FOSTER YOUTH HAVE BEEN OUR FOCUS FOR 35 YEARS AND COUNTING.
We've always focused on foster youth.
Pivotal’s roots date all the way back to 1989 when a group of community members formed Silicon Valley Children’s Fund (our old name) and teamed up with the County of Santa Clara to build a children’s shelter. The facility, on Union Avenue in San Jose, ran for 13 years until it was sold in 2012. Silicon Valley Children’s Fund reinvested the proceeds from the sale and continued to work with public and private organizations to address the unfulfilled educational needs of foster youth.
1989-2000
Silicon Valley Children’s Fund was created by community members who came together to raise funds for and build a new Children’s Shelter in Santa Clara County. With funding from private and public sources, the Shelter opened in 1995 and the County took ownership of running it. Understanding that foster youth needed opportunities to learn, play, and grow, we began offering enrichment programming at the Shelter.
We realized that once these young people were safe and housed, their next most important need was education, so we created the College Scholarship program, with an initial cohort of 11 students.
2001-2010
Not enough foster youth in our community were applying for scholarships; they were struggling to get through high school and college didn’t seem like a viable option. We launched our 1:1 High School Coaching program, to provide guidance and consistency to help our scholars graduate high school and get into college programs.
We also created the Scholar Advisory Board to include our students’ voices in all our decisions and understand what programming they needed.
2011-2015
When our high school scholars graduated and started college, they asked for continued coaching support beyond scholarships, so we created our Post-Secondary Coaching program to help them navigate the college experience. As scholars also asked for help learning about potential careers and getting professional experience, we partnered with TeenForce to provide work readiness and employment opportunities. We began co-locating post-secondary coaches on community college campuses to be more accessible to students.
2016-2020
Soon our college foster youth scholars were asking us, "What types of jobs are out there for my major? How do I search for a job? What's a resume?" And, the big one: "I need a job while I'm in school so I can make ends meet!" We started to consider our options for career readiness services. We enlisted the help of TeenForce, a Silicon Valley non-profit with a solid reputation for finding jobs for foster youth.
They were already working with more than 100 local employers to provide summer internships for foster youth! In 2017, we merged with TeenForce, put more heads together, and expanded our list of services offered, so we could achieve a wider impact in the lives of foster youth. Silicon Valley Children’s Fund and TeenForce merged and we began serving students in San Mateo County.
We rebranded as Pivotal, a name chosen by our Youth Advisory Board to reflect our impact on the lives of foster youth. To continue to keep our scholars’ voices and ideas at the forefront of our work, we elected Pivotal alumni to the Pivotal Board of Directors and launched the Pivotal Alumni Network so alumni could stay connected to us and to each other.
2021-2023
We partnered with five other agencies doing similar work across California to create the Foster Youth Pre-College Collective (tFYPC). We realized that there were many commonalities in the way we delivered services and came together with the goal of sharing outcomes, best practices, and data while advocating for legislation to support foster youth across the state. We knew we could impact even more foster youth if we gave younger students access to our services, so we began providing Middle School Coaching programming to 8th graders in Santa Clara County.
2024: 35 Years of Service
With your support, we’ve served more than 25,000 young people from foster care over the past 35 years. As we reflect on our legacy, we continue to look ahead to what’s next and how we can continue to impact the lives of foster youth in our community for years to come.