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 improve the well-being and futures of transition-age youth with foster care experience.
About Us
The TAY-Hub specializes in applied research and evaluation to inform the policies and practices affecting transition-age youth (TAY) with foster care experience. We believe in a collaborative research process, and engage with the child welfare services community, young adults with foster care experience, and scholars across the country to ensure our research responds to the field’s most pressing needs.
Housed within the California Child Welfare Indicators Project at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, we also maintain a public data portal that provides key insights into TAY outcomes in education, employment, births, and public benefits.
Our work builds upon the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH), the most comprehensive longitudinal study of TAY exiting foster care and California’s Extended Foster Care (EFC) Program. Since its start in 2012, the CalYOUTH study has provided crucial evidence on the outcomes of young people leaving care and the benefits of extended foster care.
Events & Convenings
In June 2024, we hosted the Transition-Age Youth Research & Evaluation Hub Convening at USC. The event brought together practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and individuals with lived experience in foster care, fostering an exchange of ideas. It featured four panels covering topics such as accessing services, the importance of relationships and identities, policy implementation, and insights from lived experience.
Angie Schwartz, Deputy Director of the Children and Family Services Division at the California Department of Social Services, highlighted the significance of the event:
“Having researchers that can help to quantify, extrapolate, and provide that feedback to us in a way that we can digest and then be responsive to it and create policies and systems that can actually change in order to meet the needs of real children and families is invaluable.”
A summary of all 10 research projects is available here.
Meet Our Team
Mark CourtneyTAY-Hub Co-Director and Senior Advisor / Distinguished Researcher
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.
His fields of special interest are child welfare policy and services, the connection between child welfare services and other institutions serving families living in poverty, the transition to adulthood for marginalized populations, and the professionalization of social work. Dr. Courtney is a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and the Society for Social Work and Research. He received the 2010 Peter W. Forsythe Award for leadership in public child welfare from National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators and the 2015 Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research. Dr. Courtney served as Director of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago from 2001 to 2006 and was the founding director of Partners for Our Children (POC), a public-private partnership housed at the University of Washington devoted to improving child welfare services. POC received the 2008 American Public Human Services Association Award for Academic Excellence.
Dr. Courtney obtained his MSW and PhD degrees from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley. Before moving into academia, he worked for several years in various capacities providing group home care to abused and neglected adolescents. Dr. Courtney has served as a consultant to the federal government, state departments of social services, local public and private child welfare agencies, and the philanthropic community.
TAY-Hub Co-Director and Senior Advisor / Distinguished Researcher
Andrea Lane EastmanTAY-Hub Co-Director
TAY-Hub Co-Director
Andrea Lane Eastman is Co-Director of the Transition-Age Youth Research and Evaluation Hub with Professor Mark Courtney and an affiliate of the California Child Welfare Indicators Project at UC Berkeley. Her research uses linked, administrative data to document population-level disparities and answer policy relevant questions concerning young people who have contact 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.
Her scholarship has been informed by her previous work in the California State Senate where she served as a legislative aide and committee consultant on several state initiatives surrounding human services and public safety. She graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s in Psychology, received her MFT from Pepperdine University, and earned a PhD in Social Work from USC. While obtaining her MFT, Dr. Eastman provided therapy for families who experienced child maltreatment.
Anthony Gómez Research Specialist
Research Specialist
Anthony Gómez is a Research Specialist at the Transition-Age Youth Research and Evaluation Hub (TAY-Hub). Dr. Gómez’s research utilizes developmental frameworks to address policy-relevant questions concerning young adults transitioning from foster care, kinship care, and child and family well-being. Dr. Gómez earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pomona College, a master’s in social welfare (MSW) from UCLA, and a PhD in social welfare from UC Berkeley. Prior to his research career, Dr. Gómez worked as a therapist in a group home and served as a fellow at the Los Angeles County Office of Child Protection.
Astha AgarwalGraduate Student Researcher
Graduate Student Researcher
Astha Agarwal is a doctoral candidate in School Psychology at Berkeley School of Education and a Graduate Student Researcher at the TAY-Hub. Astha‘s doctoral research is focused on pathways through higher education for youth who have been impacted by foster care and/or homelessness, particularly those who also have disabilities and/or behavioral health challenges. Astha also experienced homelessness as a youth and she is a member of the Berkeley Hope Scholars community. Astha earned her MA in Education from UC Berkeley and BA in Psychology and Economics from McGill University.
