Beloved FFA
Beloved is determined to revolutionize the foster care system by providing a compassionate and transformative alternative. We are committed to creating a nurturing environment that gives top priority to family reunification, empowerment, and reducing the criminalization of families, caregivers, and young people.
The Beloved Foster Family Agency (FFA) is an innovative FFA seamlessly integrated into our larger model to drive change. Guided by our mission and vision, we are focused on interrupting cycles of poverty, incarceration, and homelessness.
Beloved firmly believes that community-based alternatives have the power to reshape the paths of young lives. By actively partnering with youth and families entangled in the juvenile legal system, we are reimagining placement and permanency planning in a way that minimizes institutional harm and fosters a sense of belonging, ultimately strengthening families and communities.
Beloved FFA advocates for family reunification and decriminalization for dependents of the California child welfare system and juvenile courts through foster care services centered around community-based alternatives to incarceration, particularly through family and kinship placements. Beloved recruits, interviews, trains, and approves dedicated and qualified resource families as part of concurrent permanency planning. Our services are tailored to meet the unique needs of young people and families, ensuring they have access to the support and resources necessary to accomplish their goals while promoting safety, stability, well-being, joy, interconnectedness, and permanency.
Beloved FFA will be piloting in Los Angeles and the Bay Area in 2024 and 2025.
Why California Needs Beloved
CA has the largest populations of youth navigating foster care and houselessness, systems that are both deeply interconnected with the juvenile justice system.
Homelessness
Nearly 44% of young people who have experienced homelessness have been in jail, prison, or juvenile detention centers; 78% have had at least one interaction with the police; and nearly 62% have been arrested at least once.
Poverty
Youth from low-income families are more than 7x more likely to be referred to Child Protective Services, and 85% of families investigated have incomes at 200% below the Federal poverty level. 64% of all these cases are due to a lack of food, housing, or basic utilities.
Removals
When youth are removed from their homes, they are typically sent to foster homes or Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Programs (“STRTPs”), where they are living with strangers, separated from their siblings, enrolled in new schools, and excluded from decision-making processes that impact their lives. As a result, as many as ⅓ of foster youth run away from these placements, increasing their likelihood of arrest and incarceration and making it more difficult to find future placement.
This cycle has led to girls and gender-expansive youth being held in detention solely because they do not have a safe and comfortable placement to be released to.
Beloved Village is a fiscally sponsored project of Young Women’s Freedom Center (DBA Freedom Center)