Foster Youth Mentoring Act of 2021

The Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth and the Youth Mentoring Caucus━two bipartisan groups of lawmakers within the U.S. House of Representatives━have introduced the Foster Youth Mentoring Act of 2021 to “connect young people in foster care, and young people with experience in foster care, with mentors and provide invaluable support to the agencies and organizations that seek to improve outcomes for foster youth through these positive relationships.” If passed, the bill would:

•  Authorize $50 million in funding to provide support to mentoring programs that serve foster youth. Programs would be eligible to receive funds to expand services to more youth in foster care and to improve services for current foster youth in their programs.
• Ensure that mentoring programs participating in the grant program are currently engaged or developing quality mentoring standards and best practices in screening volunteers, matching mentors, and successful mentoring relationships.
• Provide intensive training to adult volunteers who serve as mentors to foster youth to assure their competence in child development, family dynamics, the child welfare system, and other relevant systems that affect foster youth.
• Increase coordination between mentoring programs and statewide child welfare systems.

Read the text of the full bill here.