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Posts Tagged: Parent Advocacy
Collaboration Is Our Key – How parents in Washington State are changing hearts, minds and laws
March 06, 2019 by
In 2007, Children’s Home Society of Washington held a statewide summit for child welfare leadership. Parents who had been involved with the system made up 10% of participants. The keynote speaker, Brenda Lopez, “stunned everyone with her story of losing her kids and then getting them back and becoming a transformational person,” says Nancy Roberts-Brown, former director of Catalyst for Kids, a statewide coalition affiliated with the Children’s Home Society.
That summit led to two parent … Read More
Writing a Wrong – The courage of dedicated advocates can correct the injustices in the system
January 23, 2019 by
I unjustly lost 7 of my 8 children to the child welfare system because I was seen as unfit because I was a poor, African-American mother in an abusive relationship.
During my fight for my family, I discovered how child welfare professionals who don’t know you or your children can decide that you are a disease that your children need to be cured of.
Now I am determined to bring about change by writing about the harm … Read More
Minnesota parents take to the streets, the courts and the legislature
January 10, 2019 by
In Minnesota this year, parents and their allies began protesting what they say are routine violations of families’ rights as well as bias that leads to the overrepresentation of black and Native American families in the child welfare system. In Minnesota, a black child is 3 to 5 times more likely to be in foster care than a white child, and a Native American child is 17 times more likely to be in foster care, according to … Read More
Peer Pressure – How parents are changing the child welfare system
November 28, 2018 by
BY KEYNA FRANKLIN and JEANETTE VEGA
For decades, parents in the child welfare system have felt powerless, demonized, silenced and alone. Things have begun to change in places where parents have united to use their shared experience to support one another and work for change.
Today, according to the Birth Parent National Network, there are organizations of child welfare-affected parents in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Washington.
In … Read More