Discovering What Youth and Young Adults Need to Thrive

Six episodes of the Good Things pod­cast spot­light lessons from Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion Pres­i­dent and CEO Lisa Lawson’s new book, Thrive: How the Sci­ence of the Ado­les­cent Brain Helps Us Imag­ine a Bet­ter Future for All Chil­dren.

Pro­duced by Lemon­a­da Media with sup­port from the Casey Foun­da­tion, each episode fea­tures host Glo­ria Riv­iera engag­ing experts on the five pil­lars that shape the path to adult­hood. These pil­lars, as out­lined in Thrive, are: 

• basic needs; 
• per­ma­nent connections; 
• edu­ca­tion and credentials; 
• finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and well-being; and 
• youth lead­er­ship.

Good Things Episodes

Thrive: What Ado­les­cents Need to Suc­cess­ful­ly Cross the Bridge to Adulthood

What does it take for young peo­ple to thrive? In this episode, host Riv­iera sits down with Law­son to dis­cuss the lessons in Thrive and explain why ado­les­cence is such a pow­er­ful peri­od of growth. 

Law­son shares what sci­ence and on-the-ground efforts tell us about best sup­port­ing young peo­ple between the ages of 14 and 24 — a pop­u­la­tion of 48 mil­lion youth in Amer­i­ca. She also intro­duces the five pil­lars that shape the path to adult­hood and will guide the rest of the series.

Thrive: Learn­ing to Save and Bud­get Helps Youth Thrive into Adulthood

Finan­cial inde­pen­dence is an impor­tant mile­stone, and young peo­ple need oppor­tu­ni­ties to earn income, build cred­it and devel­op the finan­cial skills need­ed for adult­hood. The Casey Foun­da­tion invests in this area through inter­ven­tions like the Jim Casey Youth Oppor­tu­ni­ties Ini­tia­tive^® and the Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port^®, which has helped more than 22,000 young peo­ple leav­ing fos­ter care strength­en their finan­cial foot­ing over the past 25 years.

In this episode, Rivera talks with Sandy Wilke, a senior fel­low with the Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group, and Von Jack­son, a for­mer Oppor­tu­ni­ty Pass­port pro­gram par­tic­i­pant. Their con­ver­sa­tion exam­ines how Oppor­tu­ni­ty Passport’s matched-sav­ings mod­el helps young peo­ple invest in reli­able trans­porta­tion, hous­ing, edu­ca­tion, entre­pre­neur­ship and more. Jack­son also shares how the program’s finan­cial skills course changed his out­look on mon­ey and helped him build a stronger foun­da­tion for the future.

Thrive: Tak­ing Youth Lead­er­ship Seriously

Young peo­ple aren’t just future lead­ers. They’re already lead­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties today — as care­givers, work­ers and activists. 

In this episode, Riv­iera talks about the pow­er of youth lead­er­ship with Jas­mine Bernard and Tosca Nance-Jones from BRIDGES — a Mem­phis-based orga­ni­za­tion build­ing authen­tic youth-adult part­ner­ships for social change — and Traci Broady, a senior asso­ciate at the Casey Foun­da­tion. Their con­ver­sa­tion explores what it real­ly looks like to invest in young lead­ers today.

Thrive: Help­ing Youth in Fos­ter Care Build Per­ma­nent Connections

Every young per­son needs strong rela­tion­ships with car­ing adults who pro­vide guid­ance and encour­age­ment as they move along the path to adult­hood. Yet, far too many young peo­ple in fos­ter care are left with­out the sup­port those rela­tion­ships can provide.

In this episode, Riv­iera engages San­dra Gas­ca, vice pres­i­dent of the Cen­ter for Sys­tems Inno­va­tion at the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion. The pair dis­cuss what puts so many young peo­ple at risk of aging out of fos­ter care with­out per­ma­nent con­nec­tions. They also share how sys­tems, com­mu­ni­ties and young peo­ple them­selves are sup­port­ing more youth in build­ing and sus­tain­ing life­long con­nec­tions to fam­i­ly and oth­er car­ing adults.

Thrive: The Pow­er of Youth Apprenticeship

What if young peo­ple could earn a pay­check, build real skills, and start a career — all before fin­ish­ing school? Youth appren­tice­ships make it pos­si­ble but too few young peo­ple can access these opportunities. 

This episode makes the case for appren­tice­ships and how they can open doors to oppor­tu­ni­ty, men­tor­ship and high-qual­i­ty career path­ways. Riv­iera speaks with Lau­ra Burgher, an Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion pro­gram asso­ciate, and Chris Grant, a prod­uct design­er at Mas­ter­card who first joined the com­pa­ny through an appren­tice­ship at age 16.

Thrive: Why Child­care Is a Basic Need for Young Parents

Every young per­son deserves access to high-qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion and career oppor­tu­ni­ties. But for young par­ents, none of that is pos­si­ble with­out first solv­ing for the basic need of childcare.

In this episode, Riv­iera engages Bel­la Agee — a 21-year-old stu­dent, work­er and mom — and Quanic Fullard, who serves as a senior asso­ciate of Fam­i­ly and Youth Finan­cial Sta­bil­i­ty at the Casey Foun­da­tion. Their con­ver­sa­tion spot­lights how access to child­care both posi­tions young par­ents for suc­cess and ben­e­fits the col­lec­tive good.

Explore more episodes of the Good Things pod­cast fea­tur­ing the Casey Foundation