The Proximity Process

This is episode two of a two-part conversation with Shrounda Selivanoff. We are continuing our ongoing series on Termination of Parental Rights. If you haven't already, please listen to the first episode where Shrounda and I talk about her family's experience of TPR and how they had to fight to maintain custody of her grandson and protect her son's rights from being terminated.  In...

In this journal episode I talk about the impact that decision overload can have on us, particularly for those of us who are introverts, and how I keep my energy for the most important things. When you take a minute to think about the quantity of decisions we make every day, week, month, and year it can be staggering. And considering the weight of some of these decisions, it becomes clear that ther...

In this episode we return to our ongoing series on Termination of Parental Rights. This is part one of a two-part conversation with Shrounda Selivanoff. Shrounda is the Chief of Parent Representation Initiatives with the Washington State Office of Public Defense. She has a long history as an effective policy director and respected advocate for parental rights. She also brings her own personal expe...

This week's journal picks up on the main theme of last week's episode with Jalaycia Lewis. So many of us have great ideas for things we want to do or create but we tend to get stuck in the idea phase. In order to have the impact we want, we have to get out of ideation and into action, but this is difficult, and we need some simple tools. I talk about the importance of acknowledging that...

This is a particularly exciting episode because we are doing something a little bit different. Today’s guest is Jalaycia Lewis who is part of the Imagination Factory community and someone I’ve been coaching for the past 6 months or so. Like so many of us, Jalaycia has ideas and dreams for what she wants to do in the world. She wants her work to align with her values, what she loves, what she’s goo...

In this week's journal episode, I share a simple exercise that my coach, Brendalyn King shared with me. Since then, I have shared this with a number of people I work with, and they typically resonate with it and find it valuable. This came to me at a time in my process where I was questioning the impact of my work and if I was doing enough and doing "the right" things. I think this...

I've been under the weather, so I decided to rerelease a gem from season one. I'm excited to share my conversation with Dr Jessica Pryce. Dr Pryce's book, Broken: Transforming Child Protective Services, gave us a great backdrop to a wide-ranging conversation. At the beginning of the book, she lays out a framework or process of moving from being an agent of the child protection syste...

In this week's journal episode, I wanted to return to the conversation about Termination of Parent Rights. I've been surprised by the number of conversations that are happening around TPR in recent months, more than any time in my career, including national working groups. While we have a long way to go in terms of making significant strides, it seems as though we are normalizing the con...

We're excited to bring you an update on what is happening with Together with Families (TwF) since our last episode with Sarah Winograd. TwF is, in my opinion, one of the more innovative organizations working with families impacted by the child welfare system. I had the pleasure of catching up with Sarah and her partner and co-founder Andel Jones-Foster. TwF is an interesting organization for...

One of the biggest lessons I've learned over the past few years is that the practice of letting go is critical to my process. I've see how letting go has helped me and many others I've had the opportunity to work with. In this episode I talk about letting go as the practice of creating space for our future to emerge. And one of the key elements of this practice is discerning between...

This is the next in a series of conversations about the intersection of child welfare and affordable housing. Nationally, 10% of children come into foster care simply because their families cannot access affordable housing. Dustin Koury describes how Wisconsin came to a decision that rather than removing children, causing undue stress and harm, they would instead invest in stable housing and relat...

In this week's episode I return to one of the core questions that not only led to the development of the show but also my decision to leave my job. Am I in right relationship? I share a few thoughts on being in integrity with my values as one way to answer the question. Then I dive more deeply into what has emerged for me over the past year or so, which is that I want to work and live at the...

This is the one-year anniversary of The Proximity Process podcast. Thank you for listening and being part of the community that we are building. To mark this milestone, we thought we'd go back into the archives and pull clips of our guests answering the question that ends every episode. What does proximity mean to you? I also talk about what the proximity process means to me. I hope you enjoy...

Why do we remove kids from their family and pay for foster care when stable housing is a better solution? 10% of children in foster care are removed due to unstable or unsuitable housing. Investing in affordable housing programs to prevent foster care is better for kids, families, communities, and its less expensive. When we start to look at the child welfare system through an economic justice len...

In this week's episode my friend Carol King joins me for a conversation about why she made the pivot from technology to affordable housing. The story actually starts during her childhood. Carol grew up with her father as the primary caregiver and in an environment that wasn't always safe. She eventually made the difficult decision to remove herself from the home and ultimately go into fo...

For this week's journal episode, I scrolled back into my photos to see where I was one year ago. I was on production of Standing with Mom's, a short film we produced for Mother's Outreach Network about their guaranteed income pilot. One of the lessons I learned from MON's founder, Melody Webb, is that we should believe in people, invest in people, and our investments should mee...

This week's episode is the next in a series of conversations with a variety of guests on the topic of Termination of Parental Rights. The question we've been asking is, what if TPR didn't exist? In past episodes with Vivek, we've talked about two TPR cases he's been appealing and the opportunity he had this summer to present oral arguments to the Michigan Supreme Court. A...

In this week's episode I talk about why I'm cofounding the Imagination Factory and what I'm learning about myself and the work to advance justice. Systems change, changing the structures of what currently exists, is not enough to advance justice. We need to imagine and create a future where families and communities have what they need to thrive. While many of us have dreams and idea...

In this episode I talk to leading trauma expert, Dr. Bruce Perry. I wanted to continue an ongoing conversation Bruce and I have been having about why systems don't change and the important role of storytelling in personal transformation. Dr. Perry is working on a new book about why systems don't change, and we thought it would be great to talk about what he's learning. We covered a...

In this week's journal episode, I talk about the practice of Right Relationship and how it has been a significant part of my process. I share a few different definitions that can be helpful in how we think about what this principle and practice actually means. I also walk through the Japanese concept of Ikigai as a tool that we can use to assess whether or not we are living in Right Relations...

I'm excited to bring you the third installment of an ongoing conversation with Ryan O'Donnell. Ryan embodies the idea of systems change starting with personal transformation. In previous episodes we hear about how Ryan went from being a tech entrepreneur, to foster parent, to former foster parent, to advocate for one parent, and ultimately advocate and activist for parents. In this episo...

This week's episode was prompted by a quote I read in the book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor. The chapter on imagination began with this quote, "A talent for speaking differently, rather than arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change." In other words, we create change by first seeing a different future in our mind's eye and then speaking that vi...

This week's episode is a conversation with my coach, Brendalyn King. Brendalyn is a talented ontological leadership coach, an experienced entrepreneur, and one of the more influential people in my process. I wanted to talk to Brendalyn about the recurring question that comes up for so many of us, should I stay, or should I go? This isn't just a question about whether or not we should lea...

In this week's journal episode, I share the origin story of my search for the world's best chocolate chip cookie. This is not the first time I've been on this search. Sometime around 2007 I found the best cookie in the world and the search was over. When I left my job in 2022, I began to reflect on how I was living my life and decided to map the different dimensions of who I am to s...

In this episode I talk with Dave Newell who is the CEO of Akin in Seattle, WA. Akin is a new organization (kind of) that formed as the result of a merger of two 100+ year old organizations, Children's Home Society of Washington and Childhaven. I wanted to talk with Dave about his vision for the future of Akin and how he hopes to seize the opportunity to not simply merge two organizations into...