Until Every Family Thrives
REIMAGINING SYSTEMS OF SUPPORT
2025 ANNUAL REPORT
Table of Contents
2025: A Year of Progress.................................................................................................................. 4 From the Executive Director............................................................................................................ 7 From the Board................................................................................................................................... 8 How Foster America Helps Change Take Root...................................................................... 10 Colorado: Connecting Families to Community Support...................................................... 12 Washington State: Building Prevention Infrastructure Through Trust.......................... 14 OPT-In for Families: Being Responsive to Early Signals of Need..................................... 16 Partnership and Reach.................................................................................................................. 18 Building New Alliances Across Sectors.................................................................................... 20 Working Together to Support Families.................................................................................... 22 Learning What Helps Families Stay Together....................................................................... 23 Leadership Circles: Equipping Leaders to Redesign Systems Together........................ 24 Fiscal Leadership Circle................................................................................................................. 25 National Leadership Circle........................................................................................................... 26 Technology Leadership Circle...................................................................................................... 27 The Power of the Alumni Network............................................................................................. 28 Foster America Board of Directors............................................................................................ 30 Foster America Team..................................................................................................................... 31 By the Numbers................................................................................................................................ 32 With Gratitude................................................................................................................................. 34
We must reimagine child welfare—beginning with the belief that parents love their kids, and our job is to foster their well-being.
— Marie Zemler Wu Co-Founder, Executive Director Foster America
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2025 A Year of Progress
Change in child and family systems happens over time. It takes shape as communities test new ideas, align leaders across sectors, and build better pathways for families to access support. In 2025, Foster America worked with partners across the country to advance systems change in tangible ways: connecting families to support through voluntary pathways rather than child welfare investigations, shaping system design through new Family Voice Councils, and helping shift public funding strategies toward connecting families to the resources and relationships they need to thrive. The milestones below highlight key moments from this shared progress.
Partnered with the Imagination Factory as they launched a Creative Cluster exploring housing innovation as a strategy to strengthen family stability. Led an interactive workshop at SXSW EDU , engaging educators and cross-sector leaders in conversations about strengthening support for families. Launched the OPT-In Implementation & Learning Lab , bringing partners across four sites together to share learning and guide implementation.
Began an engagement with the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families , advancing prevention data dashboards, lived-expert engagement, and financing reform. Welcomed a new cohort of Technology Leadership Circle fellows , working with MIT collaborators to advance technology prototypes designed by leaders with lived experience.
Engaged the Bridgespan Group to develop Foster America’s next strategic initiative to strengthen our role in advancing an equity- centered field for child and family well-being. Opened the first OPT- In voluntary support pathway , connecting families to help before a child welfare investigation.
Co-hosted the Fostering Futures Forum with the MIT Media Lab , showcasing technology solutions designed by Technology Leadership Circle fellows —leaders with lived experience in the child welfare system— to strengthen youth belonging, mental health, and well-being.
Community Cafés across three counties engaged more than 100 residents and advisory partners to help shape South Carolina’s OPT-In voluntary support pathway.
Colorado Family Voice Councils became operational in Morgan County and the Four County Collaborative , elevating parent leadership in local system design.
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Welcomed a delegation from Japan to Colorado to exchange insights on strengthening families and redesigning child welfare systems, in collaboration with the Kempe Center. Hosted cross-sector convenings in multiple cities , bringing leaders from education, philanthropy, technology, and government together to explore how communities can support families earlier.
Completed cross-sector implementation planning for Colorado’s 211 Warmline pilot , an upstream alternative to the child abuse hotline designed to connect families with voluntary support in Boulder, Gilpin, and Pueblo counties. Extended our partnership with Youth Villages’ New Allies initiative , supporting child welfare leaders in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana to track prevention outcomes and systems change progress.
Hosted Beyond Survival , a public learning series in which National Leadership Circle fellows shared innovative approaches to housing stability, trauma-informed practice, education equity, and more—grounded in lived experience. Aligned Thriving Families, Safer Children partners around a shared vision for strengthening families and reducing unnecessary system involvement nationwide.
Celebrated 14 Fiscal Leadership Circle fellows—leaders overseeing $4.3B in child welfare funding —as they completed the fellowship and advanced strategies to redirect public financing toward strengthening families. Hosted a virtual summit highlighting Foster America’s four strategies for systems change : co-design, collaboration, financing reform, and data-driven learning. Washington State partners co-designed a prevention framework with DCYF leaders and community stakeholders to guide future prevention investments.
