The 2025 tax season will be the third year that current and former foster youth ages 18-25 can claim the California Foster Youth Tax Credit on their state tax return. On Wednesday, January 15, 2025, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m., John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY) will host a 2025 tax season kick-off training, geared toward county child welfare agencies and their community partners.
The virtual training will equip attendees with resources and information for helping nonminor dependents and former foster youth learn about, prepare for, and file their state and federal taxes. In 2024, current and former foster youth who filed their taxes received an average of $1,370 for single filers and $5,265 for parenting (head of household) filers.
The training will include a review of JBAY’s “Taxes 101” workshop curriculum for youth, available to Independent Living Programs, housing and service providers, and any other individuals or organizations interested in hosting an in-person or virtual tax education and preparation workshop for youth. The training will also discuss how to conduct outreach, how to host self-filing events, how to refer youth to Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites, and how to help youth utilize JBAY’s self-filing guide.
In 2021, JBAY embarked on Project 3,500 with the goal of expanding state resources for housing to reach at least 3,500 youth. California has made new investments in housing for youth leaving the foster care system, acknowledging the increased risk of homelessness and disproportionate impact of the state’s housing crisis on this population. As a result of these investments, California’s capacity to serve former foster youth through supportive transitional housing and federal housing vouchers has increased by 70% since 2021, reaching more than 3,700 youth at a moment in time.
This webinar will mark the release of a report by JBAY discussing this increase in capacity, related findings and recommendations. Information for the report was drawn from publicly available data, a statewide survey of county child welfare agencies, and interviews of county child welfare representatives and service providers.
Please join John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY) for this “how-to” webinar to assist adult supporters working with California’s foster youth and unaccompanied homeless youth to successfully complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or California Dream Act Application (CADAA). The webinar will review the FAFSA and CADAA, page by page, including detailed instructions on how eligible students can qualify as independent students for the purposes of maximizing financial aid. Presenters will also provide information on key steps to take after the FAFSA or CADAA is completed, such as creating a WebGrants account.
2024 Blueprint For Success Conference
The 2024 Blueprint for Success Conference will be a dynamic two-day event combining meaningful networking opportunities with in-depth workshops presented by professionals with a passion and aptitude for supporting foster youth to graduate college ready to thrive in the 21st century workplace.
This year’s event will be held on October 28/29, 2024, in Los Angeles at the LAX Westin. The conference will feature breakout sessions, plenary sessions with keynote speakers, and networking opportunities, including a reception on the evening of October 28.
In addition, eighty foster youth scholars will be selected to receive subsidized conference registration along with fully paid travel costs to attend the event. Scholars selected to attend will also receive training on networking, strategic sharing, foster care issues and education opportunities prior to the event.
To learn more and to register, please visit our conference website.
Foster youth continue to lag far behind their peers when it comes to college completion, and college affordability has long been cited as the most common barrier that foster youth face. In recognition of the multitude of disadvantages that these students often confront, Senator Angelique Ashby championed legislation in 2023 that successfully expanded the Middle Class Scholarship (MCS) for current and former foster youth pursuing a bachelor’s degree at a CSU, UC or California community college.
This webinar will highlight exciting new findings from a soon to be released report from the Urban Institute, Paying for College as a Student with Foster Care History, which analyzed the usage of this expanded aid across the 2023-24 academic year and shed light on the impact that has been realized as a result of this expansion. In addition, this webinar will reveal new insights from thirteen focus groups with students who were eligible to receive MCS funding to better understand the impact of financial aid in their postsecondary educational journey, from their decision to enroll and their perceptions of affordability to the impact it makes on their current college experience.
Attendees will hear from JBAY, Senator Ashby, the Urban Institute and a student with lived experience about the realities students with foster care experience face paying for college and recommendations to ensure that all foster youth have a fair shot at pursuing their educational goals.
It is without question that college is unaffordable for many students, particularly those with the least resources. While crucial work is being done to expand the availability of financial aid, a less understood issue is how higher education institutions approach setting cost of attendance (COA) budgets, which impact how much financial aid students can receive.
This webinar will highlight findings from JBAY’s soon to be released, groundbreaking report, College Costs Uncovered: An Examination of the Accuracy of College Cost of Attendance Budgets and Implications for Student Success. JBAY compared COA budgets to regional living expenses and made startling discoveries regarding the accuracy of these budgets. Panelists will include institutional representatives along with the report authors who will share the findings and will provide actionable recommendations on institutional practices and state policies that can ensure COA budgets accurately reflect students’ true college costs and allow them to access critical financial aid that supports their academic success.
John Burton Advocates for Youth improves the quality of life for youth in California who have been in foster care or homeless by advocating for better laws, training communities to strengthen local practices and conducting research to inform policy solutions.
