Veteran staff member Debbie Raucher has been promoted to Chief Program Officer at John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY), effective July 1st. Debbie has led the JBAY education team since 2011 and thanks to her leadership, access to higher education has been fundamentally improved for youth who have been in foster care or homeless in California.
Debbie joined as a part-time employee in 2010, to help JBAY implement a large federal grant to help community-based organizations serving homeless youth. Executive Director Amy Lemley quickly saw how valuable Debbie’s contribution was and worked to bring her on board as a full–time staff member.
The process took four years, with Debbie gradually dedicating more time to JBAY and less to her thriving consultancy. According to Amy, the impact was immediate. “Debbie has been the leading force in developing and executing our education agenda at JBAY. Today, higher education is within reach for California’s foster youth and much of that directly tracks back Debbie.”
A key victory for Debbie was the passage of SB 1023, authored by California State Senator Carol Liu, which established the first-ever publicly funded campus support program. Since then, Debbie and the education team have continued to work to expand this critical program and in 2023 achieved the goal of having a foster youth campus support program at every community college, California State University campus and University of California campus.
Debbie has kept up the momentum, working to expand financial aid for youth who have been in foster care. This has included technical assistance projects to help foster youth complete the financial aid application process, a policy to prevent the loss of financial aid, and in 2023 a policy to increase affordability for foster youth attending post-secondary education.
“I am very proud of the progress that we have made to help support foster and homeless youth to realize their college and career goals. There is clearly much more that needs to be done to ensure that these youth are afforded every opportunity to live their very best lives. I look forward to leading JBAY’s efforts to advance policies that promote college and career access, housing stability and economic mobility in my new role.”
In her new role as Chief Program Officer, Debbie will now lead both JBAY programs: the college and career program, now led by Jessica Petrass and the housing and economic mobility program, led by Simone Tureck Lee.
This promotion is aligned with JBAY’s recently adopted strategic plan and will also support the new executive director to join JBAY in the fall, according to Executive Director Amy Lemley. “With Debbie in this role, we are ensuring consistency, continuity and most importantly: quality. Thank you Debbie for all you have done for young people and for stepping into this role at this important moment for JBAY.”