Became a founding strategic partner of Child Welfare Wonk , a national policy intelligence platform reaching nearly 2,000 senior decision-makers in child and family policy. Expanded our research partnership with RTI International to support the National and State Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSSCAW), the nation’s largest child welfare study.
Delivered cross-state learning reports for Youth Villages’ New Allies initiative , synthesizing interviews and early implementation insights from Mississippi, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Activated the Colorado 211 Warmline pilot , giving mandated reporters an alternative pathway to connect families to support. Welcomed 15 new leaders into the second cohort of the Fiscal Leadership Circle , launching the next year-long fellowship focused on redesigning public financing for family support.
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from the Field
When families are struggling—with money, housing, with the ordinary and extraordinary weight of raising children—they deserve compassion, connection, and help. What too many get instead is suspicion.
Foster America is built on the belief that this can change. As this annual report illustrates, 2025 brought meaningful evidence that it is.
Across the country, our coalition groups and learning cohorts took action, creating tangible new structures that are changing how systems respond to families. In Colorado, mandated reporters now have a pathway to connect families to support without triggering a child protection investigation. In South Carolina, parent peers who have navigated the system themselves are showing up for other families facing hardships—offering connection and tangible help. In Washington D.C., families experiencing homelessness can access intensive support without opening a child welfare case, using funding streams once focused on foster care placement. These aren’t silver bullet or stroke-of-the-pen solutions. They represent a deeper change in how communities are rethinking responsibility, dignity, and care. And they’re happening because of people. Dedicated humans making change inside and outside government. Leaders drawing on their lived experience. Changemakers exercising skills to influence and innovate. Coalitions whose members are aligning across their differing roles and perspectives, committed to building something different together. Nationally, this work is part of a broader movement. While foster care entries have declined substantially in recent years, the field still faces a critical constraint: the infrastructure required to prevent child protective involvement at scale. Communities need aligned funding. Families deserve clear, voluntary pathways to access support without threat. And leadership must stay grounded in lived experience, to translate families’ visions for themselves and their children into new approaches and practices. Entering our tenth year, I feel a grateful sense of awe at how far we’ve come. In equal measure, I hold a pressing urgency at how far there is to go, especially as mounting threats that could topple a decade of progress in reducing removals into foster care.
Families belong together. Our systems should reflect that.
— Marie Zemler Wu Co-Founder, Executive Director Foster America
I am grateful to the partners, funders, fellows, staff, and lived experts who fuel this transformative work. And I look forward to continuing to build what comes next—together.
With deep appreciation,
Marie Zemler Wu Co-Founder & Executive Director
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from the Board
Dear friends: As this report reflects on the progress made in 2025, we also enter an important moment for Foster America. 2026 marks Foster America’s tenth anniversary of working to transform child welfare into a system of well-being supports for—and designed by—families.
The organization that exists today is ever more focused on advancing upstream services for strengthening families. It works to elevate the insights and leadership of those with lived expertise in child welfare while working alongside communities and agencies to keep families together and to weave together the array of services, supports, and resources necessary for robust well-being and prevention efforts. We have come to this through a decade of experimentation. We have worked with communities and state agencies. We examined and learned what was—and was not—working to transform how we support families so they can thrive. As an organization, Foster America has been disciplined in asking how to better help the field move towards upstream investment in family support. As Board Chair, I’ve watched this organization grow not just in what it does, but in its evolving examination of its role and purpose. From our very start as a fellowship organization, we have weighed our impact against a few fundamental questions: Are families actually getting support before their struggles turn into crises? Are those most impacted by state intervention, along with trusted community partners, helping design the supports families need to thrive? Are resources being redirected toward prevention and community supports? And finally, is Foster America being as strategic as we could be in making sure that the answer to those questions is a resounding yes? The work described in these pages—in Colorado, Washington State, South Carolina, Oregon, Kentucky, Washington D.C., and beyond—is evidence of what is possible when families, community partners, and public agencies work together to create a more humane approach to supporting families in need. Families are connected to voluntary supports before their struggles bring them to the attention of the child welfare system. Parents walk alongside other parents as they navigate how to access the help they need. Dollars are redirected from foster care placement toward the prevention of family separation. These aren’t just bright spots. They’re proof of what becomes possible when systems are built for families instead of against them. As we enter Foster America’s tenth year, the Board is committed to building on this foundation. We’ll share a new strategic plan later in 2026—and we look forward to the conversations ahead. Until then, our deepest thanks to the donors, partners, and families whose trust makes this work possible.
