Written by Megan Rouse, Communications Associate, UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent
This blog post was written using quotes from the second session of the 2025 Adolescent Brain Development Symposium, Economic Support for the Transition to Adulthood. During this session, Devon Gray, the president of End Poverty in California, and Amaris Gilbert, a youth advocate for CalHOPE, spoke with moderator Andrew J. Fuligni, the co-executive director of the UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent. Watch the full video on our YouTube.
Transitioning to the responsibilities and demands of adulthood can be both exciting and challenging for us all. But without support, the challenges can make the path to a financially secure adulthood more difficult, as young people need to prioritize securing necessities like housing or food, and delay or forego opportunities that could increase their economic mobility.
In the second session of the 2025 Adolescent Brain Development Symposium, researchers, policymakers, and youth advocates discussed how we could use financial assistance to help young people navigate this transition to adulthood and how we should implement these types of programs.
Supporting Basic Needs to Promote Opportunities for Healthy Development
During our later adolescent years, roughly 16 to 25, social changes increase our independence and autonomy, and we may move away from our family home or start a new school or job. Changes in our brains motivate us to explore and try out new things, and opportunities to explore new pathways for careers are crucial for positive development as young people search for their passions and purpose in life.
The ability to explore, take risks, and fail occasionally requires support to bounce back and learn from the outcomes, often through financial or social support from families or caring adults. Without these safety nets, participating in these essential tasks can be difficult.
Policies and programs can ensure that all young people have the security to explore and participate in career pathways, like attending college, interning, or apprenticing, while easing concerns about things like housing stability, debt, or food insecurity.
In 2022, California established the nation’s first “baby bond” program, HOPE, which aims to address the issue of intergenerational poverty and support young people without financial and social safety nets. This program provides trust accounts to long-term foster youth and youth who lost a parent or caregiver to COVID, with the goal of having $4,500 in each account by the time the selected youth turns 18.
“If we draw an analogy to how more affluent children receive intergenerational wealth through trust funds and nest eggs that comes from their parents, this program is helping California implement thinking about how the state can can intervene to be able to provide a similar type of trust fund for kids who are less affluent,” says Devon Gray, the president of End Poverty California, an advocacy organization that is helping implement the HOPE Program.
These funds give young people a small safety net during the transition to adulthood, so they can explore pathways for their future, like trying out a school or internship.
“When you grow up in the foster care system, you don’t have the privilege of taking risks,” says Amaris Gilbert, a former foster youth who is now an advocate working with End Poverty California. “I think it’s really important because you no longer have to worry about your immediate needs. And again, you can start focusing on your future.”
These funds provide young people with the physical support they need to transition to the responsibilities of adulthood by providing young people with the agency and opportunity to make decisions about what would best support their path forward.
“It’s almost this liberative feeling of, you know, finally having real investment, finally somebody genuinely believing in you and in your decision-making capabilities, and finally telling you that you’re not so different than our peers who were given all these privileges,” says Amaris.
Implementing Programs in Ways that Meet the Needs of Adolescents
Policies like the California HOPE Program are a first step in closing income inequality gaps and providing young people with the financial scaffolding they need during the transition to adulthood. But it is also important to properly implement programs to meet the unique needs of our young people.
“The way that we engage in program design and implementation is oftentimes just as important [as passing the legislation],” says Devon.
One unique part of the HOPE Program implementation is that the funds the young receive are unrestricted. When implementing the program, End Poverty California spoke with young people and youth advocates to hear their direct concerns, believing that young people are experts in their own lives. They found that restricting the use of funds would prevent young people from making decisions about how to use the money in a way that would best support their needs.
In addition to meeting basic needs, young people need opportunities to exercise autonomy, agency, and decision-making that sets them up for an independent future. By providing unrestricted funds, this program is allowing young people to exercise this autonomy and gives them the freedom to make their own decisions.
“The funds that the youth receive, they can be used for anything, which is different than in other states that have adopted the program,” says Amaris. “And I think that that’s really, really powerful…with foster youth who have been systemically and historically prevented from really being able to make their own choices and make their own decisions.”
Conclusion
As young people transition to adulthood, they need opportunities to explore the world around them in ways that help them cultivate their meaning and purpose in life. All young people need the financial resources and social supports to take these necessary risks, like starting school, moving out, or trying a new job, which can help set them up for thriving futures. Providing financial support in the form of state or federal bonds can be one way to ease this transition for youth who lack the financial or social safety nets required for this period of life. When these programs are implemented with input from young people to address their real concerns, they can help more young people achieve positive outcomes.
Key Concepts
Adolescence is a period of heightened exploration where young people learn by taking risks and trying new things.
All young people need both social and financial support to meet their basic needs as they explore career pathways, through avenues including education, job training, or internships.
Providing young people with financial support during the transition to adulthood could ease economic burdens to allow young people to explore in ways that help them find a pathway that is right for them.
Young people should be involved in designing the implementation strategies of programs that affect them. Youth input can help programs better meet their needs and provide opportunities for them to meet key developmental needs.
Research has shown that adolescents are exceptional learners and are more willing than adults to explore situations with uncertain outcomes. In the last session of the 2025 Adolescent Development Symposium, researchers and young entrepreneurs discussed why brain development during adolescence makes us particularly inclined to innovate and participate in entrepreneurship, and how this can be a way for young people to take positive risks and even set them up for future success.
“Workforce development and focusing on career preparation is fundamentally a developmental question,” says Andrew Fuigni, co-executive director of UCLA CDA, to kick off the first panel discussion of our 2025 Adolescent Brain Development Symposium on economic opportunity.
So, how do we create career preparation policies and programs that effectively support young people in the pursuit of meaningful careers while integrating developmental science to support positive development and future outcomes?
