Youth Voice Amplified (YVA)
Where every youth is heard. And every voice matters.
Youth Voice Amplified is a youth-led podcast, where youth who have overcome adversity share their stories of hope, strength & resilience.
When young people share their stories, they can change the world, but some youth voices still go unheard. Join hosts Gennessa Fisher and Brian Johnson for this youth-led and youth-focused monthly interview series as they talk with young people about their life experiences with homelessness, foster care, disabilities, teen parenting, and more. Each conversation will uncover stories of hope and strength from youth storytellers who want to reach back and share the best ways we all can support youth in similar situations as theirs. If you want to know how to do better for youth or simply be inspired, this is your show!
Every youth has a story to tell. Are you ready to listen?
Meet Our Hosts
Gennessa Fisher
Gennessa Fisher is one of Kern County’s strongest advocates for utilizing youths’ perspectives to create change within the foster care and homeless systems. Drawing from her lived experience of homelessness and foster care, Gennessa acts as the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative’s Youth Action Board Chair and serves on the Collaborative’s Governing Board. She is deeply committed to working in partnership with schools and community partners to develop strategic solutions to end youth homelessness. Gennessa currently works as a Peer Support Specialist at the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office. She is very passionate about working with young people on a daily basis at the Dream Center, a foster youth outreach center, and seeks out any opportunity to help them recognize their awesomeness.
Brian Johnson
As a former foster youth, a foster youth advocate, and a foster parent, Brian Johnson has a unique perspective about the impact of foster care on the lives of children and youth. Brian joined the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office in 2022 as a Peer Support Specialist at the Dream Center. Each day, he ensures that foster youth and homeless youth have a voice and the services they need overcome barriers to education, employment, and housing. Brian believes that by getting to know a foster youth’s story can grow our understanding of their foster care journey. Outside of the office, Brian, for the past five years, has been a devoted foster parent walking children through traumatic times and helping them to better succeed in life.
In 2022, the KCSOS Foster & Homeless Education Program applied for and was awarded the Homeless Innovative Programs (HIP) Grant from the California Department of Education’s Student Achievement and Support Division to develop innovative practices that can be studied, adapted, and shared statewide, demonstrating the LEA’s implementation of the EHCY Program authorized by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Student voice projects are instrumental in ensuring student engagement and lowering rates of chronic absenteeism & high school dropout rates for McKinney-Vento students.
The Youth Voice Amplified Podcast is a project under the Kern Co. HIP grant.
To learn more about Kern Co.’s Student Voice Model Innovative Practice (MIP) Toolkit, visit https://kern.org/homeless-innovation-program/