When families are connected to the support they need, communities can respond with help instead of unnecessary intervention, keeping children safe while helping families thrive.
— Susan Notkin Board Chair, Foster America
Susan Notkin Board Chair, Foster America
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How Foster America Helps Change Take Root Foster America works with local governments, communities, families, and organizations to implement innovations that help children and their families thrive. Together, we’re amplifying bold Our Approach Driving Innovation.
Developing Changemakers. Disseminating Knowledge.
ideas and equitable solutions to open new possibilities for child and family well-being.
prevention
Foster America centers equity and drives change using four strategies:
We center the perspectives of parents, young people, and community leaders to put their vision at the heart of new solutions. 1 3 CO-DESIGN
We help identify funding opportunities for programs that proactively offer the types of support families need and want —an alternative to harmful and costly traditional child welfare approaches.
in practice
Across states and communities, prevention moved
FINANCE
4
from idea to practice— reshaping how families access support and how public systems respond.
COLLABORATION
LEARN
2
We coordinate with governmental partners, nonprofits, and civic and
We ensure qualitative and quantitative data informs decisions, fuels continuous improvement, and promotes accountability.
cross-sector leaders to break down barriers and align efforts to support families effectively.
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Colorado:
Connecting Families to Community
Support
COLORADO: BY THE NUMBERS
71% of calls screened out with no services provided before the Warmline 3 Warmline pilot counties: Boulder, Pueblo, Gilpin 7,000+ community services available through 211
In Colorado, as in many states across the country, most calls to the child protection hotline are not surfacing abuse or neglect.
is at risk, callers can be routed back to protective services to ensure safety remains a priority. The pilot will run through June 2026 while partners study how the Warmline is used and what support families need most. Early learning is shaping how Colorado connects families to support—not by building new programs, but by helping families access community resources that meet their specific needs. Foster America works alongside state leaders, counties, community partners, and parents to help bring efforts like this to life, aligning policy, financing, and implementation so promising ideas can move from planning into practice.
record of suspected maltreatment, even when what they needed most was help. Leaders in Colorado believed there could be a better response. Through the state’s Reimagining Colorado’s Child Welfare System effort, partners worked together to create the Mile High United Way 211 Warmline pilot. Launched in December 2025, the Warmline offers another option when family needs do not merit an investigation—creating a voluntary pathway alongside the existing child protection hotline. Instead of filing a report, mandated reporters can speak with a trained community navigator who helps find community resources that may be responsive to the family’s specific needs. Navigators connect callers to local services, such as housing assistance, food support, mental health care, financial help, and parenting resources, without triggering an investigation. The idea behind the Warmline is simple: when families are facing challenges, connecting them to the support they truly want and need can make a real difference. The Warmline was designed through collaboration among community partners, parents who have experienced the child welfare system, and governmental leaders. Foster America supported the work by helping partners align practice, funding, implementation, and evaluation as the idea moved from planning to launch. The pilot currently serves Boulder, Pueblo, and Gilpin counties and may expand statewide in 2026. It connects callers to more than 7,000 services through a statewide resource database. Calls are free, confidential, and available in multiple languages. If a child
They come from teachers, doctors, neighbors, and others who are worried about families facing stress or hardship. In 2022, Colorado’s child protection hotline received more than 114,000 calls. Over 71 percent were screened out because they did not meet the criteria for investigation. For many families, that meant the call did not lead to support or services. Instead, families were left with a
Free, confidential, multilingual support
WHAT IS THE REIMAGINING COMMITTEE?
In 2022, Colorado formed the Reimagining Child Welfare Committee. From the start, the group was co-chaired by a lived experience leader and a state child welfare official—and has always included more than half members with lived experience, working and planning alongside those holding formal professional authority in the system. In its short history, the committee has built the trust and courage to pursue solutions to persistent challenges, working to close racial disparities in child welfare, reduce unnecessary foster care placements, and build authentic family voice councils in counties with similar composition and purpose that have true local influence. The 211 Warmline pilot is the committee’s first fully operational test of change, and a concrete
example of what authentic co-design looks like in practice. Reimagining members wrote the script, selected the partners, and defined the evaluation protocols. They continue to review progress, troubleshoot challenges, and serve as ambassadors to mandated reporters, encouraging use of the Warmline in the three participating counties. The Reimagining members’ ambitions extend further still. They are working toward statewide scaling of the Warmline model, developing a housing pilot, and exploring how to end the need for parental rights terminations. A goal that reflects both the depth of their commitment and the seriousness with which this team approaches what systems change can actually mean.
