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The Youth Engagement Toolkit

Youth Engagement in Permanency Planning: A Guide for Caseworkers

Find tips, guidance, and recommendations for authentically engaging youth on your caseload in the search for their permanent home. The Youth Engagement Toolkit draws on decades of Northwest Adoption Exchange’s experience engaging youth.

What is youth engagement?

Youth engagement means actively involving youth in foster care in their own permanency search at every step. Rather than a checklist of actions, true youth engagement is an approach that values and prioritizes youth voice and perspective. Because every youth in foster care is unique, engagement is never one-size-fits-all. When caseworkers—and all adults—commit to this practice, youth can take on the integral role they deserve in their own permanency search.

Nevaeh, a foster care alum says, if we keep youth engaged and involved it helps foster the ability to feel like you're in charge. This is like giving youth their voice back and ownership over themselves.


Why youth engagement is so crucial

Youth who are engaged are more likely to find the permanency they want. Engagement empowers youth to vocalize what they’re looking for in a home, giving you, their caseworker, a blueprint to work with. Engagement encourages youth to get and stay invested in the search process. Too often, a youth’s experience in foster care strips them of decision-making and control in shaping their own future. As the adults around them, we have the ability to shift that power back in their direction by prioritizing their voice through youth engagement.

Brittney shares what youth engagement means to her as a former youth in foster care.


Acknowledgments

We developed this resource with guidance and input from alumni of the Washington State foster care system and in partnership with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. We are especially grateful to the multiple organizations who have influenced and informed this work, including:

  • Brittney and Nevaeh, lived experience experts
  • The Human Rights Campaign Foundation
  • The Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency
  • Capacity Building Center for States
  • Child Information Gateway
  • The Annie E. Casey Foundation
  • The National Foster Care Youth & Alumni Policy Council

Youth Engagement Toolkit