Young People Lead - Standing on Policy

Join a panel of advocates, policymakers, and leaders as they examine child well-being policy in California. The discussion highlights how laws like the California Fostering Connections to Success Act have supported youth aging out of foster care, while revealing persistent gaps in housing, education, and mental health services. Panelists share personal experiences, innovative programs, and policy...

Join Dr. Charity Chandler-Cole as she shares her journey from a system-involved youth to transformative leader, mother, and advocate. Drawing from lived experience, she explores how urgency and love must work together to create lasting change in child welfare and justice systems. In this keynote, Dr. Chandler-Cole challenges us to question policies that harm, act swiftly to remove barriers for chi...

In this episode, fellows confront how stereotypes and low expectations push foster youth toward the juvenile justice system, where a single mistake can carry lifelong consequences. Through lived experience and a conversation with Melissa Milchman of Coalition for Juvenile Justice, the episode examines how system involvement disrupts education, housing, and opportunity, and how community-based solu...

In this episode, fellows share firsthand experiences of aging out of care and navigating housing instability, naming the fear, shame, and resilience that accompany life without a safe place to land. The conversation expands with insights from Victor Hinderliter of Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, who breaks down the systemic roots of youth homelessness and the community-based solu...

In this episode, fellows reflect on how foster care, housing instability, and systemic inequity shape young people’s educational journeys, often turning schools into sites of harm instead of support. Through personal testimony and a conversation with Derek Steele of Social Justice Learning Institute, the episode explores education as both a barrier and a powerful tool for healing, civic engagement...

In this opening episode, young leaders with lived experience in foster care and youth homelessness speak candidly about what it means to be heard, believed, and empowered within systems that often fail them. Panelists reflect on resilience, racial and gender identity, gatekeeping, and the power of community in shaping their advocacy. This conversation sets the foundation for a series grounded in t...

In our 6th and final episode of Season 1, Host Jordyn Wilson brings together the youth policy consultants for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Lashawnda Kilgore to discuss her research on child well-being, as well as share key takeaways from the series.

Episode 5 of Season 1 takes a look at the ways that youth voice is being incorporated into changes in child welfare policy. Host Daftne Sanchez has two brilliant conversations with guests Idelia Robinson-Confer and Sixto Cancel. Join host Daftne Sanchez and co-host Jordyn Wilson to learn more.

Episode 4 of Season 1 of the Young People Lead podcast is all about the workforce. Join host Cody Rooney and co-host Kyla Woods, as they discuss how workforce policy impacts young people presently, and how young people can take part in changing the landscape of work for future generations. This is an insightful conversation with guests Mary Kay Dugan, a researcher with the American Institutes for...

Episode 3 of Season 1 of the Young People Lead podcast is all about the youth legal system. Join host Mantryll Williams and co-host Tyra Beamon as they discuss how young people are making changes to policies in the legal system with guests Professor Latoya Thomas, Professor of Criminology and Sociology, and Jordyn Wilson, Youth Justice Campaign Associate at The Sentencing Project. Credible Messeng...

This is Episode 2 of Season 1 on education. Join us for an enlightening conversation about how young people can lead in education policy making, with a special focus on accessibility to higher education for students of color and those with disabilities. In this episode, Youth Policy Consultant (YPC) Tyra Beamon and her co-host YPC Cody Rooney, sit down for an engaging discussion with AIR Equity In...

Episode 1, Season 1: Join us for an enlightening conversation on how we can ensure that the leaders of our movements are consistently passing power from one generation to the next, with joy! Welcome to the first episode in the new Young People Lead podcast, powered by Children's Defense Fund. In this episode, Youth Policy Consultant (YPC) Kyla Woods and her co-host YPC Tryll Williams, sit down...

Credible Messenger Podcast now has a SISTER PODCAST! Following the success of The Credible Messenger Podcast , American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), supported by a new strategic agreement to merge its resources into Children's Defense Fund, is about to drop a new six-part series on the value of the youth voice in policy making, hosted by six AYPF Youth Policy Consultants. This new podcast is cal...