Dear Friends,

May is National Foster Youth Month! It was an honor to coauthor a motion at this week’s Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting to celebrate. Before the meeting, I was also excited to sit down for a roundtable discussion with former foster youth, the National Foster Youth Institute, my Board colleagues, and Mayor Karen Bass to discuss the challenges youth face and the opportunities we have to serve them.

There are a lot of incredible efforts underway at the County in service to foster youth. Most recently, I’ve been working with the nonprofit Together California on an innovative new village for siblings in the foster care system. The program ensures that despite being separated from their parents, these vulnerable youth are kept together to lean on one another for support. We’re also partnering with organizations like Friends of the Children to ensure youth have support to succeed from kindergarten through high school graduation. Meanwhile, we’ve been staffing up our workforce to ensure we have plenty of caring and capable social workers in our Department of Children and Family Services who are committed to serve youth for the long haul.

I’ve also been passionate about uplifting the transitional age youth who are aging out of our foster care system. We’ve ensured we’re meeting their tangible needs, including providing them with laptops so they can succeed at school, bicycles so they can get to work, career training and mentorships so they can get their dream job, and assistance navigating complex paperwork so they can access the benefits they deserve. I’m thankful to all the County and community partners who are bettering the lives of the youth entrusted to our care. Together, we can set them up for success so they thrive into adulthood.

Best wishes,

Kathryn Barger
Supervisor, Fifth District, which includes the Santa Clarita Valley