As 2025 comes to a close, Foster America is marking the graduation of the 2024–2025 National Leadership Circle (NLC)—a yearlong fellowship designed to strengthen the leadership of people with lived experience in child welfare and position their expertise at the center of systems change.
This milestone reflects a core belief that guides our work: lived experience is expertise. When people who have navigated child welfare systems help design and lead solutions, those systems are more effective, more equitable, and better aligned with what families actually need.
Over the past year, the NLC cohort didn’t just participate in a fellowship—they shaped the field’s understanding of what shared leadership can look like in practice.
The National Leadership Circle is a 12-month fellowship designed to support people who have personally experienced the child welfare system—as youth, parents, caregivers, and family members—and who are now working to transform how families are supported.
For the 2024–2025 cycle, 11 fellows were selected from more than 100 applicants, representing diverse roles and geographies, including policy advocacy, community organizing, public service, education, housing, and systems reform.
What united them was more than lived experience. Fellows shared a commitment to prevention-first, dignity-centered approaches that move beyond crisis response and toward sustainable support for families. The fellowship reflects Foster America’s approach to systems change: investing in leadership that has historically been under-resourced and creating real pathways for lived experts to lead.
This is not professional development in the abstract. It is power-sharing in action.
Over 12 months, fellows moved through a structured yet flexible learning journey built around three core pillars:
Throughout the program, fellows received professional coaching, mentorship, and peer support. Fellows were compensated for their time, reflecting Foster America’s belief that lived experience is professional expertise and should be resourced accordingly.
The fellowship concluded with Beyond Survival, a learning series delivered as part of Foster America’s Fall Into Learning programming from October 15 through November 20, 2025.
The series was designed not as an internal showcase, but as a public contribution to the child welfare field. Each session was fully developed and led by NLC fellows, drawing on lived experience, professional expertise, and community-based practice.
The sessions explored topics including:
Rather than focusing on individual stories, fellows offered frameworks, strategies, and insights that practitioners, policymakers, and advocates can apply in their own work.
“The National Leadership Circle validated my purpose and reignited a fire within me, fueling both my personal growth and my mission.” — National Leadership Circle Fellow
The National Leadership Circle demonstrates what becomes possible when institutions move beyond consultation and toward shared leadership with lived experts.
By investing in leadership rooted in lived experience—and pairing that investment with structure, compensation, and care—Foster America is helping build a growing network of leaders equipped to partner with agencies, philanthropy, and communities to advance prevention-first, dignity-centered systems where families can thrive.
