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

Paying It Forward – As a peer mentor, I help fathers and change the system

November 28, 2018 by

Interview with Dustin McClard 

When child protective services entered Dustin McClard’s life in 2014, he was using and selling drugs, and facing the possibility of prison. His twins were removed shortly after birth and remained in foster care for three months while he went to treatment.

Now McClard works as a peer mentor at a family service agency in Portland, Oregon. He spoke to Rise about how his mentor, Tim, helped him get sober and … Read More

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