The San Francisco-based John Burton Advocates for Youth named Sarah Pauter as its executive director today, marking the first time the prominent advocacy organization has been led by a former foster youth.
Over the past 15 years, the group known as JBAY and named after a legendary California lawmaker has rolled out numerous significant policy reforms to help young people leaving the state’s foster care system secure stable housing, college degrees and economic support.
Pauter, the group’s new executive director, knows those issues well, having grown up in the child welfare system herself. Largely on her own, the 35-year-old has overcome a period of homelessness, earned a master’s degree, founded her own nonprofit and become a prominent advocate in her own right over the past decade.
Pauter replaces longtime former leader, Amy Lemley, who retired last year after two decades with the organization, and interim director Debbie Raucher.
In an interview with The Imprint, Pauter — a mother of four with infant twins — said she will use her unique perspective to do all she can for her fellow Californians growing up in state custody. She also said she’s excited to carry on the “groundbreaking” work of the organization where she has served as a senior project manager for the past five years.
“It feels amazing to kind of take a hammer to a glass ceiling for foster youth,” Pauter said. “You can’t replicate what 17 years in the foster care system feels like and how it changes your perspective.”
Erin Clews, 30, a youth advocate mentor with the group who also grew up in California foster care, said Pauter’s new role will be “life changing” for herself and others like her.
Too often, Clews said, she’s felt that her views haven’t been fully valued in professional spaces — even when she was the only person in the room who had lived through the experiences being discussed. This will be the first time Clews has worked under someone with a similar background, who has overcome similar barriers to excelling in college and in advocacy work.
“It opens so many doors for people like us that are trying to move up professionally, that are trying to be taken seriously,” Clews said. “She’s really going to drive us forward, and hopefully just set a precedent for other organizations and programs.”
Jennifer Rodriguez, another trailblazing former foster youth who went on to head the Youth Law Center, a prominent legal group, also praised Pauter’s selection.
“What makes Sarah’s leadership — and the leadership of others with lived experience — so critical, is her deep understanding of the urgency to address the problems young people face when exiting these systems, and the real consequences of failing to act,” Rodriguez wrote in an email. “Sarah not only brings her own lived experience but also over a decade of expertise in listening to and advocating for some of the most underserved youth, including expectant and parenting youth, those involved in the juvenile justice system, and youth with mental health needs.”
Rodriguez described Pauter’s new role as “a powerful step toward reshaping the conversation and ensuring real change for the young people who need it most.”
Pauter grew up in San Diego County’s foster care system. After a failed reunification with her birth family in high school, she said she struggled mightily. Although she had earned straight As in middle school, she was prescribed heavy doses of antidepressants and mood stabilizers, causing her to spiral.
She repeatedly fell asleep in class, with much of her high school years a blur. Pauter ended up in a continuation school, where she graduated before receiving a scholarship to San Diego State University. While awaiting her dorm room as an 18-year-old who had aged out of foster care, she had nowhere to live. So she crashed on her best friend’s couch for several months before her university housing opened up.
“She’s really going to drive us forward, and hopefully just set a precedent for other organizations and programs.”
— Erin Clews, youth advocate mentor
Pauter went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and later a master’s degree in public policy and administration from Northwestern University. Before joining John Burton Advocates for Youth in 2020, she launched and led Phenomenal Families, a San Diego-based nonprofit organization that provided system-impacted young adults with education and parenting resources, including direct assistance such as diapers, formula and emergency cash.
Pauter will start her new job on Feb. 12, overseeing a staff of 14 and $4.7 million in revenue.
JBAY was founded 20 years ago by Burton, now 92, after he termed out as a California state lawmaker. Initially, the organization helped disperse grants to foster youth-serving organizations. But over the past 15 years, the group has helped achieve several key changes in state law to better assist “transition-age” foster youth. Those include the landmark Assembly Bill 12, which allowed young adults to remain in foster care until age 21, instead of aging out of government care at age 18.
Over the past decade, the organization has helped obtain funding for campus support programs for foster youth at all publicly funded colleges and universities in California, created additional housing options, and provided greater economic security for current and former foster youth.
In the future, Pauter said she hopes to build on Lemley’s “incredibly amazing” legacy, by expanding opportunities for foster youth to advocate in Sacramento while new reforms are being crafted. She also aims to continue the organization’s work helping foster youth pursue higher education and ensure they’re represented in the state’s ambitious plan to triple the amount of funding it funnels into the child welfare system.
John Burton Advocates for Youth Board Chair John Garcia said Pauter will build on the “rock solid foundation” established by its founder and namesake, as well as the organization’s staff and board.
“With Sarah at the helm, the opportunities for what JBAY can do for our young people are endless,” Garcia said in an emailed statement.
