Throughout the past month, we checked in with our 2025 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation. [Find each of their stories here.]

Children’s Law Center of California received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation to support its Young Parents Support & Advocacy Center, which provides early legal advocacy, intensive case management, and coordinated support for expectant and parenting foster youth. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

Interview Participant:

Leslie Starr Heimov, Executive Director

Jody Green, Director of Strategic Initiatives

Ebony Porter, Parent Support Case Manager

Princess Ramey, Firm Director

Ajeya Woods, Attorney

LA2050: Children's Law Center of California is working to interrupt the intergenerational cycle of foster care by supporting parenting foster youth through legal advocacy and intensive case management. How does this early, prevention-focused approach help young parents build stability and avoid system involvement with their own children?

Children’s Law Center: Children’s Law Center of California’s prevention model is designed to intervene early and before a concern escalates into a formal dependency case, which can have life-changing consequences for a young parent, their child, and their family. Through the Young Parents Support & Advocacy Center, expectant and parenting foster youth are paired with both an attorney and a case manager at a point when support can meaningfully change the trajectory of their lives. Families come to the program at different stages, some in the middle of an active investigation, others showing early warning signs but not yet on the Department of Children and Family Services’ radar, but the goal remains the same: stabilize the family and keep them together safely. That support can include rapid-response legal advocacy, case management, safety planning, family planning conversations, and connections to concrete resources like housing, diapers, childcare, and other basic needs.

Many of the young people we serve do not have a strong support system to rely on, and often have not had examples of what stable family support can look like. By providing legal advocacy alongside relationship-based case management, CLC helps young parents navigate investigations, avoid unnecessary court involvement, and build the confidence to advocate for themselves and their children. At its core, the model is not only about preventing further system involvement, but about helping young parents build stability, exercise agency, and begin breaking a generational cycle that many are deeply motivated to end.

LA2050: Your work centers on empowering young parents to navigate complex systems while building support networks around them. What challenges have you encountered implementing the model and what successes have you seen in helping families stay together and thrive?

Children’s Law Center: One of the biggest challenges we face with our clients is trust. Many of the young parents in the program have experienced trauma within multiple systems and are surrounded by mandated reporters in schools, placements, and service settings. That can make even ordinary parenting stress or conflict feel dangerous, because asking for help may risk triggering an investigation. A normal conflict or a moment of vulnerability can escalate into formal system involvement for a young parent already living under intense scrutiny. In that environment, helping clients feel safe enough to trust guidance, ask questions, and advocate for themselves takes time, rapport, and consistency.

Our greatest successes are when a parent is able to take their baby home at the end of the day with the tools and resources they need. There are many strategies that lead to this kind of success; perhaps the most important is coaching the client to become their own best advocate. Most clients don’t know that they can request to tour the hospital before giving birth, or that they are entitled to a doula. The YPSAC model is about building these young parents up to know their worth and feel empowered. CLC’s relational, empowerment-based approach helps young parents move from survival mode toward a stronger sense of agency - long-term success is measured not just by avoiding system involvement, but by helping families stay together and thrive with stronger networks around them.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

Children’s Law Center: In the final six months of the grant, we hope to continue building on the positive outcomes we’re already seeing for young families. This means fighting to keep families together, preventing additional trauma and deeper system involvement, and making sure our team has the resources and partnerships needed to keep providing this kind of up stream, preventative support. We’re also thinking about long-term sustainability, not just how to maintain the work that’s happening now, but how to grow it over time so more young parents can access this model of support.

The broader LA2050 community can support this work by helping us deepen partnerships and strengthen connections with other organizations serving similar populations. We’ve seen firsthand that opportunities to connect with fellow grantees can open the door to valuable partnerships, and they also reinforce that no one organization can meet every need on its own. One of our long-term goals is to make sure we are not the only people young parents can call when they need support. We want to help clients build broader, lasting communities of care beyond the child welfare system, and continued opportunities for networking, collaboration, and shared problem-solving across the LA2050 community could make a real difference in that effort.

Photo Credit: Center for Caregiver Advancement