Sonia Emerson

Sonia Emerson is a passionate child welfare and social justice advocate who brings both her professional skills and lived experience to ChildFocus, including expertise in public policy, racial equity & inclusion, kinship care, and permanency.

For the past several years, Sonia has been a Jim Casey Young Fellow with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Along with other Jim Casey Young fellows, she worked to design a new permanency option for youth in foster care, the SOUL Family Legal Permanency Option (Support, Opportunity, Unity and Legal Relationships). This option aims to connect waiting youth in foster care with caring and supportive adults while preserving key family relationships. Sonia will work to advance the SOUL Family Option at the state and national levels by helping to educate and collaborate with other young leaders across the country. In addition, Sonia will lend her expertise to the Journey to Success campaign to improve outcomes for all youth and young adults who experience foster care.

Sonia’s lived experience of homelessness and leaving high school early inspired her to give other young people in foster care a different experience. She joined a local youth board in Ohio and became co-chair, writing policies and attending legislative sessions to amplify the needs of this population. Sonia collaborated on several research projects and community and national initiatives such as the Family First Initiative, A Place 4 Me, Human Rights Campaign and NIH Pilot Study by addressing systemic issues facing youth. She promoted strategies that would lead to equitable outcomes for young people and currently serves on the LGBTQ+ Heritage Committee which supports and serves queer & minority individuals in her community. She has also published some articles that highlight her mission to create systemic changes through public policy development and advocacy efforts.

Sonia identifies as a proud Cisgender Queer woman and is a mother of one and kinship caregiver of two beautiful vibrant teenagers. She enjoys spending time volunteering in her community, kayaking with her family, meditating and playing UNO. She is also a self-proclaimed storyteller, thought leader, writer and public speaker and has done several keynote speeches.