Honoring Emancipated Youth, or "HEY" as it is more commonly called in the foster care circle is an amazing intermediary. Originally started as a community project of the United Way of the Bay Area back in ’99 (someone correct me if I’m wrong), HEY has grown into it’s own NPO complete with two (soon to be three) full-time staff, a colorful Board of Directors, and four youth advocates (“EYAB”) who serve an 11 month term with HEY. I was fortunate enough to serve on the 2008-9 EYAB, with three other former foster youth. Our mission this past year was to develop a training in which we would teach people who work with or on behalf of youth, about the specific needs of working with former foster youth. So far, we’ve trained over 50 people, and the requests for more trainings keep rolling in. Through this non-traditional program we have been supported in not only reaching our goals within HEY, but in achieving our personal goals as well. In addition to the EYAB, HEY: runs several workgroups (education, employment) centered around the needs of former foster youth, collects data for the community, and tries to bring everyone to the table to discuss the needs of this underrepresented population. HEY focuses their work in four main areas: education, employment, housing and healthcare. If you are in the transitional aged youth, or foster care world in the Bay Area, these are people you NEED to be plugged in with. A+ Amazing work.
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- EIN
- 415-808-4435
- 221 Main Street San Francisco CA 94105 USA
- http://heysf.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Mission: HEY’s mission is to strengthen and connect San Francisco’s systems of support for Bay Area foster care youth so that all youth emancipating or aging out of the foster care system can enjoy a healthy transition to adulthood. HEY is the one organization in San Francisco that works specifically towards the strengthening of systems of service for emancipated foster care youth across sectors. We work to support a variety of solutions to the issues facing foster youth aging out of the system with a focus on housing, employment, education, and health care. We do this by: Serving as an information hub for the local community on current and former foster care youth issues Identifying issues and trends and advocating for policy alignment in order to promote best practices Convening stakeholders and providers and providing ongoing training and networking opportunities Raising public awareness and developing education materials for all community members
Geographic areas served: San Francisco Bay Area