Complex Care Webinar September 2026: Before Needs Become Crises: Using Adolescent Development Science to Strengthen Relationships, Stability, and Support

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This two-hour interactive session focuses on how adolescent-development science can help California build on young people's strengths, relationships and capacity for growth, and prevent needs from escalating into what systems often describe as "complex care." 

The session will look at how developmentally expected behaviors can be intensified by trauma, disrupted relationships, placement instability and system responses, while highlighting the protective role of belonging, trusted adults, meaningful voice and opportunities for contribution. 

The webinar will also explore how earlier, relationship-centered support for youth and caregivers can reduce placement disruption, preserve family and community connections, and help young people succeed without increasingly restrictive interventions. 

Participants will: 

• Increase understanding of adolescent behavior-development science and how it can inform responses to young people's behavior. 
• Explore how trauma, disrupted relationships, placement instability and system responses can intensify developmentally expected behaviors.
• Examine the protective role of belonging, trusted adults, meaningful voice and opportunities for contribution. 
• Consider how earlier, relationship-centered support for youth and caregivers can reduce placement disruption, preserve family and community connections, and help prevent increasingly restrictive interventions. 

Presenters:

Kristina Tanner, an advocate for foster youth since 2015, draws from her personal experience in the foster care system to drive systemic change in child welfare and juvenile justice. She works at local, state and national levels, shaping policies and collaborating with lawmakers and organizations to address systemic issues. Through advocacy, education and reform efforts, Tanner aims to create a supportive environment for foster youth, ensuring access to essential resources and opportunities. As a speaker, she raises awareness and inspires action to transform the child welfare system for future generations. 

Jennifer Rodriguez is a lawyer with over 25 years experience in advocacy for systems change in foster care and juvenile justice systems through policy reform, litigation, public education and creative systems change. Since 2012, Rodriguez has served as the executive director of the Youth Law Center (YLC), a national legal advocacy organization that has worked for over four decades to protect and advance the rights of youth impacted by systems so they are not only protected from harm in systems, but also receive the opportunities and nurturing the need for healthy and full lives. Rodriguez's experiences growing up in foster care and juvenile justice facilities and work to invest in the leadership of systems-impacted youth to lead and inform change drive her commitment to change.