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Washington State:
Building Prevention Infrastructure
Through Trust
WASHINGTON AT A GLANCE
5 regional in- person listening sessions
In Washington State, Foster America partners with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) to strengthen how families connect for support, so that help is available earlier and families can remain safely together whenever possible.
Washington’s engagement with tribal communities has reinforced the importance of acknowledging intergenerational harm and ensuring that new prevention pathways are grounded in healing rather than surveillance. These details matter. A welcoming environment can determine whether families feel safe enough to speak openly about how systems affect their children. Foster America serves as a neutral bridge between state leaders and community members, helping ensure feedback is gathered respectfully and shared back in ways communities and state partners can use to shape decisions and next steps. The insights are synthesized and shared with participants and partners so communities can see how their input informs planning and action. Foster America then works alongside state and community partners to carry this work forward. At the systems level, this relationship building is beginning to influence how decisions are made. DCYF teams are working more closely together so that policy, data, and funding decisions support the same prevention goals. A cross-division Prevention Impact Action team—now more than 50 members strong— helps bring this work together and deepen shared understanding of how prevention funding, policy, and practice connect. As part of this effort, the “Grow the Green” dashboard, previously used only internally to track indicators related to safely reducing child welfare involvement, is being expanded into a community-facing tool. Paired with a parent-led learning series, the effort helps families engage with the data and shape how it is presented, understood, and acted upon. Across Washington, these efforts reflect a clear lesson: change takes root when relationships come first. By combining meaningful community engagement with systems alignment and fiscal strategy, Washington is strengthening family support approaches that are responsive, measurable, resilient, and grounded in trust.
5 virtual listening sessions
Nearly 200 community members engaged statewide
This work focuses on ensuring that services reflect what families and young people say they need, and that assistance from agencies and communities is coordinated rather than fragmented across individual programs. The goal is to make support easier for families to find and navigate. That begins with relationships. Designing with families requires listening in ways that are welcoming and respectful. Over the past year, Foster America has joined Washington State’s DCYF in designing a Community-Based Pathway for its Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) plan. This effort included supporting listening sessions—five virtual and five in-person—across five regions of the state. Sessions included tribal communities and areas where families experience
Tribal partnerships grounded in cultural protocol and respect Parent-led learning series helping families understand and use DCYF data 50+ members in a cross-division Prevention Impact Action team aligning policy, data, and prevention funding
child welfare investigations and foster care removals at disproportionately high rates.
Building on the expertise of DCYF’s FFPSA team and co-facilitating with DCYF’s Office of Tribal Relations, the sessions were intentionally designed to meet people where they are. Gatherings took place in community spaces rather than institutional settings. Cultural protocols were honored—for example, elders offered blessings, meals were shared, and gifts of cultural significance were given.
When communities feel respected, real change becomes possible.
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OPT-In for Families:
Being Responsive to Early Signals
of Need
OPT-IN FOR FAMILIES BY THE NUMBERS
4 demonstration sites: Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, D.C. 26 unique counties or wards across all sites where families are impacted by our work. ~$33M total initiative funding over three years (approx. $9M per site) Focus on families with early signals of need — before investigations and/or foster care OPT-In model: access, engagement, navigation, and support—grounded in community co-design
Across the country, many families come
when families are struggling. Instead of waiting until families face deeper challenges, the initiative focuses on families whose needs often fall outside traditional child welfare pathways—those referred for well-being concerns that do not meet the threshold for investigation and frequently result in no services at all. By connecting families to practical support, including addressing concrete economic needs, OPT- In aims to strengthen family stability, avoid involvement with the formal child welfare system, and keep children safely at home. With Foster America’s guidance, local teams are building community-rooted models shaped by family voice and lived experience. In Kentucky, partners are developing prevention pathways that identify families at risk of future system involvement and offer voluntary supports. In Oregon, efforts are aligning economic assistance, coaching, and navigation with broader anti-poverty and family preservation strategies. In South Carolina, families screened out of traditional child welfare responses are being connected to trusted peer navigators who help them access resources, such as housing assistance, child care, transportation, and employment support. Across all four sites, the work is organized around a shared framework, naming the practical functions needed for a meaningfully different system. “Access” focuses on reaching families at the earliest signal of need through trusted voluntary channels. “Engagement” prioritizes building genuine relationships and trust, so families are safe enough to ask for help and stay connected to it. “Navigation” assists and reduces the burden as families move
through a fragmented landscape of services with someone walking alongside them. And “Support” addresses the concrete material needs, as well as the service gaps that often sit at the root of family stress: housing, child care, health access, and more. While the specifics of implementation vary in response to the needs and nuances of each place, all also share a commitment to co-design as the foundation of their innovative choices. Advisory groups, anchored by members with lived experience, have shaped engagement models, authored outreach protocols, trained staff, and reviewed data. Foster America advances this work by coordinating partners, facilitating collaborative sessions, including statewide convenings and workshops, and supporting advisory members through compensation and professional development. OPT-In for Families represents an investment in what becomes possible when communities have the space and resources to lead. Backed by flexible funding, technical assistance, and shared learning across sites, the initiative is helping partners test new ways to connect families with support earlier while building evidence on what it takes to strengthen family stability and well-being. Families know what they need. OPT-In helps make that support easier to reach.
