Mission

Family & Youth Initiative creates community and lasting relationships for teens and young adults in foster care.

What We Do

Family & Youth Initiative's innovative approach brings adults and teens together to form a community: raising comfort levels, breaking down barriers, and resulting in teens being matched with adult mentors, host parents and adoptive parents. We normalize adoption and increase the number of teens who are adopted. We create opportunity for adult-teen relationships to form naturally and comfortably.

Our programming has the following core elements:
* Events that bring together adults and teens to share a fun activity and build relationships.
* Mentors who spend at least eight hours a month with a teen for at least two years.
* Host parents who welcome a teen into their home for weekend visits and serve as the youth's adoption "advocate," helping him or her meet other adults to expand the circles of people who know the teen and increase opportunities to find an adoptive family.
* Opportunities for prospective adoptive parents to get to know teens waiting for families.