The Foster Achievement Network is a comprehensive, technology-driven platform designed to ensure that young people in foster care have access to the education, skills, and support needed to achieve long-term stability and financial independence. Built by Let It Be Us, the Foster Achievement Network serves as the umbrella infrastructure for both Girls Foster Freedom and Boys Foster Freedom, delivering curated, trauma-informed learning, life-skills education, and future-planning resources to youth and the families who care for them. The platform is being launched first through Girls Foster Freedom, responding to the urgent and well-documented risks facing girls in foster care, and will expand next to include Boys Foster Freedom, ensuring that all youth have equitable access to tools that support education, employment, and lifelong success. Together, these initiatives reflect a unified vision: transforming foster care from a system of temporary safety into a pathway toward achievement, opportunity, and generational change.

Securing Family. Unlocking Futures.

Girls Foster Freedom is a new initiative of Let It Be Us focused on one urgent goal: ensuring girls in foster care do not age out without the protection, stability, and opportunity that only family can provide.

Adolescent girls are among the most overlooked children in foster care. As they grow older, their chances of being placed in permanent homes sharply decline – despite overwhelming evidence that family is the strongest predictor of long-term safety, stability, and financial independence.

Girls Foster Freedom exists to change that trajectory.

Why This Matters

Girls who leave foster care without permanency face severe and preventable risks:

• Nearly 50% experience homelessness or housing instability by young adulthood
• Up to 56% are unemployed or under-employed after exiting care
• Former foster youth earn approximately $7,500 less annually than peers raised in families
• Fewer than 10% earn a college degree by their mid-20s

Girls face additional, gender-specific risks—including early pregnancy, increased vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation, and higher rates of trauma-related mental health challenges that interfere with long-term stability.

In Illinois alone, more than 17,000 children are currently in foster care, and each year girls approach adulthood without permanency. While foster care provides temporary safety, services cannot replace family.

Girls Foster Freedom focuses on girls ages 12–17, intervening before aging out occurs through:

• Targeted recruitment of families open to fostering and adopting adolescent girls
• Relationship-based, technology-supported matching to improve placement fit
• Trauma-informed preparation and post-placement support to ensure stability

Our guiding belief is simple:
When we secure family, we secure futures.

A cornerstone of Girls Foster Freedom is the creation of a customized Resource Portal on the Let It Be Us website—designed specifically for families caring for girls in foster care.

This portal will provide foster and adoptive parents with on-demand, trauma-informed resources including:

• Parenting adolescents impacted by trauma
• Accessing state medical insurance and optimize opportunities 
• Navigating school systems, IEPs, and educational advocacy
• Supporting identity development, transitions, and long-term planning
• Practical tools to strengthen placement stability

We believe this type of comprehensive, foster-parent-focused educational portal does not currently exist anywhere in Illinois—or nationally. By leveraging technology, Girls Foster Freedom ensures support is accessible, scalable, and enduring, extending impact well beyond individual placements.

Short-term outcomes include:

• Increased inquiries and licensed homes for girls ages 12+
• Faster, higher-quality matches
• Improved placement stability

Long-term outcomes include:

• Fewer girls aging out without permanency
• Improved education, employment, and housing outcomes
• Reduced vulnerability to exploitation and homelessness
• Increased lifetime earning potential

Girls Foster Freedom is actively seeking foundations, corporate sponsors, and individual donors to bring this initiative fully to scale.

We have applied for public and private grants and invested internal resources to launch this work. Philanthropic investment supports:

• Targeted recruitment and matching
• Development and expansion of the Educational Portal
• Family training and long-term placement support

Girls do not age out of foster care because they lack potential.
They age out because the system fails to act in time.

Girls Foster Freedom exists to ensure that time is no longer the barrier.

To learn more or explore partnership opportunities, contact Susan McConnell at susanmcconnell@letitbeus.org or 847-528-2044.