Too often, early signs of stress and initial requests for help go unanswered, leaving families without support that could make the greatest difference. “OPT-In for Families” was created to change that pattern. Through the Doris Duke Foundation’s OPT-In for Families
to the attention of child welfare
systems not because of abuse or neglect, but because they are navigating economic hardship, housing instability, or other unmet needs.
$
initiative, partners in Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C., are working to design new pathways for families to access help early, voluntarily, and with dignity, so that stressors and risks don’t compound and formal systems don’t intervene and cause harm. The effort brings together a national learning collaborative that includes Chapin Hall, the Harvard Government Performance Lab, and Think of Us, alongside state and community partners. OPT-In for Families is a multi-year effort designed to shift how communities respond
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Partnership & Reach
Local Innovation. National Learnings. Shared Progress. Learnings. Shared Progress.
Foster America helps communities test new approaches, learn in real time, and share what’s working—so local progress can inform broader change.
KEY: Foster America works in deep, sustained partnership with these states and communities that are advancing new approaches to support children and families. A national initiative supported by Foster America, Thriving Families, Safer Children represents 22 sites working to scale approaches that promote family and community well-being. Foster America provides technical assistance for OPT-In for Families , a Doris Duke Foundation initiative working to build prevention-focused systems. In our work with Youth Villages , we provide coaching, technical assistance, data analysis, and project management while evaluating the success of prevention efforts. Foster America’s best-in-class professional development programming draws fellowship participants from across the country.
State and Community Partnerships
Thriving Families, Safer Children
OPT-In for Families
Youth Villages
Fellowship Participants
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Building New Alliances Across Sectors In 2025, Foster America convened a series of cross-sector gatherings in cities, including
BRINGING FAMILIES AND EDUCATION
INTO THE CONVERSATION AT SXSW EDU
In March 2025, Foster America brought this conversation to SXSW EDU in Austin, one of the nation’s leading gatherings of educators and innovators. During a 90-minute interactive workshop, our team engaged educators, nonprofit leaders, and cross-sector partners in exploring how schools and community institutions intersect with the child welfare system— and how earlier support for families can help address challenges before they escalate into crises.
Washington, D.C., New York, Denver, and Boston— bringing together leaders from education, healthcare, philanthropy, technology, government, and community organizations.
These conversations were designed to strengthen relationships across fields that shape the conditions for children and families. At the heart of these conversations was a shared understanding: supporting families cannot be the responsibility of the child welfare system alone. The conditions that help families thrive—safe housing, healthcare, strong schools, economic stability, and community connection— are shaped by many sectors working together. Through intimate breakfasts, salon dinners, and leadership meet-ups, participants explored how their work intersects with family well-being and what it would take to shift from a reactive child welfare response to a proactive community approach centered on family strengths. The gatherings sparked new partnerships, surfaced shared challenges, and expanded the circle of leaders engaged in building stronger support systems for children and families. These gatherings helped Foster America continue to grow a broader community of changemakers—people who may not work directly in child welfare, but whose leadership is essential to ensuring families have the resources and relationships they need to thrive.
Participants worked through real-world student scenarios, examined how schools encounter family challenges in everyday settings, and identified ways their roles could help strengthen support for children and families. By bringing these ideas into a space focused on education and innovation, the session introduced new audiences to Foster America’s work and expanded the network of leaders thinking about how their fields can help families stay safely together.
