Empowering Youth in Foster Care

At the heart of MARE’s work with and on behalf of youth is the commitment to put them at the center of all that we do. This commitment underlies our programs, messaging, and processes to achieve opportunities for youth to be the owners of their stories, to be treated with respect and dignity, and to facilitate connections and relationships where they might continue growing, healing, and discovering all their potential.  We focus our youth empowerment efforts in 3 concrete ways:

• Ensuring that youth are described in a positive way stressing their strengths, interests, and unique personalities. We believe that youth have so much potential and are capable of taking agency in the decisions about their future. For this reason their likes, dreams, and aspirations must be heard, respected, supported, and amplified.
• Creating spaces, programs, and tools to collect and record feedback from youth in ways that are respectful of their stories and contextualized for their particular needs and limitations. 
• Reviewing and redesigning continually our matching events for older youth ensuring that the feedback received from them is implemented and that families attending these events are educated about how to better support their growth and development.

UPDATED 02/2025