Inside the Mission:
Youth Advocates Head to Capital for Children's Week

April 9, 2025

Guest Staff Column

By Margie Dotson - Last month, during Children's Week at the Capital, our amazing youth advocates met with legislators to advocate for housing stability for youth aging out of care and for the importance of fostering and maintaining relationships among adult siblings and those who are still in care.

Easy right? Think again, and put yourself in these young people's place:

Your heart pounds, your voice quivers...panic settles in as you prepare your stories to share with complete strangers over and over again. The same words echo through your head: Can I do this? Will my voice matter? Will they even listen to me?

CCKids' Road to Success program provides these young advocates with support and guidance to deal with the anxiety. We prepare, practice and use mindful techniques. We also prepare year round on monthly Zoom meetings and during quarterly face-to-face meetings.

It's exhausting work, but it's worth it. While meeting with state Department of Children and Families Secretary Taylor Hatcher, the question that was posed was, “Why do You advocate?”

“I do it for my sister, so that she will know that she has a voice,” said A. Mayfield, a local member of the Treasure Coast Youth SHINE Chapter. Youth SHINE is a statewide organization that help young people in foster care advocate for one another.

And J. King, our 2024 Youth Advocate of the Year, said this:

“I don’t know if my voice even matters or if I am always being heard, but I know I must continue to use my voice to speak in the rooms for those that don’t have a voice.”