Redlich Horwitz Foundation

A foundation-funded advocacy push to provide full-time life coaches to New York City foster youth has secured an initial investment in next year’s budget, City Hall sources have confirmed to The Imprint.

The Redlich Horwitz Foundation is staffing up a new support center devoted to helping New York transform its child welfare system. New York formally opposed the landmark reform that is encouraging the transformation – the Family First Prevention Services Act, signed by President Trump last year – but it will now be one of the first states with an organization devoted to helping local child welfare agencies meet the new strings attached to federal funds.

Five years ago, the leaders of Onondaga County, New York — home to nearly half a million people, the city of Syracuse, and hills, lakes, rivers — saw an opportunity. The number of children placed in foster care had dropped to a little more than 200 from the nearly 900 placed in the system in the late 1990s.

It’s a crisp December day, and the city is bustling. The crowds move slowly, weaving between twinkling lights and ornate window displays, humming with the promise of the upcoming holiday season.

In May, a couple hundred technologists, child welfare experts and foster youth gathered on the grounds of the White House for the first foster care hackathon to reach such national prominence.