The Washington Post: DC foster system veterans wrote a bill to let teens make their own families

Meagan Flynn of The Washington Post spent six months shadowing four current and former foster youth as they drafted and advocated for a new law to support older youth in care.

In DC, 50-60% of older youth in foster care age out of the system. The rate of young people in DC who age out without a permanent family is twice the national average. All too often, young people exit care without the sustained support that everyone needs to be successful in life.

Over the past two years, Children’s Law Center has worked with more than 20 youth who are or have been in DC’s foster care system, along with DC agencies and other government leaders, to develop SOUL: the Support, Opportunity, Unity, Legal Relationships Amendment Act of 2025.

SOUL is a youth-driven, new permanency goal for older youth (16+) in foster care, which legally recognizes and supports the circle of loving adults in an older youth’s life who are committed to their future. 

“One of the beautiful things about SOUL is it opens up a much broader, more dynamic vision of what a family is,” said Tami Weerasingha-Cote, policy director at Children’s Law Center, which along with the Family & Youth Initiative helped the DC teens and young adults craft the legislation.

The news story features four youth – Marea, Princess, Dayar and Justice – in their journey to create this new legal pathway for youth in care.