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Youth Villages’ New Allies Thriving Families, Safer Children
Working Together to Support Families
Learning What Helps Families Stay Together
Helping more families stay safely together starts with better decisions, earlier support, and stronger alignment across the systems that shape family life.
Lasting change in child welfare happens when communities learn from one another and align their efforts around prevention.
New Allies, developed by Youth Villages, works with child welfare leaders in Mississippi, Kentucky, and Louisiana to support long-term system transformation—helping leaders use data and evidence, strengthen coordination across agencies and courts, and focus improvement efforts on outcomes for children and families. This work strengthens how key parts of the system work together. By using data to guide decisions and deepening collaboration between courts, agencies, and community partners, states are developing approaches that help families earlier and reduce unnecessary time in foster care when separation does occur. Foster America supports this work by helping partners understand how these changes are working in real time. Through interviews and site visits, we gather feedback from parents, youth, frontline workers, and community partners. Paired with timely data analysis, their perspectives highlight what is working, where challenges remain, and where improvements are needed. We translate this learning into clear reports and practical insights so leaders can continue refining their work. Together, this work helps move prevention from aspiration to practice—strengthening the conditions for families to receive support earlier, experience less unnecessary system involvement, and stay connected whenever safely possible.
Thriving Families, Safer Children (TFSC) was created to support such collaboration nationwide. This national effort—led in partnership by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, Casey Family Programs, the Centers for Disease Control Injury Center, Prevent Child Abuse America, and the U.S. Administration for Children & Families, with the engagement of leaders with lived experience—brings together community leaders, government partners, and family-serving organizations that want to strengthen prevention and reduce unnecessary family separation. The goal is simple: help families have the connections and access to the resources they need without child welfare involvement. Foster America helps keep this work connected at the national level. We support coordination across five partner organizations and 22 local site teams so communities can share ideas and learn from one another rather than working alone. Together, partners have developed shared principles, improved support for local teams, and elevated approaches shaped by parents and young people with lived experience in the child welfare system.
THRIVING FAMILIES, SAFER CHILDREN:
COLLABORATION IN ACTION
22 site teams testing community-driven prevention strategies 5 national partners coordinating learning and technical support Cross-sector coalitions aligning public agencies and community partners Parents and families shaping policy and system redesign
By helping communities share what they are learning, TFSC allows promising ideas to spread beyond a single place. Over the past year, site teams have strengthened cross- sector partnerships, expanded leadership roles for parents and young people with lived experience, and tested community-driven prevention strategies designed to help families access support earlier.
Prevention becomes possible when systems work together to support families earlier.
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Leadership Circles:
Equipping Leaders to Redesign Systems
Together
BY THE NUMBERS
Fiscal Leadership Circle: Advancing Prevention Through Funding
Leadership Circles are Foster America’s cohort-based fellowships designed to strengthen leaders working to transform child and family well-being systems.
Each circle brings together participants who share a common area of expertise—such as technology, lived experience leadership, or public finance—and supports them in deepening their subject-matter knowledge while growing their ability to influence systems. Through learning with national experts and one another, fellows build practical skills in adaptive leadership, strategic thinking, and collaboration that help them navigate complex systems and advance meaningful change.
14 fiscal leaders in the inaugural cohort
The Fiscal Leadership Circle invites fiscal and budget leaders to see themselves differently. Instead of managing existing structures alone, fellows explore how financial strategy can be used to redesign systems and invest in prevention. The inaugural cohort brought together 14 fiscal leaders from 10 jurisdictions, collectively overseeing more than $4 billion in child welfare spending. Over 12 months, fellows strengthened their technical mastery of public financing while building skills in adaptive leadership, strategic storytelling, and cross-system collaboration. Each fellow advanced a real-world project in their jurisdiction. Some focused on expanding access to Title IV-E prevention funding. Others explored housing
10 jurisdictions represented
$4.3B in child welfare spending overseen by fellows
Each circle focuses on a different lever of change. The Technology Leadership Circle explores how digital tools can better support youth and families. The National Leadership Circle strengthens leaders with lived experience in the child welfare system. The Fiscal Leadership Circle brings together public finance leaders working to align funding with prevention goals. While the focus of each circle is distinct, all share a commitment to learning, leadership development, and practical application. Over time, these cohorts become more than learning experiences. They form a growing network of leaders across states and systems who continue to share ideas, test solutions, and support one another in advancing more responsive and equitable approaches to supporting families.
