Community In-Site

In this episode, Valerie sits down with Carol Mitchell, a seasoned attorney, social justice advocate, and founder of the Institute for Black Justice (IBJ). With over 20 years of public sector leadership experience, Carol is dedicated to transforming how systems recognize and support Black fathers as essential caregivers and partners in family well-being. Based in Washington State, IBJ is committed...

In this episode, Valerie sits down with Sarah Winograd, the visionary and founder behind Together With Families, an organization committed to transforming the way we approach family support. Sarah explains the philosophy behind Together with Families and Playbook on their Relational Practice Approach, which emphasizes showing up for families not as service providers, but as genuine partners. The h...

Today’s guest is Clare Anderson, a policy expert and passionate advocate for using evidence to drive upstream investments to prevent child welfare involvement. Claire is a Senior Policy Fellow at Chapin Hall, and she’s spent years organizing data to help us understand the impact of economic policy on families — and what puts them at risk. Clare helps connect the dots between the economic shocks th...

Valerie sits down with Mashai Small—a former army sergeant, a mother, and member of the African National Women’s Organization leadership team. She’s also an organizer, abolitionist, and one of the leaders of the Black Mother’s March happening in Washington, DC on May 11th.  Part of the family well-being movement is the abolitionist perspective, which holds that the path to justice requires dismant...

Valerie sits down with David Lujan who is the former Director of the Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Arizona School for the Arts. They discuss his pivotal role in significantly reducing the number of children in care in Arizona. In 2017, there were nearly 19,000 kids in foster care in Arizona. During David’s time at DCS, he oversaw a d...

In this episode, Valerie sits down with Heather Hanson, Founder of Building Bridges, LLC, and a leader in the Colorado Partnership for Thriving Families. Heather takes us through the journey of The Story of the System —a project that was initiated, designed, and led by individuals with lived experience to transform the way Colorado's systems engage with families. The project focuses on storyt...

In this episode, we re-release the conversation with Gwen Clegg, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Office of Family Representation. At the end of the episode, Valerie and Gwen catch up on what has happened in the past year, including the office’s growth, impact, new innovations, and what’s on the horizon.  As a reminder, Season One hosts, Elliott and Tecoria, talked to Gwen Clegg about Oklahoma’s...

Valerie sits down with Lisa Lawson, the President and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. They discuss her leadership in the child welfare sector and the Foundation's pivotal role in advancing the Thriving Families, Safer Children (TFSC) movement. Lisa reflects on her journey as a leader, Foundation President, and the future of the TFSC movement. Lisa shares insights into the shift from imp...

In this episode, Valerie connects with Ashley Bates, a fellow parent leader in Kentucky and a Lead Family Coordinator. Ashley shares her powerful journey from navigating the challenges of substance use and family separation to becoming an advocate for change in Kentucky's child welfare system. She reflects on the importance of parent leadership, the value of lived expertise, and how her exper...

In this episode, Valerie talks with Marie Zemler Wu and D.L. Moffitt of Foster America about an innovative shift happening in child welfare financing. Marie, Co-founder and Executive Director, and D.L., Fiscal Innovation Specialist, explain how Foster America is reimagining the way we support families by creating a just and equitable alternative to the current child welfare system. They envision f...

Valerie talks to Adam Ballout, a public defender and co-founder of the F.I.R.S.T. (Family Intervention Response to Stop Trauma) Legal Clinic in Washington state. The clinic takes an innovative approach by partnering with healthcare providers and community organizations to offer free legal advocacy to mothers facing substance use challenges. The goal is to keep mothers and their babies together whi...

In this episode, we hear from Flo White, a youth organizer and leader with Sasha Bruce Youthwork. Flo shares her powerful journey from experiencing homelessness to becoming a leader within the organization and a key advocate for youth in Washington, DC. Her story is one of resilience, growth, and empowerment, as she navigated the challenges of youth homelessness, received stabilization, and transi...

In this episode, we hear from Rebecca Jones-Gaston, Commissioner of the Administration of Children, Youth, and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Children’s Bureau, which is part of ACYF, is one of the six national partners of the Thriving Families, Safer Children initiative. As a key leader in Thriving Families, Safer Children, Rebecca brings invaluable insight into...

