TAY-Hub is a university-based research collaborative housed within the California Child Welfare Indicators Project at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare.
We believe in the power of data, research, and public-private collaboration to enhance the well-being and improve the futures of transition age youth.
Our History
The work of the TAY-Hub is informed by the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH). CalYOUTH began in 2012 in response to California’s adoption of the Federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (Fostering Connections). California’s Fostering Connections Act (commonly known as AB12) extended the age of eligibility for foster care from 18 to 21 for transition-age youth (TAY) in foster care.
Our Work
Coinciding with the conclusion of the CalYOUTH study in 2022, we launched the TAY-Hub to build upon and enhance California’s capacity to generate and analyze data on TAY in foster care.
The specific goals of the TAY-Hub are to:
- Engage the child welfare services community in identifying key topics for research and evaluation that can inform policy and practice targeting TAY.
- Conduct research and evaluation activities targeting TAY and sponsor activities of third-party partners.
- Promote the use of data and research to improve TAY policy and practices. We do this by supporting the capacity of the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), county child welfare agencies, and the voluntary sector to engage in shaping and applying research and data for better TAY outcomes.
- Engage youth and key stakeholders providing services to TAY in interpreting the meaning and implications for policy and practice of TAY-Hub research and evaluation findings.
- Disseminate the findings of TAY-Hub research and evaluation to the child welfare services policy and practice community and the public.
- Enhance ongoing publicly-available information on the CCWIP website that counties across California currently use as required by the statewide outcomes and accountability system to add new measures of TAY outcomes related to education, employment, use of public benefits, and other outcomes prioritized by our partners.
Meet Our Team
TAY-Hub Project
Co-Director
TAY-Hub Project Co-Director and Senior Advisor
Mark Courtney
Distinguished Researcher/TAY-Hub Director
Mark E. Courtney is the Samuel Deutsch Professor emeritus in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago and Distinguished Researcher at the California Child Welfare Indicators Project at the University of California, Berkeley where he co-directs The Transition Age Youth Research and Evaluation Hub (TAY-Hub).
Andrea Lane Eastman
TAY-Hub Project Co-Director
Andrea Lane Eastman’s research uses linked, administrative data to document population-level disparities and answer policy relevant questions concerning youth in child protection and juvenile justice systems. Dr. Eastman has been a Research Assistant Professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work with the Children’s Data Network since 2019.