Rise magazine is written by parents who have faced the child welfare system in their own lives. Many people don’t know that the majority of children who enter foster care return home to their parents–and that most children in care wish for a lifelong relationship with their parents, whether they live with them or not. Helping parents is fundamental to helping children in foster care.
Through personal essays and reporting, parents illuminate every aspect of the child welfare experience from parents’ perspectives. For professionals, Rise stories offer insight that can improve how you engage and support families. For parents, Rise offers information, peer support, and hope.
The International Parent Advocacy Network (IPAN) partnered with Rise to develop the Toolkit for Transformation. Here, we highlight information and resources from the Support Groups for Impacted Parents section of the toolkit.
The Washington State Parent Ally Committee (WPAC) brings parent advocates from across Washington together to share the pressing issues they see on the ground and then to work toward passage of legislative change.
As the parent lead of WPAC for many years, Alise Morrisey understood that collaboration was key to the passage of many important pieces of legislation, including a bill about background checks that made it easier to place children with relatives; a bill that funded parent advocacy statewide; and a bill that gave incarcerated parents more time to reunify with their children.
Morrisey still believes in the power of legislative advocacy, but today, she says, she would like to see parent advocates push for more fundamental change to support families outside the child welfare system.
The International Parent Advocacy Network (IPAN) partnered with Rise to develop the Toolkit for Transformation. Here, we highlight groups featured in the Community Organizing section of the toolkit.
Rise and MLS offered this Facebook event on December 16, 2020 for parents, parent advocates and community members to learn about the SCR. The information in the presentation can help people to clear their records so they can get meaningful work.
Mary Burton never thought she’d help to start an organization. Burton was separated from her parents and siblings when she was placed in foster care as a child, as part of the child welfare system’s 1960s scoop, which, along with other policies over more than a century, routinely separated Indigenous children in Canada from their families. After she successfully fought the child welfare system for custody of her own children and grandchildren, she spent the next 20 years helping friends and families from her living room do the same.
