The Teen Project Inc

The mission of the Teen Project is to provide young women exiting the foster care system, correctional justice system, human trafficking and or homelessness with the resource and support of an intact family, allowing them the greatest opportunity for a successful transition to adulthood.

Lauri Burns had the kind of childhood that doesn’t end well. Entering foster care at 13, she lived in 18 different facilities and aged out of the system at 18 into homelessness. Without a support network, she quickly spiraled down a dangerous path of human trafficking and addiction. Left for dead after a severe beating, she was rescued by a Good Samaritan who took her to a hospital where she received scholarships for drug treatment and technical school.

Lauri took these gifts and turned her life around, becoming a Fortune 100 aerospace executive and
internationally renowned ,motivational speaker, all while raising 42 foster kids of her own and rescuing thousands of girls like her off the streets. She founded The Teen Project in 2007 and the rest Is a relentless redemption story fueled by Lauri’s passion to provide other young with the life-saving opportunities she was given: treatment, training and a new chance at life.

Today, TTP operates 10 program facilities with a total of 126 beds that provide residential drug treatment, detox, mental health crisis stabilization, outpatient treatment services and transitional housing. They include: Vera’s Sanctuary for Women, The Lake Forest College House, Freehab, Crisis Residential Treatment Program, and Outpatient Clinics in both Orange and Los Angeles Counties.

TTP innovates programs focused on sobriety, housing and education that offer young women with complex trauma histories a pathway to a healthy and sustainable life. Each year, TTP serves at least 400 young women across its service continuum and has saved the lives and futures of more than 3,000 transition age youth since its founding in 2007. The agency is currently in the process of implementing a bed reservation system for trafficking victims that will enable them to find a safe escape and transportation where they can receive the treatment they need. The app is currently in use in Southern California, with plans for national scale.

The Teen Project is uniquely expert and intentionally positioned at the intersection of youth homelessness, human trafficking and drug addiction. We innovate effective programs, through a lens of lived experience, that address housing, treatment, training and transition into self-sustaining adulthood.

Southern California has the largest foster youth population in the nation and is also a major hub for human trafficking. These two horrific realities create a perfect storm for youth homelessness, substance use and the need to survive through any means necessary. Data documents the intersection between aging out of the foster care system and victimization through human trafficking.

The young women served by TTP virtually all present with psychological and physical trauma from family and foster care system trauma, homelessness and frequently sexual assault or sex trafficking. Many also suffer the physical impacts trafficking, such as STD's and injuries from beatings and rapes. More than a dozen of those served at Vera's Sanctuary presented for services pregnant and nearly all arrive with substance use disorder resulting as negative coping mechanism for trauma or as a tactic of control on the part of traffickers.

The Teen Project has expertise in the outreach to and identification of trafficking victims, as well as service delivery for this population with an array of complex traumas and needs. The agency also engages a diverse network of service professionals, law enforcement, hospitals and attorneys who all come across trafficking victims in their fields and refer them to TTP for the most comprehensive housing, treatment services and comprehensive recovery support continuum available. The lived experience of the agency's founder informs every aspect of service delivery, leading to unmatched outcomes.

The Teen Project, Inc. has eight program facilities located in Orange and Los Angeles Counties, including a newly renovated and opened historic building in the San Fernando Valley, Carol's Sanctuary, which replicates our best practice continuum of care Vera's Sanctuary in Orange County.

The Teen Project is a parent to the parentless, providing everything the young women we serve need to transition into a safe, sustainable life with an extended family for life. Many of our youth are exiting foster care or escaping violent homes. The majority have not graduated high school and are homeless and/or addicted to drugs. We take on their whole life. All facilities at The Teen Project are designed and donated by people who care. Each room is adopted by a member of the community. All of our bedrooms are uniquely designed with an emphasis on warmth and love. We believe where and how a child lives reflects on how they feel about themselves. We began as a small grass roots organization, just parents raising these kids like our own, and have grown very quickly, serving about 500 young women across our facilities each year.

Please come visit and see for yourself what we are all about and how you can bring your heart to our efforts. We enjoy having new folks over to visit our facility and meet our young women. I don't think people really understand how very different we are until they see it for themselves.

The Teen Project operates with the highest standards of care and received the most rigorous level of external financial auditing every year.  Our goal is to create progressive programs that change the outcomes for foster youth across America.  The Teen Project has mentored over 120 organizations in the United States. Our goal is to produce a superior outcome and be accepted as the standard of care amongst other providers.   

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and with the largest foster care care system in the U.S. we need a large village. We know people care and we have so many ways that everyone can bring their gifts and talents to serve.

The Teen Project is in an explosive period of growth. Just four years ago we opened our Vera's Sanctuary campus in Trabuco Canyon and in April we opened our newest facility in Van Nuys, Carol's Sanctuary. We are rolling out a technology platform to help people of all ages access treatment and shelter services via their mobile phones. We will never stop assessing the needs and growing to meet the needs before us.