Personnel Profile: Anthony Pico

Anthony Pico is an 18-year-old foster youth who is in high demand as a public speaker on foster-youth issues. He was recently featured on NPR’s This American Life, which chronicled his struggle between being a representative for youth and having to act like an adult.

You were recently featured on This American Life. How did that piece come about?

From working with the Blue Ribbon Commission on Foster Care, I met Amy Lemley, who works with the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes. She was talking with [This American Life writer] Doug McRay around the time that foster youth were going to be taken out of the national census, and Doug McRay wanted to do a piece on foster care to help bring light to it. But by the time they started, the laws had already been changed.