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When a state removes a child from their family, it makes an unspoken promise: that the child will be safer, better cared for, and supported toward a full and successful life. The Minnesota Promise Report, created by Foster Advocates and a statewide community of Fosters, is a powerful reminder that our current systems struggle—and too often fail—to keep that promise. It offers something every state needs: a foster‑led vision for child welfare systems change, grounded in data, lived expertise, and a roadmap for better treatment of children in CPS and foster care.Foster-Advocates_MN-Promise-Report-Full_2025-compressed-small.pdf
A foster-led vision, not just another report
MN Promise is the first statewide campaign in Minnesota envisioned and led by Fosters themselves to gather and share bold ideas for systems change. Between 2022 and 2025, Foster Advocates traveled the state, hosting listening and design sessions in communities like St. Cloud, Bemidji, Duluth, Moorhead, Rochester, Mankato, and the Twin Cities, reaching 122 Fosters whose experiences reflect the demographics of the foster care system. The result is a living vision built from what Fosters say is and is not working—and from their own answers to the question, “What would it look like if Minnesota kept its promise to Fosters?”.
Why this matters in every state
The report makes clear that foster care and child welfare touch all of us, not just those already inside the system. “Everyone knows a Foster,” it notes—and every community is affected when Fosters are left to navigate disjointed, dehumanizing systems with luck instead of guaranteed support. MN Promise frames this as a collective responsibility: when the system does right by Fosters, it uplifts families, schools, neighborhoods, and future generations across the state. That same truth applies in every state, from frontline CPS offices to rural group homes and urban courts.Foster-Advocates_MN-Promise-Report-Full_2025-compressed-small.pdf
Naming systems that work exactly as designed
Foster Advocates challenges a common phrase: “the system is broken.” They argue the system is, in fact, doing what it was designed to do—producing deeply embedded disparities rooted in a long history of family separation used as control, punishment, or genocide. Changing outcomes for children in CPS and foster care therefore requires more than tinkering: it requires centering those who live inside this web and giving them real power to direct systems change.
What foster-led change looks like in practice
MN Promise doesn’t stop at naming harms; it lays out specific, foster‑informed ideas and action steps across core areas of life:
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Access to information and resources: ensuring Fosters can understand and navigate complex systems instead of surviving on rumor and luck.
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Health and wellbeing, education, housing, siblings, permanency, normalcy, and life after care: highlighting predictable failures and concrete proposals to fix them, from guaranteed transportation and phones to trauma‑informed reunification supports.
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Life after care: calling for extended support (financial, housing, health, health insurance, and mentorship) through age 26 so Fosters don’t face a “benefits cliff” at 21 while their peers remain financially supported by families into their 20s.
Instead of a catalog of harms, the report is a “bold demand for justice and a detailed picture of what justice looks like” for Fosters.
Calling in everyone: not just “the system”
One of the report’s most important messages is that this work belongs to everyone, not just to CPS or county agencies. It speaks directly to:
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Fosters themselves, offering care notes and self‑care guidance while reminding them their stories are valid and that they are “the heart and moral compass” of the movement.
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Kin caregivers, foster parents, and adoptive parents, urging them to act as allies rather than saviors and to support cultural connection, normalcy, and access to activities and resources.
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Frontline workers (caseworkers, group home staff, guardians ad litem, judges), emphasizing that while systemic failures may not be their fault, they are their responsibility.
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Community partners and the broader public, who may not realize they are already serving Fosters—and who are asked to become “Foster‑informed” and treat Fosters as a priority population in all services.
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County and state agencies and legislators, who control laws, funding, and accountability and are offered specific legislative ideas and action steps.Foster-Advocates_MN-Promise-Report-Full_2025-compressed-small.pdf
This is the kind of comprehensive, multi‑stakeholder call‑in that every state needs.
Why we need a “Promise” in every state
Minnesota’s foster‑led Promise campaign shows how powerful it is when those closest to the problems are recognized as closest to the solutions. Fosters describe their experiences of homelessness, identity theft, pregnancy and parenting under surveillance, juvenile justice involvement driven by trauma, and life after care without a safety net—and then imagine systems centered on expanded care rather than punishment. If even one Foster experiences a system failure, the MN Promise Committee says, “that is one Foster too many.”Foster-Advocates_MN-Promise-Report-Full_2025-compressed-small.pdf
Every state has children in CPS and foster care who need this kind of attention, data, and moral clarity. Every state has Fosters whose expertise is essential to designing better systems and treatment—yet whose voices are rarely given center stage. Creating “Promise” efforts across the country would mean.
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Listening sessions and leadership programs led by Fosters in every state.
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Statewide reports that turn lived expertise into concrete policy, funding, and practice recommendations.
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A clear, public statement of each state’s promise to children in its care—and a way to measure whether that promise is being kept.
What you can do with this report
The Minnesota Promise Report is a resource for all of us. Foster Advocates remind readers: “No one has to do everything, everyone can do something.” If you care about better systems and treatment of children in CPS and foster care, you can.
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Read and share the report with colleagues, community partners, and especially your state and county representatives.
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Use its ideas as a template for listening sessions, leadership committees, and statewide campaigns led by Fosters in your own state.
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Ask your legislators and agencies what “promise” they have made to children in care—and how they plan to include Fosters in defining and meeting that promise.
The Minnesota Promise is not just Minnesota’s story.
It is a model of what happens when we let Fosters lead—
and a starting point for building better systems
for children in CPS and foster care, everywhere.
KIDS AT RISK ACTION / KARA / INVISIBLE CHILDREN
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