Foster youth face unique challenges as they transition to adulthood. Many of them lack stable housing, employment opportunities, and essential life skills, which often lead to negative outcomes such as homelessness, unemployment, trafficking and incarceration.
Since 2003, the Transition Resource Action Center (TRAC, for short) has provided a “one-stop” support center for transitional living services in North Texas for youth exiting foster and juvenile care and their homeless peers. TRAC is the only transition center in the 19 county North Texas Region 3 of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that comprehensively addresses the needs of this population, working out of offices in Dallas and Fort Worth. TRAC’s “safety-net” approach enhances the provision of seamless, wrap-around, and transitional support services necessary for these youth to develop into self-sufficient young adults.
TRAC’s goal is to increase the number of young people who have the necessary skills and resources to transition to adulthood and, ultimately, successful independent living by empowering their progression to independence.
Annually, TRAC assists over 1200 of the most challenged, at-risk youth to make a life plan and acquire skills they will need to thrive on their own as they are reaching adulthood. TRAC services include experiential life skills training, coaching/case management, workforce and educational support, housing assistance, and crisis intervention services. The desired goal of TRAC’s comprehensive services is to have vulnerable youth secure safe, stable, and affordable housing, as well as obtain a livable wage job through employment and higher education, and to divert youth from homelessness, sex trafficking, crime and other negative outcomes.
Mission:
Connect young people ages 14-24, who are transitioning from substitute/foster care in North Texas toward self-sufficiency, with individualized support, planning and access to community services.
Vision:
A one-stop resource that provides support for young people aging out of substitute care. Here young people have opportunities to become independent, contributing citizens by realizing their full potential as they transition to young adulthood.
Values:
- The voice of young people: inclusion, demonstration, engagement, involvement and collaboration.
- Hope, encouragement and acceptance.
- Respect for individual differences.
- Relationships nurtured through cooperation and trust with young people, caregivers, agencies and community.
- An approach based on personal strengths.
- Individualized positive outcomes for all stakeholders.
- Improvement through ongoing evaluation.
TRAC Board*
Evy Kay Washburne, Board Chair
Facilitated the community collaborate that created TRAC and served as TRAC’s first Director until 2013.
Madeline Reedy, Board Secretary
Former TRAC Senior Director; worked in many roles at TRAC including Contracts Manager and Resident Advisor.
Madeline McClure
Founder and former CEO of TexProtects that served as a partner agency during the launch of TRAC in 2003.
George Ellis, CPA, JD
CFO for Accumen, responsible for Accounting and Finance, Legal, and Strategic Partnering for Accumen and its constituent companies.
Dave Shipley
Former Board Chairman of CitySquare; retired from healthcare insurance business after 45 years; serves on the board of FBMC, a healthcare consulting company.
Nakia Douglas (ex officio)
TRAC Executive Director
*–The initial TRAC Board was established in January, 2023, to begin the process of separating TRAC from under the CitySquare fiscal umbrella.