High school junior on developing bill to support foster youth employment

Vishaka Priyan is a junior at Catlin Gabel, a private school in Portland. She doesn’t have personal experience with foster care. But she came across a group called Project 48 that helps kids in the first 48 hours after they enter the child welfare system. And as she heard stories about the trauma and economic challenges they face in care and after, she wanted to do something that would both support them and help them develop self-sufficiency.

That’s why Priyan says she decided to research incentives for businesses to employ youth in the child welfare system or who were aging out of it. The result of her self-assigned project was a bill that is making its way through the Oregon state legislature.

Priyan plans to testify for the bill once it gets a hearing. She joins us to share more.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Miller: From the Gert Boyle studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Vishaka Priyan is a junior at Catlin Gable, a private school in Portland. She does not have personal experience in foster care. But after learning about the challenges young people face in state care and after, she decided she wanted to do something to help. That led her to write a bill that is now being considered in the Oregon legislature. It would create a new tax credit for employers who hire current or recent foster children. Vishaka Priyan joins me now. It’s great to have you on the show.

Vishaka Priyan: Yes, thank you for having me.

Miller: How did you first become interested in the child welfare system?

Priyan: I first became interested because my mom works at Kaiser Permanente. Every year they work with some kind of nonprofit over the holidays, just to spread some holiday spirit. And in 2020, the year of COVID, they worked with an organization called Project 48. That is an organization in Portland that helps foster youth. After participating in their holiday gift bag drive, I decided that I wanted to interview them for my newspaper.

Miller: Wait, so this is five years ago? You are 17 now, so you were 12 at the time or so. So you interviewed kids in the foster system?

Priyan: I interviewed the founder of this nonprofit, and they help youth in the system. Just listening to their mission, something struck a chord with me. I think it was just hearing about children in such vulnerable situations being taken out of their homes and out of any kind of stability. Just imagining that, it really struck a chord with me. So I began to do my own personal research on the side about the challenges facing youth in care of all ages. One of the things that I focused on was barriers to employment.

Miller: Why? What was it about that piece of this really big issue that you zeroed in on?

Priyan: I think I zeroed in on employment because I was just imagining, as a kid, obviously you don’t have an incredible amount of autonomy. But as you grow up you do get more autonomy and I was just imagining that for some employment gets you out of a really hard situation. It can help you get on your feet. And as I learned more and more about the barriers facing youth in care and the barriers they faced getting employment, I felt that it was this critical transition period that would help them become thriving members of society that just wasn’t being taken care of.

Miller: Where did the idea for a tax break for employers come from?

Priyan: I looked at a lot of the disadvantages that youth in care faced when applying for jobs. Some of that has to do with experience and lack of a support team. A lot of them don’t have people to tell them how to write a resume, how to apply for a job? All of those things that you naturally learn from adults or people more experienced around you. They don’t have that, and I felt that that would also play into how employers would see them or potentially hire them because it’s not even footing. I felt that a tax credit would be a good way for us to even the playing field somewhat and give youth, who have been in care or who are in care, a real chance at getting employment even at the minimum wage level.

Miller: Did you talk with current or former foster children as you were thinking about this solution?

Priyan: I did talk to one, but a lot of my work has been through individuals who have worked with foster youth or have worked with nonprofits. I worked with Our Children Oregon. I talked to them a lot about this. They obviously do a lot of policy work with youth, underprivileged youth, all over Oregon. So a lot of how I created this bill was talking through the issue with them and being like, “This is what I’m thinking. Would this work?”

Miller: What about employers, the targets of this, I mean the folks who could get a little bit of money back if they hire people who might have challenges getting hired in general. What did you hear from employers?

Priyan: So I actually went around and for an entire day I walked around Hillsdale, which is where I live. I talked to, I’d say, about 35 business owners. And I talked to them and I pitched my bill and I said, “What do you think? Would you take advantage of this? Is this something you think would impact you as a business owner?” And the response I got was overwhelmingly positive.

Miller: What kinds of business did you walk into? And this is the equivalent of cold-calling, but just cold-walking. You went in and said, “Hey, I’m Vishaka, and I have this idea.”

Priyan: Well, it started with a breakfast place because my family and I were like, “Let’s eat breakfast. You can talk to the people who work at this breakfast place.” I just went down the line and talked to a Subway worker, I talked to a consignment thrift store, I talked to a laundromat and to Einstein Bagels manager. I talked to a grocery store manager and I talked to to several other restaurants, so a real mix of things.

