Last month, UNITE-LA's Carrie Lemmon, senior vice president, Systems Change Strategy, conducted a training on “Using Data for Systems Change” with a dozen social workers and system leaders in the new Youth Engagement Section of the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services.

This new department division is dedicated to serving transition-age foster youth, ages 16-21, creating an opportunity to focus on the unique needs of young adults in the child welfare system, such as postsecondary education, employment and housing. Through our role as co-convener of the L.A. Opportunity Youth Collaborative, UNITE-LA is working alongside the child welfare department and an advisory group of foster youth to identify key data metrics that the new Youth Engagement Section will use to drive continuous improvement and accountability for foster youth outcomes. Participants learned about the “What? So What? Now What?” data reflection tool and how to use fishbone diagrams to brainstorm root causes of systemic problems. This followed a similar data training provided to a group of 10 L.A. Opportunity Youth Collaborative young leaders in July.