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Youth Voice
Movement
One Voice IMPACT
YOUTH VOICE
FOSTERs CHANGE
One Voice IMPACT (OVI) is a youth engagement initiative powered by Selfless Love Foundation that provides youth impacted by foster care with opportunities to:
- DEVELOP skills for leadership and life
- ADVOCATE for changes to policy
- JOIN a network of youth leaders across the state of Florida to improve the system of care
Together, our network of young people and child welfare professionals are elevating youth voice to raise awareness about the value of youth participation in decisions that impact their future.
What is One voice impaact?
Join the Youth Voice Movement
Youth Voice Echos across the state
Want to be heard? Integrate YOUR VOICE into decision making, program improvement, policy development, and other important areas by getting involved with OVI's various programs.
Read what changes youth would like to see implemented in Florida's foster care system.
Check out our new 2022 OVI Manual!
Preview Our 2021 Year-End Report to Learn More!
WANT TO LEARN MORE about our ovi network of councils?
Check out our OVI Manual Here!
One voice impaact
About us
Who? Youth Leaders impacted by the foster care system
What? Selfless Love Foundation’s youth-driven initiative amplifying youth voice
Where? Youth Councils are formed across the state of Florida
When? Monthly meetings and quarterly webinars
How? Sign up by joining the youth voice movement HERE
“OVI is the coolest thing ever. It gives a voice to foster care youth. It gives us an opportunity to tell the leaders to make changes.”
Meet our Team
Elizabeth Wynter, EdD, LMHC
SLF Executive Director
Brandie McCabe
SLF Youth Initiatives Director
Kendra Hilton
OVI Network Director
Jenna Leon
SLF Community Relations Director
our programs
Network of youth councils
The OVI Network of Youth Councils seeks to harness authentic youth voice, giving youth with lived experience opportunities to work alongside system leaders to find solutions to local issues and give councils a platform for statewide collaboration.
Want to learn more about our Youth Councils? Contact Kendra at [email protected].
advocacy training
OVI provides self, local, and legislative advocacy training to agencies across Florida. Youth and staff champions learn alongside one another on how and when youth with lived foster care experience should participate in decisions that impact them and develop strategies for improving the very system designed to provide them with services and support.
A special thank you to our community partners!
Five selected finalists will present their dreams/aspirations on May 14, 2022 at The Dream Tank Competition in Palm Beach.
Each finalist will receive an award of $1,000. The winner will receive a $5,000 award.
All contestants have completed Leadership Training prior to entering.
dale carnegie training
Each year, OVI provides Foundation for Success – Dale Carnegie Virtual Leadership Training to a select group of youth from around the state with the help of our generous sponsor, Pulte Family Charitable Foundation. Over the course of six (6) meetings, participants develop vital skills in the following key areas:
Financial | Personal | Community | Education | Vocation | Health
dream tank competition
Former foster youth who successfully complete the Dale Carnegie Training are eligible to apply to participate in Selfless Love’s Dream Tank. Five youth are selected to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Over the course of the year, Dream Tank contestants will participate in sessions on speech writing and presentation, professional etiquette, business tips from top leaders, and investment basics. They will be introduced to professional connections in their field of interest and gain valuable knowledge and skills as they prepare to reveal their dream at Dream Tank Competition held each spring the night before SLF’s Gala in Palm Beach, Florida. On top of this incredible experience, all finalists will receive a $1,000 award and the winner receives a $5,000 award.
OUR 2022 finalists
Bailey Johnson
Dream: To open a supportive housing community that provides former foster youth with a loving environment and positive role models to guide them toward accomplishing their dreams.
Delgadina (Dina) Santos
Dream: To create a centralized resource hub for domestic violence, sexual violence, human trafficking, and child abuse survivors
Demarco Mott
Dream: To build upon and enhance resources and supports dedicated for those with lived foster care experience and advocate to make these benefits uniform across the U.S.
Kaitlynn Hanson
Dream: To own a coffee shop that employs underrepresented people and creates a safe place for them to learn life skills with real life opportunities to grow, learn, and be supported.
Lucan Phillips
Dream: To have a nonprofit that creates opportunities for underserved children through mentorship.
Thank you to The Pulte Family Foundation for supporting our Dale Carnegie Leadership Training and Dream Tank Competition.
follow the love
Youth transitioning out of the foster care system need all the same things that other youth need but without family to support them they have a steeper climb to self-sufficiency. Follow the Love (FTL) is a relational permanency initiative focused on ensuring that ALL youth who age out of the system have a formalized connection with a supportive adult to help them transition to adulthood. In 2022, the FTL collaborative initiative is being launched as a pilot in Florida with six (6) agencies.
FOSTER youth voice month
Help us change the way the world sees foster youth each October and year-round through our Foster Youth Voice month campaign that features blogs written by youth with lived foster care experience and system professionals, events with our Network of Youth Councils, and more!
Stay tuned for more on our 2022 campaign and get involved by emailing [email protected]!
Dream Tank 2022 Applications Due September 3, 2021
get plugged in!
OVI has partnered with the Florida Institute for Child Welfare (FICW) on a podcast series to get "Transition-Age Foster Youth Get Plugged Into Resources." Listen to learn more about how you can access these resources!
OViReports
Dale Carnegie Leadership Training
“Participating in Dale Carnegie Leadership Training is providing me with tools I’ll use for a lifetime!”
Brown’s Harbor
If I want to be successful, I must first believe in myself, I know that I am capable of anything, and live out these beliefs every day. The leadership trainings have taught me that if I don’t believe in myself first, nobody else will.
Dale Carnegie Training
Dale Carnegie Training taught me how to communicate in my personal and professional life.
Brown’s Harbor
When I was 17, I was left homeless for two months and still in high school. Then I found Brown’s Harbor and my life changed forever.
