Be Strong Families is closing its chapter as coordinator of Illinois' Youth Advisory Board network — and opening a new one. CEO Kathryn Leigh Goetz reflects on a decade of youth-led advocacy, policy wins, and what comes next for BSF's growing youth leadership work nationwide.

Abraham Blue was just a kid running around grabbing snacks while his parents sat in Parent Café circles at Vision for Children at Risk in St. Louis. Twelve years later, he's facilitating youth Cafés of his own. This is how the Café model works across generations.

Most adolescent development charts were written with a narrow lens. BSF's new version expands that lens deliberately by dropping binary gender language, challenging the myth that teens must separate from family to grow up, and naming the awakening to structural inequality as a normal part of adolescence. A draft open for community feedback.

Eighteen months of conversations, World Cafés, and Appreciative Inquiry led to our 2020-2025 strategic plan that charts BSF's next chapter and makes youth development a core programmatic priority for the first time. Here's how our process of Discovery, Dreaming, and Designing plan together and what it means for the organization.

In May 2019, BSF's Board of Directors voted unanimously to amend its bylaws to give Regional Parent Engagement Advisory Groups direct board representation, welcoming four new members in the process. A milestone moment for grassroots-driven governance.