Unaccompanied Children Lived Experience and Youth Engagement Support FORECAST

The Unaccompanied Children Lived Experience and Youth Engagement Support Program aims to support the establishment and management of a Lived Experience Community Council and Lived Experience Leadership Academy. These will be comprised of former unaccompanied children and individuals who sponsored children from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) care. The program seeks to recruit, identify, orient, and train experts with lived experience that accurately represent the diversity and variety of former unaccompanied children and sponsors, including aspects such as demographic diversity and varied experiences (e.g., pregnant/parenting youth, survivors of human trafficking). It emphasizes the importance of prior experience in developing programs that focus on lived experience and youth voice or that support unaccompanied children, sponsors, and reunified families. The program aims to collect feedback on the integration experiences of former unaccompanied children and reunified families in the United States and to empower the Community Council and Leadership Academy members to become leaders in their communities.