Narrative Change & Social Impact Initiative (NCSI)

 Portrayals of Systems-Facing & Opportunity Youth

37.4% of all children experience a child protective services investigation by the age of 18.

Did you Know?

There are currently over 5 million opportunity youth  – defined as young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market – or about one in nine members of this age group in the United States.

Why Stories Drive

Real Change

Systems-facing and opportunity youth are often missing from the screen, and when seen they are often incomplete or potentially harmful. Instead of diverse, compelling, and imminently watchable characters capable of joy and resilience, they’re often seen through a negative lens, framed as a charity case or the problem. That is, if they’re seen at all.


This offers a pivotal opportunity untapped: to write multi-faceted characters pulling themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps, where the conflicts are the circumstances and not the young people. Storytellers can add fascinating backstories and storylines while lifting up this marginalized population and creating more empathy from audiences at home. 


After all, these are the stories viewers tune in for, ones about hope and resilience filled with conflict and persistence.


The Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS) at UCLA has launched an initiative to support both storytellers and systems-facing and opportunity youth. NCSI connects leading advocacy organizations representing child welfare, incarcerated, and opportunity youth to high-visibility media projects, ensuring authentic and empowering portrayals of this vulnerable and often forgotten population. 

Thanks to a grant from the Hilton Foundation, CSS is now offering free consultations for any creator developing stories about these resilient populations.

CSS and the the partners we work with have decades of research, lived experience and advocacy.

  • Initial development of storylines/ characters including consults with young people who have lived through these challenges.

  • Supplying in depth research and real world experiences for story ideation and world building.

  • Script reads to ensure authenticity and specificity including language tips.

Our program can provide support for creators, including:

Language Matters

  • Reviews of cuts

  • Early screenings to ensure support from organizations that work with these populations. 

  • Hosting cast and press briefings 

  • Guidance and promotion on impact campaigns

Use "Young Person in Foster Care" instead of "foster kid" or "foster child." Foster care is an experience, not an identity; this describes how they're helped, not who they are.

Say "Aging Out" instead of "emancipation" when referring to leaving care at 18-21.

Use "Family of Origin" or "Birth Parents" instead of "real parents." All parents in a young person's life are real.

These Characters could look like:

A 17-year-old in foster care who is still attending high school full-time; they might have lived in many houses by now or just moved into one.

A 20-year-old who aged out of foster care at 18, is now without supportive community, stable housing, and is not in school nor employed.

An unhoused 18-year-old who left high school before graduation and is unemployed and susceptible to negative influences.

A formerly incarcerated 22-year-old who has difficulty finding work due to a criminal record and is not enrolled in education.

Official Partners

First Place for Youth helps foster youth build skills for successful transition to self-sufficiency, serving as a national leader in preventing homelessness among youth aging out of care.

Our NCSI initiative is funded by the Hilton Foundation for this initial stage.

Toolkit, Facts, and Videos

Panel: Writing Systems Impacted Youth Storylines in Film & TV

About CSS & Additional Studies

More about our work with collaborators such as The CW, Apple TV+, Disney, Starz, Lionsgate, Pixar, WarnerMedia, ViacomCBS, Sony Pictures, Netflix and Comcast NBCUniversal can be found here.

Contact: info@scholarsandstorytellers.com

* Ongoing support and impact campaigns may incur costs for significant accrued hours to be determined in advance by both parties.