A Vision for 2026 and Beyond
A Better Way founder Shahnaz Mazandarani with Board member Ahmad Asir.
As A Better Way celebrates 30 years of helping children, youth, and families, we're facing some big challenges. The systems that support people who need help, like child welfare, youth justice, mental health services, housing, and job training, are struggling. Money is tight, policies are changing, and there aren't enough workers. But times like these are exactly why A Better Way exists. These challenges remind us why our mission matters.
In 1996, our founder Shahnaz Mazandarani made her dream come true when she started A Better Way. She wanted to help Bay Area children and families going through tough times. And Shahnaz had known hard times first hand. In her home country of Iran, she’d lived through the horrors of a violent, authoritarian regime. She’d seen how the government used fear and violence to control people. And she had lost family and friends to that violence.
But she’d also seen how the Iranian people stayed strong, compassionate, generous, and brave through it all. She saw that especially in the hardest of times, “Love Wins.”
Those past experiences made Shahnaz even more committed to helping others and fighting for fairness here in the Bay Area. When she started A Better Way, she brought an important idea with her: communities can bounce back from hard times when they support each other. For 30 years, we've built programs based on working together, on mutual respect and mutual healing, and on creating opportunities.
As the world faces new challenges today, A Better Way is ready to stay strong and help our community do the same.
Our programs prove that when people receive compassionate, quality services from someone who believes in them, real change happens. Whether we're providing mental health support, child welfare services, housing help, parent support, or job training, we always listen to the people we serve. We work with families and community partners to support family goals AND to improve our systems of care.
One of our biggest successes has been helping people turn their life challenges into purposeful careers. For more than ten years, A Better Way has run programs for parents who are navigating the child welfare system. These programs are staffed by people who have their own past experience successfully navigating child welfare. Through programs like the Parent Engagement Program and Another Road to Safety, parents who get their children back can receive the training, mentoring, and support they need to obtain long-term jobs as Parent Advocates.
These programs – run in partnership with Alameda County Social Services Agency – show how we can support long term stability of the families we serve while also bringing more lived experience into the workforce. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, A Better Way wants to bring this successful approach to young people.
One new program we hope to start in 2026 is LEAF - or the Lived Experience Advocacy Fellowship. LEAF is an eight-month mentorship and job training program for youth who've been in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. These young people face real barriers to getting jobs, like interrupted schooling, little work experience, unfair treatment by systems, and lingering effects from past trauma. LEAF tackles these problems head-on by offering job training and certification as well as support from trained mentors who've had similar experiences. LEAF also connects youth with a supportive community – a key factor in long term success and well-being.
The name "LEAF" represents a fresh start – a chance for individuals, professionals, and systems to turn over a new leaf.
The fellowship teaches both job skills and personal growth. Participants will get Mental Health First Aid training, work toward becoming a California Medi-Cal Peer Support Specialist, and learn through the My Story Matters program. This program helps youth see their experiences as strengths, not something to be ashamed of. Through hands-on practice, coaching, and connecting with peers, participants build professional skills, learn how to communicate at work, and gain confidence to pursue careers helping others.
The impact of programs like LEAF goes beyond helping individual people succeed. When graduates start working, they'll help change how systems serve foster youth and young people involved in the justice system. They'll bring understanding, empathy, and trust to the teams they join and help improve policies and practices from the inside.
This is just one way we plan to grow our programs in the coming years.
Thirty years ago, A Better Way was founded on the belief that people deserve more than just services. They deserve community and opportunity. As we look toward 2026 and beyond, that belief still guides everything we do. We remain strong through uncertain times, confident in what works, and committed to creating pathways where life experience becomes leadership, struggle becomes strength, and commitment grows into career.