André V. Chapman, CEO and president of Fostering Promise, a nonprofit that aims to ensure every young person aging out of foster care has access to a successful future, will participate in a panel at the 2026 CSBA Counties Governance Workshop, March 11-12 in San Diego, on supporting foster youth along with Ken Berrick, Alameda County Board of Education president, and founder and CEO of Just Advocates. Click here to learn more about the workshop.
Ahead of the workshop, CSBA spoke with Chapman about Fostering Promise, the challenges facing foster youth, effective supports and interventions and more. Read the interview below.
What are the biggest challenges foster youth in California face when it comes to staying in school and succeeding academically?
One of the biggest challenges foster youth face in California is being absent — particularly through suspension, expulsion and poor attendance. [Suspension and expulsion] are forms of exclusionary discipline, and foster youth are disproportionately impacted compared to their non-foster peers. The disparities deepen when race is added. Black students in California are suspended at rates of roughly 15-17 percent, Latino students at about 6-8 percent, compared to just 2-3 percent for white students. Foster youth overall are suspended at rates around 13-14 percent, but Black foster youth often exceed 20 percent, making them the most disciplined students in our education system. These practices are strongly linked to poorer academic outcomes — lower achievement, disengagement and higher dropout rates.
At the same time, foster youth experience frequent placement changes that disrupt schooling, cause lost credits and create gaps in instruction. Less than half of foster youth graduate from high school. Many are also navigating unresolved trauma, unmet mental health needs and basic survival concerns.
How does Fostering Promise ensure that the voices and leadership of current and former foster youth shape your policy priorities and organizational strategy?
Youth voice is not advisory for us — it’s foundational. Fostering Promise was born out of youth-led advocacy, and our policy priorities were directly shaped by current and former foster youth through focus groups, lived-experience strategic advisors and our Young Adult Advisory Council.
Young people help define the problems, test solutions and hold us accountable. That includes shaping our housing, education, mentorship and data priorities. We believe systems work better when those most impacted help design them.
How does Fostering Promise address educational challenges alongside its focus on housing and mentorship?
At Fostering Promise, we see education, housing and mentorship as inseparable. A student who doesn’t know where they’ll sleep tonight will struggle to focus in class — or even show up. And a student without a trusted adult is far more likely to disengage when challenges arise, because there’s no one helping them navigate obstacles that most of us had parents or caregivers to help us through.
That’s why our work addresses educational challenges by first stabilizing the conditions that make learning possible. Beginning as early as age 16, we are developing a mobile prevention solution “My Housing Platform” that helps young people plan ahead through Housing Readiness Plans, access housing navigation, connect to mentors and understand timelines and options before they age out of foster care. Combined with a safe place to call home, a consistent caring mentor and coordinated supports across systems, this early planning enables school stability, smoother transitions and postsecondary readiness.
When housing is stable, mentors are present and schools and community partners are aligned, young people are better able to stay enrolled, recover credits, plan for college or careers and persist through setbacks. Educational outcomes improve when foster youth are safely housed, supported, and connected — not when education is treated in isolation from their lived reality.
Fostering Promise convenes cross-sector partners — like housing, child welfare and mental health sectors — to address systemic issues. How can schools and districts better collaborate with organizations like yours and others in their communities to improve outcomes for foster youth?
Fostering Promise is intentionally bringing together people who are rarely in the same room to solve some of our most complex, shared challenges. We’ve convened legislators, educators, tech leaders, housing providers and developers, child welfare and mental health leaders, and policy advocates to push all of us to think beyond our lanes and break down the silos that our students fall through.
Schools can play a powerful role by moving from referral-based relationships to true partnership-relationships where information is shared appropriately, supports are coordinated, and everyone is aligned around common outcomes like housing security, school stability, attendance and successful transitions between systems.
When that coordination doesn’t happen, we see the consequences immediately: students disengage, attendance drops, attendance-based funding is impacted and ultimately graduation rates suffer. Districts can strengthen collaboration by inviting community partners into planning conversations early — not after a crisis — and by designating clear points of contact for foster youth and partner organizations. That clarity makes collaboration more consistent, more efficient and far more effective for the young people we’re all trying to serve.
What specific supports or interventions do you think schools should provide to help foster youth succeed academically? And how about supporting their mental health/social-emotional skills?
