In our first lesson, we shared why we developed a youth leadership curriculum rather than expecting young people to simply “show up” ready to lead. This lesson focuses on the other half of the equation: the adults.

One of the most important lessons we learned over ten years of supporting Youth Advisory Boards was that the words we used created the work we got.

By 2020, we had spent years creating spaces where youth in care felt welcomed, supported, and heard. 

Then we were challenged to ask a difficult question: 

“Were we designing spaces for youth in care to participate—or spaces that positioned them to lead?” 

That question, posed by our Illinois Department of Children and Family Services program monitor, Kevin Walsh, changed the trajectory of our work. 

It wasn’t a complicated question. 

Child- and family-serving organizations understand something fundamental: the earliest years of life matter.

That conviction shapes everything we do. We invest in warm, responsive relationships because they build secure attachment. We fill our classrooms with books because language matters. We create opportunities for play because children learn through exploration. We support parents because strong families are the foundation of healthy communities. We strive to become trauma-informed because we know that early adversity can alter the trajectory of a life.

In other words, we know that what children experience in our care today helps shape the adults they become.

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.

Greishen’s foster mom planted something in her before she even knew what to call it. Now, years later, she can name it: the Protective Factors, in their most human form. Greishen shares her honest, personal reflections about love, dementia, and why spaces like Parent Cafés matter for former youth in care.

We're proud to share the story of PAN Cymru — Be Strong Families' first international affiliate. What began as a small coalition in Neath Port Talbot in 2020 has grown into a national movement, with Welsh Government funding and parents leading the way. This is how they did it.

Robyn spent 25 years as a foster parent. She owes it not to her own grit or extraordinary abilities, but because she refused to do it alone. Her tribute to the women and communities that kept her going is also a direct challenge to agencies to build real connection into how they support foster parents.

When healthy food costs more, takes longer to prepare, and is harder to find, the burden can't rest on parents alone. We explore what family support organizations and early childhood centers are doing to step up as partners in nutritional equity, from two-generation cooking classes to school meal advocacy.

"Real food is elitist" sounds compassionate, but look closer. BSF CEO Kathryn Leigh Goetz challenges the assumption that low-income families can't prioritize nourishment, and makes the case that true equity means both upgrading systems and honoring every family's agency.