Teen Leadership Foundation

Life Skills Workshops for College-enrolled Foster Youth

Drawing on 14 years of experience delivering housing, wraparound services, and case management for transition-age foster youth, TLF distilled that expertise into a life skills curriculum that now supports foster youth as they forge new futures in college or trade schools. This was in response to an expressed need from college administrators, who noted that the students’ past trauma and lack of experience in independent living were undermining their educational success. These vulnerable young adults are also navigating adulthood without the support of stable family systems or reliable social networks. As the Annie E. Casey Foundation notes in “What Happens to Youth Aging Out of Foster Care?” (2025), compared to their general population peers, young people leaving foster care are more likely to experience housing instability, joblessness, academic difficulties, early parenthood, and substance use. Having served an initial 195 transitional age youth in the 2025-26 school year, we expect to add an additional six community colleges plus Vanguard University in 2026-27, reaching approximately 350 students in total. These students, ages 18 to 22, are enrolled in foster youth support programs at their respective Orange County college, pursuing an associate degree, vocation or trade, or four-year degree. The life skills workshops consist of eight topics developed by TLF: workforce preparedness, financial literacy, rental readiness, landlord engagement, personal hygiene, house management, nutrition, and physical development. Each topic has several modules. Trainings will be delivered three times each week, with rotating topics, primarily via Zoom. Trainings are delivered by staff and volunteer facilitators who are subject matter experts in their respective fields. Facilitators are recruited from among business, faith, and other community partners. Students register in advance, and once enrolled, have access to facilitator presentations, student micro-workbooks, interactive activities, and practical application activities. The overall life skills program is currently handled by our program director; a new part-time program coordinator is needed to help us best serve additional students.

Advocate Program for Foster Youth Support

Mentoring has been an emphasis of the Teen Leadership Foundation since its inception. The Advocate Program is an evolution of our mentoring commitment, pairing trained, adult volunteers to support young adults as they put their life skill training into action. In this way, we are bringing the wraparound services and case management that TLF honed with its transitional housing residents. We have adopted the word “advocate” rather than “mentor” to convey the scope of the volunteers’ role and to use a term to which transition-age foster youth seem most receptive. In revitalizing our mentor program, TLF developed and launched “The Mentor Lab” podcast last year, which has two components. One is the training module for our adult volunteers, and the other is an ongoing education series for mentors and other foster youth advocates on trauma-informed best practices in serving foster youth. We turned to the podcast format for its portability and flexibility. “The Mentor Lab” can be found on Spotify and YouTube. Each advocate volunteer is screened and completes the eight-episode foundational podcast training series before being paired with a youth. Ongoing podcast education provides additional training on issues advocates may encounter, including trauma, mental health, relationship building, and Trust-Based Relational Intervention. (TBRI is a widely used, evidenced-based care model.) Advocates are encouraged to meet with participants in person to develop meaningful relationships, while virtual meetings provide flexibility around work, school, transportation, and other scheduling demands. The Advocate Program is to be open to college-based foster youth as well as those in the community at large. TLF anticipates pairing at least 100 advocates with foster youth in the coming year.

Life Skills Workshops for College-enrolled Foster Youth

Drawing on 14 years of experience delivering housing, wraparound services, and case management for transition-age foster youth, TLF distilled that expertise into a life skills curriculum that now supports foster youth as they forge new futures in college or trade schools. This was in response to an expressed need from college administrators, who noted that the students’ past trauma and lack of experience in independent living were undermining their educational success. These vulnerable young adults are also navigating adulthood without the support of stable family systems or reliable social networks. As the Annie E. Casey Foundation notes in “What Happens to Youth Aging Out of Foster Care?” (2025), compared to their general population peers, young people leaving foster care are more likely to experience housing instability, joblessness, academic difficulties, early parenthood, and substance use. Having served an initial 195 transitional age youth in the 2025-26 school year, we expect to add an additional six community colleges plus Vanguard University in 2026-27, reaching approximately 350 students in total. These students, ages 18 to 22, are enrolled in foster youth support programs at their respective Orange County college, pursuing an associate degree, vocation or trade, or four-year degree. The life skills workshops consist of eight topics developed by TLF: workforce preparedness, financial literacy, rental readiness, landlord engagement, personal hygiene, house management, nutrition, and physical development. Each topic has several modules. Trainings will be delivered three times each week, with rotating topics, primarily via Zoom. Trainings are delivered by staff and volunteer facilitators who are subject matter experts in their respective fields. Facilitators are recruited from among business, faith, and other community partners. Students register in advance, and once enrolled, have access to facilitator presentations, student micro-workbooks, interactive activities, and practical application activities. The overall life skills program is currently handled by our program director; a new part-time program coordinator is needed to help us best serve additional students.