Lacy Kendrick Burk

Lacy Kendrick Burk currently serves as a partner with Change Matrix, LLC where she motivates, measures, and manages change to support systems that improve lives. She served as the founding Executive Director of Youth MOVE (Motivating Others through Voices of Experience) National, a youth-led, non-profit organization that advocates for and supports youth voice. Lacy leds the Youth MOVE team, including a network of 77 chapters of nearly 9000 young people across 39 states. She leads the nation in several innovative youth-led programs and sets standards for youth engagement practice.

Lacy had to work to overcome many challenges, including abuse, multiple mental health diagnoses, suicidal ideation, and trauma responses before finding her way to mental health recovery. When she was 15 years old, Lacy and her five younger siblings were placed in foster care. After learning her voice could make a difference for herself and her siblings, she began using her voice to help other foster youth. She was adopted age 28 by her long-time foster parents, who received the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute’s Angels in Adoption Award in 2013.

At only 30, Lacy has started her own consulting business, established herself as an international speaker, consultant, author, and a Director on the Boards of national and international organizations. She was appointed to the CMHS National Advisory Council in 2012 by Secretary Sibelius, interned for Senator John Kerry, has testified in State and Federal Congressional hearings, and currently serves as the Secretary and chair of the youth committee for the International Foster Care Organisation. Her story has reached tens of thousands of people from nearly 30 different countries.

She continues to advocate for positive changes for youth through sharing her story and consultation for local, state, and national programs and initiatives. Through coaching and mentoring other young people, she inspires them to do the same.