When Youth Lead and Adults Listen, Bills Get Passed with Alayna Leonard and Sam Garman

In recognition of five years of the Thriving Families, Safer Children initiative, this episode highlights the incredible power of youth-adult partnership. Host Valerie Frost sits down with Alayna Leonard, a youth advocate and former member of Indiana’s Commission for Improving the Status of Children, and Sam Garman, a national youth engagement consultant with Cetera. Together, they share the story of how authentic, sustained engagement through the TFSC Youth Learning Action Network led to real policy change, culminating in a new law in Indiana that requires youth to be included in public decision-making.

What began as a cohort focused on relationship-building evolved into a movement, with adult allies becoming champions for youth leadership across systems. This conversation lifts up the core TFSC principle of partnering with people with lived experience and shows what’s possible when we truly support, not just involve, young people.