High school junior on developing bill to support foster youth employment

Vishaka Priyan is a junior at Catlin Gabel, a private school in Portland.   She doesn’t have personal experience with foster care. But she came across a group called Project 48 that helps kids in the first 48 hours after they enter the child welfare system. And as she heard stories about the trauma and economic challenges they face in care and after, she wanted to do something that would both support them and help them develop self-sufficiency. That’s why Priyan says she decided to research incentives for businesses to employ youth in the child welfare system or who were aging out of it. The result of her self-assigned project was a bill that is making its way through the Oregon state legislature. Priyan plans to testify for the bill once it gets a hearing. She joins us to share more.

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