Being a young person is hard. The time between being 16 and 24 can be particularly challenging. During this critical period in a young person’s life, youth evolve from children to “adulthood” and become responsible for their own care and well-being.

In our country, most young people attend high school or college, enter the workforce, learn to manage their finances, and develop important relationships, often times while living at home with parents who provide for them. With support of family, friends and others, many youth transition into adulthood relatively successfully.

But not all youth.

As many as 10-25% of “transition-age youth” are not making that transition successfully, if at all.

During this transition-age period, many disconnected youth experience family conflict, abandonment, and involvement in a variety of systems and generally lack the life skills necessary to find employment or housing.  These youth are more likely to become teen parents, become homeless, abuse drugs, drop out of school and/or become victims of violence.

Supporting transition-age youth helps them become productive and emotionally stable, in turn, producing enormous social benefits for society at large, as well as for youth themselves.

The California Coalition for Youth is committed to advocating for the programs, resources, and support transition-age youth throughout California need to have successful lives.