Academically, foster youth succeed when schools focus on empowerment, not just compliance. That starts with students feeling welcomed and valued when they walk on campus, being culturally connected to a trusted school advocate and having access to flexible credit recovery, tutoring and academic supports. It also requires dedicated staff who understand the foster care system and the lived experiences of foster youth.
Equally important are trauma-informed mental health and social-emotional supports. Foster youth benefit from counselors and staff trained in complex trauma, culturally responsive practices and the creation of safe spaces where students feel seen, heard and respected.
Consistency matters more than programs, and trusted adults make the difference. And when schools step outside their traditional box and intentionally engage caregivers, extended family and support networks, they begin supporting the whole student, not just their academic performance. That, too, is effective engagement — when the entire ecosystem around a young person is aligned with their success.
What do you consider some of the biggest policy barriers at the state or local level that prevent foster youth from accessing equitable educational opportunities — and how is Fostering Promise working to change those policies? How can schools advocate better for foster students on a policy level?
At Fostering Promise, our North Star is simple and urgent: ensuring that no young person ages out of foster care without a safe place to call home, the support of a caring mentor and the hope of a promising future. We are singularly focused on that goal because we are working to eradicate the foster care-to-homelessness-to-prison pipeline — and education is a critical interruption point.
Some of the biggest policy barriers to equitable educational opportunities include lack of coordination across systems, inconsistent enforcement of foster youth education protections, and policies that fail to account for the realities of housing instability, trauma and frequent transitions. Too often, support for foster youth are optional rather than guaranteed, which means access depends on where a student lives, who their caseworker is or whether an individual educator knows the rules.
Fostering Promise is working to change this by advancing youth-informed policy reforms, improving data sharing and alignment across education, housing, child welfare and mental health systems, and pushing for accountability so protections on paper are implemented in practice.
Schools play a critical role in policy advocacy. They can elevate foster youth needs in district and state policy conversations, consistently enforce existing protections, share data that shows what’s working and what’s not, and partner with community organizations to advocate for structural, not just programmatic solutions. When schools use their voice and their data to advocate upstream, they help shift systems from crisis response to prevention and that’s where real equity begins.
As Fostering Promise works on long-term changes through efforts like The Promise Campaign and housing programs, how do you see education fitting into that bigger picture? What do schools need in order to better support foster youth and be part of that solution?
The Promise Campaign is Fostering Promise’s fundraising effort to resource and launch a two-year pilot beginning in 2027, designed to prove that homelessness among youth aging out of foster care is preventable.
First, we are developing Housing Readiness Plans, using My Housing Platform — a mobile solution currently in design to ensure housing is intentional and not left to chance. Second, we are building the pipeline for more and better-suited housing, including identifying 500 youth-appropriate units by 2027 that align with young people’s housing, educational and employment needs. Third, we are expanding pathways to ensure every young person has a caring mentor, particularly through partnerships with Court Appointed Special Advocates, so that no young person enters adulthood alone. Fourth, we are working with housing authorities and child welfare agencies to inform and reform adult systems, improving how FYI/FUP housing vouchers and related supports can be accessed before a young person ages out of care. Fifth, we are establishing the data, insights and accountability framework needed to measure what works, continuously improve, and evaluate the pilot as a proof of concept with the goal of scaling across California.
Education fits into this bigger picture as a key outcome, not a standalone solution. As we build housing stability, mentorship, system alignment and access to information, young people will be better positioned to stay connected to school, attend consistently and transition successfully to college or careers once the pilot launches.
For schools to be part of the solution, Fostering Promise needs resources, strong cross-sector partnerships, and policies that recognize foster youth not as “at risk,” but as full of promise. When education systems align with housing, mentorship and mental health supports, and engages early rather than in crisis, foster youth won’t just persist in school, they will thrive.
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Over three decades as founder and former CEO of Unity Care Group, André V. Chapmen grew the organization from start-up to a $20 million enterprise serving more than 7,500 youth and families a year through education, housing, employment, and mental health services across northern California. Today Chapman is leading his most audacious endeavor as the founder and CEO of Fostering Promise “Advocates-4-change”, where he is leading statewide advocacy and policy efforts to ensure no young person ages out of foster care without a safe place to call home, the support of a caring mentor, and the hope for a promising future.
