The Fostered
2026–2027 Prospectus
Building Better Futures Listening Tour
A Statewide Youth Engagement and Systems Change Initiative
Executive Summary
The Fostered's Building Better Futures Listening Tour is a statewide initiative that centers the expertise of current and former foster youth in shaping the future of child welfare in Texas.
Across Texas, thousands of young people with lived experience possess deep knowledge about what works, what doesn't, and what must change. Yet too often, their experiences are collected through surveys, focus groups, and advisory committees that never result in visible action. The Building Better Futures Listening Tour was created to change that.
Over the course of the inaugural campaign, The Fostered will host a series of virtual conversations, regional community gatherings, and partner-hosted engagement sessions designed to compensate young people for their expertise, identify opportunities for systems improvement, and translate lived experience into tangible action through technology, research, policy, and public engagement. This is not simply a listening campaign. It is the beginning of a long-term commitment to ensuring that young people help design the systems intended to serve them.
Our Vision
We envision a foster care system where young people are not passive recipients of services, but active partners in designing policies, programs, and technologies that affect their lives. By investing in lived expertise, building meaningful relationships, and creating clear pathways from community engagement to systems change, The Fostered seeks to establish a new model for participatory leadership in child welfare.
Why a Listening Tour?
Young people with lived experience have spent decades informing systems through personal testimony, advisory committees, focus groups, and research projects. Despite these efforts, many continue to ask the same question:
"What happened with everything we shared?"
The Fostered believes meaningful engagement requires more than listening. It requires transparency, accountability, and action. The Listening Tour was designed to ensure participant expertise directly informs organizational priorities, technology development, research, policy advocacy, and systems improvement efforts. Every conversation should have a purpose. Every participant should know their voice matters. Every insight should have the opportunity to become action.
Our Goals
Campaign Design
The Listening Tour combines multiple engagement formats to ensure participation is accessible regardless of geography, transportation, schedules, or community connections.
Virtual Listening Sessions
Approximately five participants; sixty-minute facilitated discussion; one lead facilitator and one co-facilitator/note-taker; participant compensation; accessible virtual platform.
Twelve sessions · approximately sixty participants
Regional Community Conversations
Hosted with community partners whenever possible, including shared meals, facilitated dialogue, and opportunities to connect.
Proposed Regions: San Antonio, Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, East Texas, West Texas
Six regional conversations · 15–25 participants per event
Partner Listening Sessions
Collaborations with foster care alumni organizations, CASA programs, colleges and universities, child advocacy organizations, youth leadership initiatives, and community-based nonprofits.
Meeting young people where they already gather
What We Explore
The Listening Tour is designed to understand systems, not simply collect personal stories. Guided conversations may explore topics including those below. Participants always choose what they wish to discuss and may decline any question.
- Relationships and belonging
- Youth voice and decision making
- Rights and access to information
- Education
- Disability and accessibility
- Physical and behavioral health
- Housing and transition to adulthood
- Permanency and lifelong connections
- Technology and information access
- Accountability and oversight
- Community support
- Policy priorities
- Ideas for future solutions
Our Commitment to Participants
Every participant deserves an experience built on dignity, respect, and transparency. The Fostered is committed to:
- Recognizing lived experience as expertise.
- Compensating participants for their time and contributions.
- Providing trauma-informed facilitation.
- Creating welcoming and accessible spaces.
- Respecting participant choice and confidentiality.
- Communicating how participant expertise informs future work.
Compensation recognizes the value of participants' time and expertise. It is never payment for personal stories or trauma.
From Conversation to Action
The Listening Tour is only the beginning. Insights gathered through each session will help shape future features within The Fostered's technology platform, research priorities, policy recommendations, educational resources, community engagement initiatives, systems improvement strategies, and public reports highlighting statewide trends. The Fostered is committed to demonstrating how participant expertise contributes to meaningful change over time.
Campaign Deliverables
Community Engagement
- Approximately twenty facilitated engagement sessions
- Approximately one hundred compensated youth participants
- Representation from every major region of Texas
- Expanded statewide partnerships
Research and Knowledge
- Statewide findings report
- Regional summaries
- Systems barriers analysis
- Emerging research agenda
- Community-informed recommendations
Technology
- Prioritized user experience recommendations
- Product requirements informed by lived experience
- Future platform enhancements
Policy and Systems Change
- Policy issue briefs
- Practice improvement recommendations
- Legislative priorities
- Future advocacy initiatives
Campaign Timeline
September 2026
Launch the inaugural virtual pilot and refine facilitation methods.
October–November 2026
Begin monthly virtual sessions and host the first regional conversations.
December 2026
Continue statewide virtual engagement and conduct a midpoint review.
January–April 2027
Expand regional conversations, strengthen partnerships, and identify emerging statewide themes.
May 2027
Complete the inaugural campaign, publish findings, and announce the next phase of The Fostered's work.
The Impact of Funds
Support for the Listening Tour is an investment in compensated youth expertise, trauma-informed engagement, and the translation of lived experience into systems change. The largest share always goes to the young people whose expertise drives this work.
- Participant stipends — the largest share, compensating youth for their time and expertise.
- Facilitation and trauma-informed support — facilitators, co-facilitators, note-takers, and accessible platforms.
- Venues, meals, and travel — so geography is never a barrier to participation.
- Research and reporting — statewide findings, regional summaries, and a public research agenda.
- Technology development — feeding lived experience directly into SaySo and future enhancements.
- Coordination and operations — campaign logistics, partnership management, and communication back to participants.
Partnership Opportunities
The Building Better Futures Listening Tour is designed to be a collaborative statewide effort. Community organizations, foundations, businesses, universities, government agencies, and individual supporters can partner with The Fostered by:
- Hosting a regional conversation.
- Sponsoring participant stipends.
- Providing meeting space.
- Supporting meals or travel.
- Connecting young people to the Listening Tour.
- Volunteering professional expertise.
- Investing in statewide systems change.
Looking Ahead
The inaugural Building Better Futures Listening Tour is more than a series of conversations. It is the foundation of a long-term statewide effort to ensure that lived experience informs technology, research, public policy, and systems improvement. The Fostered believes the people closest to the challenges are also closest to the solutions. Together, we can build stronger systems, better opportunities, and brighter futures for current and future generations of young people with lived experience in foster care.
Because better futures should be built with young people, not simply for them.