The Mockingbird Society's Youth Programs bring together youth and alumni of foster and kinship care from across Washington State to provide advocacy and leadership training, build connection and support for one another, and build young peoples' confidence and skills as changemakers in their communities.
Youth Programs creates a quarterly publication called The Mockingbird Times, which includes poetry, writings, and personal stories accepted from young people across Washington state. 
Mockingbird provides stipends for participants, and Mockingbird Times contributors are paid for their work.

Youth Programs offered at Mockingbird Society

Provides opportunities for youth who have experienced foster care and/or homelessness to connect for peer support, develop advocacy skills, submit writing and personal stories, and be published in a locally produced newspaper.

Programs that intercede on behalf of individuals to help them establish eligibility for or obtain needed services when they have been denied benefits or services for which they are eligible, when they need assistance to communicate their needs to a service provider or to otherwise effectively represent themselves, or when they have a complaint about a service. Individual advocacy attempts to reach equitable settlements without resorting to litigation and seeks to meet individual needs without attempting to change social institutions.

Individual Advocacy

Programs that seek to ensure broad participation by community residents in government decision making and the political process by encouraging them to serve on government boards and commissions; attend public hearings, council meetings, town meetings, school board meetings and other forums in which public policy issues are being discussed and decisions are being made; communicate with elected officials via correspondence, email, telephone or other means; participate in programs designed to familiarize people with local government departments, facilities and services; and use other similar vehicles to become proactively involved in community affairs.

Community Involvement Programs

Organizations that support measures that address the needs of people who are, or are at risk of becoming, homeless including the need for shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing, medical care and basic human rights.

Homelessness Advocacy Groups

Programs that provide opportunities for individuals of all ages to develop their leadership and management skills through participation in activities which require planning a workscope, organizing ways to achieve planned objectives, motivating members to complete tasks they have agreed to perform and evaluating the group's progress; or through training which addresses these skills.

Leadership Development

Organizations that print and/or distribute or otherwise make available daily, weekly or other regularly scheduled papers that contain news, editorials, features, advertising and articles about other matters of current interest.