The Proximity Process

Today's episode is much more personal and emotional that most. I recorded this on the four-year anniversary of losing my cousin and friend, Patrick. I wanted to honor him and our relationship. I also tell the story of how Patrick's death led to me and "Tex" (this show's producer) reconnecting after 10-12 years. In that one phone call, we sparked a creative partnership that...

Today's conversation with Maleeka Jihad (MJ) dives into the difference between whiteness (white ideology), white identity, and humanity. MJ is the Executive Director of the MJCF: Coalition and runs a consulting business. She's also earning her PhD in Leadership and Development and Social Change. When we first met, she was co-facilitating a training I attended and in one of the breakout s...

I recorded this week's journal episode about 15 minutes after the weekly Proximity Podcast Club ended. I had a plan for this week's episode but the conversation that played out in the Podcast Club changed my plan. One of our goals for this show is to use it as a platform to build community and then have conversations with that community that help people progress in their own process. The...

In our first conversation with Vivek Sankaran, we talked about the morality, necessity, and constitutionality of Terminating Parental Rights. At the end of the conversation, he mentioned that he would be presenting two TPR cases to the Michigan Supreme Court in May. That has happened and, in this episode, we hear from Vivek about how it went, what he learned about where we are in the conversation...

We're doing something new! We decided to bring back episode one, which goes into a bit of my origin story! We've added a lot of new listeners over the past couple of months and I thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce myself and the inspiration for the show. And, quite honestly, it's helpful to take a pause from producing new episodes every week. We'll be back with a ne...

I'm excited to bring you this week's conversation with Dr Jessica Pryce. Dr Pryce's new 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 system to becoming an advocate and then activist. We talk about wh...

This episode is a follow up to the previous journal episode, Am I Biased? One of our ambitions with this show is to build community and engage the community in a conversation. So, the series of episodes about termination of parental rights led to some feedback that prompted the episode about my biases. And that episode prompted past guest Corey Best to send me a journal prompt that I used for this...

I'm super excited to bring you the first ever (but not the last) Ask Me Anything episode. We put out a call for questions and you all came through. We received more questions than we could get to in one episode. We also asked the Proximity Podcast Club if someone wanted to guest host. Again, lots of interest but there could only be one host. Kathleen Creamer is a parent defense attorney but h...

In this week's episode I start with the journal prompt, am I biased?  This was prompted by some of the feedback to our most recent episodes on Termination of Parental Rights. I thought I would let you all into my process of how I try to approach feedback that is critical or raises questions about my intentions. Rather than defending anything that is being said on the show my hope is to ask my...

This week's episode continues our series of conversations about Termination of Parent Rights. I wanted to talk to Vivek Sankaran because he has a unique depth of knowledge to bring to the thought experiment that we've been bringing to these episodes, which is to imagine what if TPR was no longer an option. Vivek directs the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic...

Today's guest, Mollie Warren, is the Director of Family and Children's Services in Boulder County, Colorado. I wanted to return to the conversation about Termination of Parental Rights with someone who is in a "practitioner" role and a position to make decisions about to the use of TPR on a regular basis. One of my goals in these conversations is to normalize a conversation abo...

In today's journal episode I share some of the questions and ideas that came up on this week's Proximity Podcast Club conversation. The jumping off question this week was what shifts are happening for each of us as we think more deeply about prevention. In other words, what are we trying to prevent, how, and for whom? This led to a really dynamic conversation. We talked about why it is s...

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month. This is a perfect time to step back and ask ourselves, what is prevention? What values and narratives underpin our ideas of who and what we are preventing? In my conversation with Dr Melissa Merrick, President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America, I wanted to understand prevention from the perspective of social justice. Dr Merrick and I t...

Today's episode is a conversation I had with my friend and colleague, Mike Shaver, who is the CEO of Brightpoint in Illinois. Brightpoint began as Children Home & Aid in 1883 and is going through a significant shift in how they see their role in advancing justice for families. Mike and I talked about the leadership challenges and successes he's experienced throughout his career as he...

In this week's journal episode, I talk about a simple practice that I have used throughout my career to remain curious, adaptable, and in service of people. This is something that you can start doing today. This practice has helped me avoid falling into status quo and one I've observed it do the same for other leaders. The practice is to listen to people's experiences, learn from an...

I remember learning about the 2020 Vision in 2007 when I started working in child welfare. It was a new national initiative with the goal of reducing the number of kids in foster care by 50% by the year 2020. I was working with kids aging out and watching the impact of growing up in foster care play out in front of my eyes. I remember being inspired by this initiative and hopeful about its impact....

This week's episode is a journal entry that was prompted by the Proximity Podcast Club conversation. We were talking about a question posed to the group by Corey Best, who am I without the family policing system? This immediately got me thinking about a few fundamental questions that I talk about in this episode. What did the system provide me? What did the system cost me? Where does my secur...

Today's episode is a conversation with Kathleen Creamer that you don't want to miss. Kathleen is the Managing Attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia where she and her team use a holistic family defense model to help parents maintain custody of or reunite with their children. We center the conversation on the necessity of Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) as well as the c...

This is part two of my conversation with Corey Best. You may want to go back and listen to episode one where Corey talks about growing up in DC, his son being born, and his experience of termination of parental rights (TPR). We end that conversation as Corey was hours away from reuniting with his son after 19 years. We pick up Today's episode with the first embrace that Corey shares with son...

This is part one of a two-part conversation with Corey Best. We cover a lot of ground in these conversations, but we center around Corey's relationship with his son who, until very recently, he hadn't seen or talked to in 19 years. We get into Corey's early years of growing up in DC, some of the pivotal people and experiences in his life, and the early part of his career. But the he...

This week is a journal episode. This episode was inspired by the recent Hill Briefing that was organized by the Repeal CAPTA Coalition. What came across so clearly in the briefing is that we don't have to wait for justice, we can act now to advance justice. Part of the proposal of the Repeal CAPTA Coalition is to shift funds from Title I of CAPTA to Title II and increase that amount to $500 m...

This week's episode is a recently released conversation I had as a guest on the Leaving Well with Naomi Hattaway podcast. Naomi is a skilled interviewer, and it was a joy to talk to her about my experience of leaving well, including the one regret that I had in the process.  I think Naomi's work has a lot to offer the community we are building around The Proximity Process. I hope this is...

On this episode I share some of my reflections on Shawn A Ginwright's book The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves. I talk about the first pivot, which is from lens to mirror. The way Shawn talks about this pivot speaks directly to how I have come to understand the proximity process. My reflections are related to how I understand this pivot, how I have seen this pivot play...

Today's episode is a conversation with my friend, colleague, and Podcast Club collaborator and co-host, Dr. Kimberly Offutt. We tell the origin story of how we decided to create the weekly Proximity Podcast Club. The story starts with Kim listening to episode one and calling me to say, "I feel like I was punched in the gut". Our conversation moves into why community building is part...

We are at the beginning of 2024 and many of us are thinking about resolutions, intentions, and goals. In this episode I talk about the early days of 2023 and how I set intention to handle some of the challenges and uncertainties of leaving my job. A conversation with a friend prompted an intention that shaped 2023. The intention is to be whole in who I am in all aspects of my life. My intention fo...