In 2017, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation launched a second five-year phase in its work to support transition age youth in foster care toward becoming self-sufficient and thriving adults.
This is the first full report gauging the Initiative’s Phase II progress in supporting political will, policy development, program implementation, and data availability and coordination across multiple sectors (e.g., child welfare, education and workforce engagement). These focus areas are essential to ensuring young people in, and exiting, foster care remain connected and supported into adulthood.
In addition to this detailed examination of progress in New York City and Los Angeles County, several cross-cutting themes arose, including:
- The Initiative is making exciting progress illustrated by strong public and private partnerships, increased investments, rigorous research, and innovative policies and practices aimed at improving youth outcomes.
- While programs are incorporating more data in their work, they face ongoing challenges to accessing and using high-quality data to track youth outcomes.
- Hilton Foundation grantees work together closely to advance their collective goals. Multiple examples of research supporting program and system change demonstrate the interconnectedness of the Initiative’s three objectives.
- As services for transition age youth in foster care become more robust, grantees and partners are looking to leverage technology to address the barriers youth continue to face in identifying and accessing available services.
