Project Mentor: Dr. Bill Whitney, Creative Inquiry
2025 Impact Fellows:
Lucy Fletcher '27
Addison Hobbs '27
Allison Seitzinger '27
Julia Widding '27
Project Description:
Fostering New Futures (FNF) is committed to empowering Transitional Age Youth (TAY) nearing the end of, or having aged out of, the foster care system in the Oakland/East Bay area of California. These youth are left without the everyday skills, nurturing relationships, and resources necessary to thrive as adults.
During the first year, the team met with local organizations, community leaders, and youth advocates to identify where foster youth need the most support, while also receiving restorative justice (RJ) training. From those insights, the team developed a model rooted in RJ and trauma-informed practices that emphasizes healing, mentorship, and community building.
Foster youth in the FNF program will build life and professional skills through peer-facilitated workshops, mentorship, and RJ certification training. Each activity begins and ends with RJ circles that foster reflection, learning, and belonging. The model includes summer sessions and year-long cohorts where participants learn practical skills such as cooking, budgeting, and civic engagement while passing their knowledge to new members. This creates a sustainable cycle of mentorship. In Year 2, we will conduct a pilot of this model in Oakland, leading the initial round of mentor training, building out the curriculum of workshops, and collecting early data on participants and mentors’ responses to these workshops.
Our partner, The Town Project in Vallejo, CA, will provide restorative justice certification and trauma-informed mediation training to project team members. By combining healing, skill-building, and community partnerships, FNF empowers foster youth to find purpose, gain agency, and mature successfully into adulthood. This enables them to not only to become active participants in their communities, but leaders within them.
All majors are welcome to apply, particularly those interested in social justice, restorative practices, and community-based programming and advocacy.