$141M in potential prevention funding unlocked
LEADERSHIP CIRCLES
BY THE NUMBERS
3 Fellowship Circles
40 Change- makers
stabilization strategies, such as Family Keys and direct cash transfers, that help families remain safely together. Several projects examined how federal funding streams, including Family First, Medicaid, and TANF, could be better aligned to support families before crises escalate. Early results are promising. Five fellows’ projects demonstrated the potential to
22 States and Territories Represented
unlock $141 million in prevention resources while reducing reliance on foster care placements by investing earlier in family stability. The Fiscal Leadership Circle showed that budgets are not just administrative tools. When used intentionally, they can help shift systems toward earlier support—and toward stronger investments in families.
Lasting systems change happens when leaders learn together and lead together.
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Leadership Circles:
National Leadership Circle: Centering Lived Experience as Leadership The National Leadership Circle was created with a clear understanding: people who have personally navigated child welfare systems hold critical insight about how those systems should change. The yearlong fellowship brought together leaders with lived experience to strengthen their skills in advocacy, narrative change, and systems influence while building a supportive community of peers committed to transforming how families are supported. Too often, individuals with lived experience are invited to share their stories but not to share power. They may be present in meetings where decisions are made, yet still carry the weight of unequal authority and limited influence. The National Leadership Circle offered something different—a space where leaders strengthened their voice, built community, and developed tools to navigate and shift those dynamics. Over the course of 12 months, fellows engaged in a comprehensive learning journey focused on advocacy, narrative change, governance, and shared leadership. Fellows received compensation for their time, reflecting Foster America’s commitment to valuing lived expertise as a professional contribution rather than volunteer consultation. The fellowship concluded with Beyond Survival, a public learning series created and led by fellows. In these sessions, fellows translated lived experience into strategies for change. They examined issues, such as housing instability and family separation, barriers to education for youth in foster care, and how systems can better respond to trauma. Each conversation connected personal insight with policy and practice, offering lessons for leaders working to redesign systems. The series modeled what shared leadership can look like in action. By strengthening leaders who have experienced the system firsthand, the National Leadership Circle helped shift how knowledge, leadership, and power are shared across the child welfare field.
Technology Leadership Circle: Creating Tools That Benefit Communities The Technology Leadership Circle brought together leaders with lived experience in the child welfare system who are interested in building technology solutions to better support youth and families. Fellows explored how digital tools might address real challenges young people face, working alongside technologists, researchers, and collaborators from the MIT Media Lab to shape early concepts grounded in lived experience. Through collaborative design sessions, fellows developed five early-stage concepts. Foster Files proposes a youth-facing digital wallet where young people can securely store and manage vital documents, such as school and medical records. Transit Central envisions a dedicated rideshare platform that connects youth to safe, reliable transportation while creating earning opportunities for young adults with foster care experience. Other concepts included Care 2 Connect, a platform that helps youth assess compatibility with potential foster families; Community Gaming, a virtual space designed to foster connection and community among youth; and Goal Booster, a tool that helps young people set goals and build a roadmap toward them with guidance from mentors. In September, fellows presented these concepts at the Fostering Futures Forum, co-hosted with collaborators from the MIT Media Lab, where child welfare leaders, technologists, and funders explored how technology can advance belonging and well- being for young people. By bringing lived expertise directly into the design process, the Technology Leadership Circle helps ensure emerging technologies reflect the realities— and the ideas—of the young people they are meant to support.
Innovation is stronger when lived experience drives what gets built.
Building leadership
capacity ensures those who have navigated the system lead its transformation.
