Foster Care is Being Re-Envisioned!
Jamole Callahan and I presented the 2023 cohort of Re-Envisioning Foster Care Champions with their certificates at the National Foster Care Conference in Boston, MA. Dakota Roundtree-Swain (pictured) is one of the newest honorees.
Photo Credit: Julian Parker-Burns
Hope is in the air when it comes to changes in the foster care system! Recently, I had the opportunity to attend two events that have restored my faith in our foster care system. The resounding comments from these two Incubator events, is that there is a strong need for leadership from impacted youth and communities.
We were so grateful to Mayor Michelle Wu, who graced us with her presence.
Photo Credit: Julian Parker-Burns
At the beginning of this month, I co-hosted the Re-Envisioning Foster Care Conference inside a replica of the Senate Chambers at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.
The conference was the most powerful demonstration of collaboration that I’ve ever witnessed. Judy Cockerton, the CEO of the Treehouse Foundation, empowered a slew of individuals with lived experience to be in various positions, which led to the entire event being designed and executed by people who have been in foster care. To commemorate the leader of this, we presented Judy Cockerton, with the “Ally of The Decade” award. We kicked off the conference with a red carpet event honoring the Re-Envisioning Foster Care Champions (I have interviewed most of them on the INNOVATE! podcast. Check that out here!). The following two days were filled with breakout sessions, also led by those who have experienced foster care. The result was resoundingly successful. We’ve been recieving feedback like this:
“Every speaker not only has lived experience, but incredible skill in speaking, engagement, knowledge … I can’t think of a conference I’ve attended with this universal high level of content.”
In addition to hosting the conference, I also hosted two live podcast episodes. The first episode is available to listen to now and features Demetrius Napalitano - a former foster youth, who aspires to become the Best Yogi in Harlem.
Listen to the episode: Healing Through Meditation with Demetrius HERE.
Photo Credit: Julian Parker-Burns
I am beaming with pride as I watch my 14-year-old mentee, address the conference audience.
I have virtually mentored a 14-year-old for the past few years. She lives about an hour outside of Boston, so she begged her adoptive mother to take her to the Edward M. Kennedy Center to surprise me! It was a thrill to meet her in-person for the first time. I asked her if she’d like to share some of her story on the microphone in front of everyone. With confidence and courage, she spoke right in to the microphone, sharing about how she wrote an essay about foster care, winning her a $10K scholarship to college. The audience gave her a standing ovation!
It was a thrill to recieve a personal invite to this historic event from Brenda Robinson, the Chair of the American Bar Association on Youth at Risk. Also pictured: Takeem Morgan.
I was honored to have been invited to a special convening by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth at Risk. Hofstra University hosted myself, fourteen other former foster youth along with a group of passionate lawyers, judges, for the Renewal and Revolution: Recommitting the Legal Profession to Serving Children and Youth, their Families, and Communities. We were asked to review the following issues prior to arriving at Hofstra on Long Island, New York:
What are some of the specific ways that youth, parents, caretakers, kin, families, and communities of color are over-surveilled, unnecessarily separated, and criminalized through the implementation of mandated reporting, termination of parental rights and associated timelines, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), the Child Abuse Prevention & Treatment Act (CAPTA)?
Should caregivers, including kin and non-relatives, become more integrated into case-based and broader decision-making processes? Why or why not?
What are some eamples of ways the court has conflated poverty with maltreatment? Consider issues including (but not limited to) disparate scrutiny of substance use, the school to prison pipeline and carceral responses to mental health emergencies.
Reflect upon the degree to which advocacy on abolition and divestment (from carceral systems and juvenile justice, child welfare, immigrant detention, and policing), may inform or influence their own lived experience and day-to-day roles.
Examined barriers to access for individuals with developmental disabilities, multi-systems youth who are expectant or parenting, and youth and families affected by substance use disorder. Discussion inquires how current models of preventive care and financial support for parents of young children might be replicated for older youth, while drawing inspiration from promising reforms and community-based approaches that operate apart from governmental systems. The need for trauma-informed lawyering, attention towards vicarious trauma and burnout, and cultural humility in all aspects of the profession.
I’m standing next to Aysha Schomburg, Joyce MacMillan and Shrounda Selivanoff.
It was a thrill to meet Aysha E. Schomburg! She is the Associate Commissioner in the Children’s Bureau in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, located within the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As associate commissioner she heads the Children’s Bureau.
Schomburg began her career at ACS as the director of parent recruitment where she focused on supporting foster and prospective adoptive parents. She also served as the director of youth development initiatives for the agency, where she developed a number of critical programs including pioneering the implementation of the nurse family partnership program for parenting youth, and the preparing youth for adulthood plan.
Associate Commissioner Schomburg, who has bar admissions in both the states of New York and New Jersey, received her B.A. from the University of Virginia, her M.A. from New York University and her J.D. from New York Law School.
“Governor Healy,
I would like to see a lived experience leader in the role of the Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families. A seasoned professional who would use their professional skills, lived expertise, and powerful network to ensure children and families thrive.” ”