Miller: What was your starting point for actually writing a bill?

Priyan: The starting point was after I had come up with the idea, my first move was to see if anything had existed previously. I didn’t find anything, but I did find the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit and I found that the format of it was quite similar to what I wanted my own credit to be. So I looked at a lot of formats similar to that, and I wrote the main structure. I defined some of the terms like what a former foster youth would be, or what a foster youth would be, what would be the age, and I just added clauses. I basically just looked at what was available.

Miller: But I mean when I think about bill writing, I think about lawmakers sometimes. We want to think, ideally, these are written by lawmakers. I think often they’re written by lawyers or lobbyists or lobbyists who are lawyers. What gave you the sense that you could do this yourself?

Priyan: Well, I actually am not quite sure. I had an idea. And I thought, “Let’s see how far I could push it.” I presented it to a couple lawmakers through Our Children Oregon’s town hall that they had. I went to a Zoom. I spoke with a couple of legislators. I said, “I have this abstract idea. Could this ever work?” And they gave me a positive response.

The more I talked to people, the more I realized it could actually work. So when I eventually approached Senator Kate Lieber, who was my representative, about the bill idea I gave her my one pager, which was basically here’s the bill idea and this is why we should pass it. She was like, “Yeah, I think this is a great idea,” and she gave me the legislative draft back in December. I was like, “Wow! I could actually do it.”

Miller: Where does this bill stand right now?

Priyan: It has been referred to the floor of the Finance and Revenue Committee, and a hearing should be scheduled in the next couple weeks.

Miller: Have you heard of any opposition to it?

Priyan: I have not heard of opposition yet, but I’ve definitely thought about it, especially when I was first thinking about the idea. A lot of what I thought about is whether the money would be worth spending, because it would be a tax credit. And to that I would say that I believe that it’s a preventative bill. It helps people help themselves over the long term, getting people fair access to employment and helping underprivileged youth have more equal footing. That just helps society thrive as a whole. That saves us money in the long term.

Miller: As you mentioned, it has not been scheduled for a hearing yet. You’re hoping it will be soon. The fate of most bills is that they die. They never get a hearing or they die in a committee. There are hundreds of bills and most don’t make it. If that happens to this one, what’s your plan?

Priyan: Well, I would definitely try and find out why it died and if there was a specific reason. I would talk to the senator that’s currently pushing it now, which is Senator Gelser Blouin. And if that happened, I honestly think I would still push for more investment into… So, Project 48, that I mentioned before, they have this six-week life skills program and it helps you learn life skills like how to write a resume, and how to apply for jobs, and how to get to jobs, and all sorts of things like that. I believe that programs like that are so valuable. And if this doesn’t necessarily go through, I could obviously try again. But I could also really work to participate and help those programs to grow bigger because they have incredible value.

Miller: What do you feel like you’ve learned in this process?

Priyan: I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned is that sometimes a cause is very much bigger than you and you have to pull your own ego out of it. And you have to pull your own personal attachment. If something fails, it doesn’t mean that you’re a failure and if something succeeds, that’s not bursting your ego. You’re just serving a cause. I think that distinction has been something that I’ve definitely learned.

Miller: Working on this goes back five years. At the heart of this is your understanding that there are young people in Oregon who have many fewer privileges than the average young person and many more challenges. I’m wondering if this has made you look at the privileges that you have in your own life in a different light?

Priyan: Oh yes, absolutely. I have amazing parents. I’ve been given unconditional love my entire life. I have an amazing education and amazing support system. And the further I wade into this work, the more I appreciate that support system, and really value its role in my life. I value having someone to call about anything, and having parents that support me unconditionally. And it’s definitely made me value those things more.

Miller: Do you have any idea what you might like to do as a career?

Priyan: Yes, I’d like to go into child and family law.

Miller: You know that as a 17-year old?

Priyan: Yes, I do. I’ve known that for a while. I’d like to become, specifically, a child advocate attorney that specializes in cases of child abuse or neglect. Alongside that, I’d love to continue to change policy, but yeah, in terms of career, I’d love to be a lawyer.

Miller: Vishaka, it was a pleasure talking to you. Thanks very much.

Priyan: Thank you so much.

Miller: Vishaka Priyan is a junior at Catlin Gabel High School.

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