Responding to feedback from recent focus groups with parents, Rise is launching a new publication and partnerships to ensure that, when children enter foster care, parents get the information they need to make choices in their cases.
Rise TIPS – a series of one-page handouts — will provide basic information about handling challenges in child welfare cases. The first set of TIPS focuses on visiting. Content was developed by parents, with input from caseplanners at Graham Windham; the … Read More
Iowa Parent Partners at their 2016 Summit with copies of Rise! This statewide organization provides peer mentoring to parents facing the child welfare system. Thank you Carly Shaw and Sara Persons for bringing Rise to Iowa!
Caseworkers play such an important role in whether parents succeed in getting their children home from foster care.
When my son was in foster care, I had 5 or 6 caseworkers over the course of three years. Most of my caseworkers seemed like they were too busy to give me 5 minutes of their time, or were so scared of my anger that they avoided me. I used to feel so frustrated, thinking: “You never have … Read More
Four parent leaders from Rise presented parents’ perspectives on facing New York City Family Courts at the CUNY Law School symposium “Reimagining Family Defense” on April 8. Drawing on interviews with dozens of parents with current child welfare cases and stories published in Rise’s parent-written magazine over the past 10 years, Piazadora Footman, Robbyne Wiley, Bevanjae Kelley and Nancy Fortunato described common themes in parents’ experiences facing the court and gave recommendations for reform.
Click here to … Read More
My introduction to Rise was through the writing workshop at the Child Welfare Organizing Project. When I started, I was writing just to write. Then I found that writing was a way to gain insight into my life.
I never knew that writing words on paper would open up so many old wounds.
The first thing I discovered was that I’d suppressed a lot of what happened in my life. I remembered things my mother … Read More
