Selfless Love Blog

Selfless Love Foundation is proud to offer youth with lived experience a safe space to connect, express themselves, and feel heard. Our youth engagement initiative, One Voice Impact, further elevates youth voice by empowering our members to influence policy.

Growing up is a challenging journey for any young person, but the path can be even more arduous for those in foster care. Despite our nation’s value on independence, research and experience indicate that the expectation of self-sufficiency for young people who age out of the foster care system is a myth at best and unhealthy at worst.

Selfless Love Foundation’s One Voice Impact youth leaders are vocal about the need for Florida to improve how it delivers life skills training courses to youth in foster care. These youth have experienced the challenges of accessing these vital tools as they transition out of the system. As we continue to learn, the first step to effectively changing the system is listening to these voices of experience.

“Foster care is an imperfect solution to an impossible problem.” Those words from Lived Experience Expert, Gaelin Elmore, resonated with me as I attended the 2022 Texas Child Care Administrators Conference. Gaelin spoke about the importance of building a sense of belonging to unlock the potential of youth involved in the foster care system. Living in survival mode, they have spent most of their lives not knowing what it feels like to be part of a family or community.