referenced in the Goals above. One part of this expansion will add an additional dwelling unit (ADU) to house an on-site coordinator as part of our program staff. The expansion would also add two bedrooms, which would increase our resident capacity by two to four additional young at-risk women, depending on whether they have children. The remaining funds needed for this construction project is $400,000.

TLF also has an ongoing need for a variety of goods in support of our transitional housing residents, who are young women ages 18 to 22, including moms of infants and toddlers. For the pantries that serves each of our two homes, we welcome donations of fresh food, shelf-stable goods, and hygiene items including diapers. We also appreciate gift cards for Target, Walmart, Amazon, supermarket chains, etc., which staff use to shop for what is needed most. Cards in smaller denominations are used as gifts for residents on special occasions. Gift cards to Home Depot and Lowe’s are great, too, for help with maintaining our two four-bedroom homes.

Orange County is our primary service area, though our programs also extend to Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. Using training modules developed by the Teen Leadership Foundation, our different foster youth programs have been replicated and adapted in 11 states.