May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and who better to help us understand the importance of foster care advocacy than young people who have been through the system themselves? For her May column in Richmond Family Magazine, Voices Executive Director Margaret Nimmo Holland spoke with Sophia Booker, a VCU student and youth network coordinator at United Methodist Family Services, who also experienced Virginia’s foster care system firsthand when she was younger.

Even with a rigorous school and work schedule, Sophia joined our coalition of advocates working to pass the “Fostering Futures” initiative under consideration during the 2016 legislative session, and her ideas, experience, and voice all helped make that campaign the great success that it was. Many young advocates formerly in foster care–like Sophia–were able to convey to policymakers just why Virginia needed this critical program that expanded services and supports for youth aging out of foster care up to age 21. Their expertise and their presence at the Capitol made it tough for legislators to ignore the problems–and the solutions–around youth aging out of foster care.

Sophia makes a great case for everyone to lend their voice to improve the lives of Virginia’s children–Read more here.

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