In this special episode, hosts Tecoria and Elliott revisit episodes that left a lasting impact on them and reflect on the most insightful insights from the conversation. They return to moments with Clare Anderson, Shawn Mitchell and Currey Cook, Judge Jay Dugger, and Jennifer Holman and Jeanine Morales. Listen in to how they dive deeper into the takeaways that shaped their perspectives. From explo...

This week’s episode sheds light on the persistent challenges and significant opportunities in engaging people with lived experience in child welfare system transformation. While there is a lot of interest and focus on lived expertise, the truth is that working with the community is critical, but agencies often lack the skills and experience to do this well. It’s easy for leaders to fall back on ol...

In this episode, hosts Tecoria and Elliott connect with Zenayda Bonilla, a mother who overcame the challenge of feeling silenced by the child welfare system. Zenayda shares her journey of navigating motherhood in a new country and culture, and how she found support through the Center for Family Life in Brooklyn. The Center for Family Life is one of the recipients of the Youth, Family, and Communit...

Keith Bostick is the President of the Black Administrators in Child Welfare and a long-term clinician, administrator, and director in the child welfare space. He currently serves as the Deputy Director of Broward County Human Services in the state of Florida.  Along with the Haywood Burns Institute, Keith provides technical assistance to the Thriving Families, Safer Children initiative to help adv...

In this episode, we hear from Kailene Nihipali Sanchez, Network Manager at EPIC ʻOhana, Inc in Hawaii. As a teenager, Kailene grew up in a community with high rates of health issues, homelessness, and substance abuse. She describes a pivotal moment when she returned to her culture and identity to overcome early adversity. As the Network Manager, she now advocates alongside other native Hawaiian fa...

In this powerful episode, we are honored to have Sarah Smalls, a tireless advocate for kinship caregivers and grandparents raising grandchildren. Sarah has been at the forefront of national and local efforts to secure resources, support, and respect for relative caregivers. She shares her personal journey of raising her three grandchildren and her influential roles with organizations like Formed F...

Tecoria and Elliott sit down with Judge Jay Dugger, who serves as the Chief Judge of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court for the City of Hampton, Virginia. His story highlights how collaborative leadership led to a reduction of kids in foster care from 300 to about 80 and only one child in residential treatment over the past 20 years. Judge Dugger joins the conversation in his perso...

Clare Anderson is a Senior Policy Fellow with Chapin Hall at The University of Chicago. Clare was previously Deputy Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she provided leadership for federal programs and co-led developing and implementing a national well-being policy. She is a national thought leader on economic and concrete supports as core to the prevention of ch...

In this week's episode, Elliott and Tecoria talk with Susie Ballot about the Indigenous Parent Leadership Initiative. Susie lives in Callaway Minnesota on the White Earth Nation Reservation. She is a graduate of the Indigenous Parent Leadership Initiative (IPLI) program run by All Nations Rise. As a graduate of the Initiative, she helps people deepen their connection to their culture and deve...

In this episode, Claire Louge discusses why effective child safety begins with cultural change. She explains how her organization is working to shift the narrative from reporting families to believing in and investing in families. Oftentimes, people confuse detecting child abuse and neglect with preventing it, when true prevention aims to stop it from happening at all. Claire is the Executive Dire...

Elliott and Tecoria talk to Gwen Clegg about Oklahoma’s new statewide Office of Family Representation.  So new, in fact, that it hadn’t even launched when this episode was recorded. Gwen is a parent defense attorney and for the past 15 years she has been working tirelessly to improve the quality of family representation in Oklahoma. Across the country, families experiencing a child welfare case su...

In this episode, Tecoria and Elliot open the door to a real and vulnerable conversation about the importance of LGBTQ+ youth inclusion. They talk to Shawn Mitchell, a Youth Contributor to the Safe Haven project, and Currey Cook, a Senior Counsel and Youth in Out-of-Home Care Project Director at Lambda Legal. This conversation touches on the Thriving Families, Safer Children guiding principles of a...