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The Power of
the Alumni Network
BY THE NUMBERS
99 alumni in our network 4 newsletters keeping the alumni network connected 1 national network of alumni increasing in size and impact
Over the past decade, Foster America has cultivated a growing community of
Today, that investment has grown into a powerful alumni network spanning government, community organizations, philanthropy, research, and advocacy. Together, these leaders are advancing new approaches that strengthen family well-being and prevent unnecessary family separation. What begins during a fellowship year doesn’t end there. Alumni remain connected to Foster America—and to one another—through shared learning, collaboration, and leadership opportunities that continue to deepen their impact. In 2025, alumni gathered through quarterly Alumni Spotlight conversations and peer learning sessions, creating space to exchange ideas, reflect on challenges, and support one another as they advance prevention-first solutions in their communities. Across the country, alumni are translating fellowship learning into real-world change. Fiscal Leadership Circle alum Dustin Koury continues to expand the Family Keys housing stability approach that provides flexible supports to families experiencing housing instability to prevent unnecessary foster care placements. Early implementation in Marathon County, Wisconsin, has shown promising results—keeping many families together in stable housing while generating cost savings for local jurisdictions. Dustin now partners with the Imagination Factory’s Creative Cluster to advance housing supports across four implementation sites. Alumni are also helping shape the national conversation about how families should be supported. National Leadership Circle alum Sofie Fashana, a Policy Entrepreneur at Next100 and Policy Resident with Foster America, is helping lead the development of Foster America’s first Prevention Financing Brief, exploring how strategies such as direct cash transfers and housing stability investments can prevent unnecessary family separation. Together, Dustin and Sofie were recently featured during Foster America’s quarterly United for Prevention
roundtable, Confronting the Unethical Practice of Family Separation Due to Housing. The roundtables bring together leaders to examine how approaches like Family Keys and direct cash transfers can strengthen housing stability and prevent unnecessary family separation. The conversation explored how approaches like Family Keys and direct cash transfers can strengthen housing stability and prevent unnecessary family separation.
changemakers through its fellowships—leaders with lived experience and cross- sector expertise who are working to strengthen how the nation supports families.
As Foster America approaches its 10-year milestone, the alumni network represents one of the organization’s most powerful and enduring contributions to the field. Each year, the network grows—not only in numbers, but in connection, influence, and shared purpose. By continuing to invest in leaders and strengthening the bonds between them, Foster America is building a community capable of driving lasting transformation in how our country supports children and families.
National Leadership Advisory Group (NLAG)
Foster America’s National Leadership Advisory Group (NLAG) brings together alumni leaders and longtime collaborators whose professional expertise and lived experience help guide the organization’s strategic direction. Members Anthony Barrows, Francesca Gonzalez, Tkeyah Dupclay, Jasmene Hawthorne, and Mutima Imani contributed insights and perspectives that informed Foster America’s work throughout the year. NLAG members helped shape priorities for a national convening with Casey Family Programs and partner organizations focused on elevating lived experience in systems change. They also participated in early conversations informing Foster America’s strategic planning and
co-hosted a Fellows & Friends Career Talk in May 2025, supporting professional pathways for emerging leaders. Throughout the year, members offered guidance on learning, communications, and leadership initiatives, and provided perspective on emerging practices for partnering authentically with people who have lived experience in the child welfare system. Through NLAG, these leaders continue to play an important role in shaping Foster America’s work— ensuring that strategy, partnerships, and learning remain informed by the insight and leadership of those closest to the system.
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WWW.FOSTER-AMERICA.ORG |
Meet the Team
EXECUTIVE TEAM
At Foster America, our people are what make this work possible. We come together with compassion, lived and learned experience, and a belief that change is possible— working every day to help families and children thrive.
Deszeree Thomas Vice President of Culture & Capacity Building
Michael Russom Vice President of Finance & Operations
JoAnne Scribner Vice President of Development & Strategic Partnerships
Marie Zemler Wu Co-Founder, Executive Director
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
STAFF MEMBERS
Susan Notkin Board Chair
Nathan Aleman Board Treasurer Principal, The Bridgespan Group
Allegra Lawrence-Hardy Co-Managing Partner, Krevolin & Horst, LLC
Former Executive VP, Center for the Study of Social Policy
Matthew Caywood Site Advisor, Kentucky
Nolini Deen People & Operations Specialist
Sulla Eastman Director of Finance
Emily Ente TFSC Project Director
Erinn Havig Senior Advisor, Washington
Daniel Stephens Partner, McKinsey and Co.
David Sanders Executive Vice President, Casey Family Programs
Jolie Bales Principal, JA Bales & Associates
Jeanine Morales Site Advisor, Oregon
Jennifer Outlaw Prevention Site Director
Chynna A. Phillips Senior Director of OPT-In
D.L. Moffitt Fiscal Innovation Specialist
Angela Lytle Colorado Site Director
Judith Meltzer Senior Fellow and former President, Center for the Study of Social Policy
Susan Leath Principal Consultant and Founder, Leath Consultant Group
Takkeem Morgan Senior Director of Communications, Prevent Child Abuse America
Danielle Savage Data Design Specialist
Justina Siuba Site Advisor, South Carolina
Anicia Reynoso Development & Communications Associate
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