(WASHINGTON) — A new bill in Washington, D.C., would allow foster youth to help define their own families — and it’s crafted by the very young people it seeks to serve.
Former and current foster youth helped create the Support, Opportunity, Unity and Legal Relationships Act, known as the SOUL Act. It’s a Washington, D.C., bill that would allow teens — ages 16 and up — to legally enlist multiple guardians, blood relatives or other trusted adults for support without having to completely cut legal ties to their birth parents.
Five of the youth involved in the legislation process sat down with ABC News’ Alex Presha in an exclusive interview for ABC News Live Prime.
The SOUL Act, which received unanimous support in the D.C. City Council, was signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser and sent to Congress where it has bipartisan support. It’s expected to take effect in September.
Kay Kay, 26, was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and placed in the foster care system when she was eight years old. She and the other foster youth advocates did not want to give their last names to ABC News for privacy reasons.
Kay Kay said her mother — who was raising her and her four sisters alone — just didn’t have the resources to care for them. “My mom did what she could,” Kay Kay told ABC News. “We all knew we was in poverty.”
She said she shuffled between foster homes and relatives until she turned 16 years old. Kay Kay learned to advocate for herself, figuring out her rights and speaking up as a teenager. She said she demanded that social workers include her in decisions about her own life.
“I was just speaking up for myself, like in an advocacy role,” Kay Kay said. “I thought I just always was an advocate for myself, for people, for thing. … I just always had that spirit in me.” That experience is what motivated her to team up with other current and former foster youth to help make a difference for the next generation.
“This would be the first permanency plan embracing that social norms and a family dynamic look different for each and every person,” Cierra, 28, a foster youth advocate and former foster child who worked on the bill, said to Washington, D.C., councilmembers during a council hearing she attended to advocate for the bill. Kay Kay, along with over 20 other youths who lived through D.C.’s foster care system, were enlisted by the Children’s Law Center and Family & Youth Initiative to craft the legislation.
If successful, our nation’s capital would be the second jurisdiction with a law like this on the books. Kansas passed similar legislation in 2024.
Through the SOUL Act, trusted adults who are chosen by youth and have been approved by the city, can aid them in making decisions about education, financial management, accessing health care and can even provide financial assistance and a home for them to live in.
“Your family can be your coach, your family can be your teacher, your family can be that auntie, uncle, cousin,” Princess, 27, an advocate and former foster child who worked on the bill, said in an interview with Presha. “Your family can, should be, and will always be your choice, no matter what anybody tells you. And I hope that they carry that within their hearts.”
Many D.C. teens choose to stay in the foster care system for resources, like education programs, housing placement and an assigned social worker after they age out, according to the Children’s Law Center. And while some have family members who can support them in certain ways, not all can provide a stable place to live. Under the new law, teens would be able to build their “SOUL family” and maintain that stability.
Youths who age out of foster care without support are more likely to experience housing insecurity, incarceration, unemployment, or have children at an early age, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
According to federal data, between 15,000 to 20,000 young people a year exit the foster care system — nationally — without adoption, a legal guardian or reunification with their biological family. In D.C., 18% of foster youth age out of the system without that support — twice the rate of the national average.
The estimated annual cost of a “SOUL family” in Washington, D.C., is about half of the price for a current foster care placement — $24,000 per year vs. $45,000 per year — according to the Children’s Law Center.
“I’m hoping that the youth can have something that I never had…Every child deserves a great childhood,” said 19-year-old- Zaniya.
Cierra continued, “I believe that there is a youth who’s coming after me who deserves a community…doesn’t matter about your behavior, doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter where you came from. You deserve to have a family.”
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