Child Welfare - 2022 Collaborative Successes

Happy New Year! For many, this month evokes a magnitude of emotions. While January rings in a season of renewal, this time can also feel notably stressful. An emphasis on setting New Year's resolutions may serve as an inspiration for some, but also harbor immense pressure (and sometimes shame) on oneself right off the bat of the new year. However, you may feel at this current moment, it is important to remember you are not alone. In an attempt to drown the noise of the “New year, new me” rhetoric, this blog will explore some amazing wins that 2022 brought us both at Mission Capital and throughout the larger community. Hopefully, these stories encourage and foster hope that 2023 will bring even more triumphs, resolutions, or not.

Mission Capital Collective Impact Child Welfare (MCCICW) continues to support collaborations with Travis County Collaborative for Children (TCCC), Child Welfare Race Equity Collaborative (CWREC), and The Reimagining Child Welfare Pilot by Judge Martinez Jones, District Judge (CPS). The Child Welfare program uses the collective impact model to provide backbone support and build bridges between providers, community members, parents/caregivers, and youth with lived experience through a unique co-design approach that brings the people closest to the issues and solutions to the table.

Mission Capital Successes

Peer Learning Training

The Collective Impact Child Welfare team at Mission Capital saw a tremendous diversification in Peer Learning Training (PLT) from participant engagement, roles, locations, and topics. The training is facilitated by professionals, community, and/or individuals with lived experience with a focus on trauma-informed care, equity, and cultural responsiveness resulting in healing-centered engagement. This space serves as an educational resource to identify and address complexities of various intersections and the child welfare system and promote transformative approaches to promote child and family wellbeing. In 2022, PLT expanded to include multidisciplinary providers for minors and adults, the community including grassroots & faith-based organizations, and parents/caregivers/youth with lived experience.​ Mission Capital reached a vast local, national and international audience with a total of 1,429 worldwide participants.

Second Annual Child Welfare Convening

The Collective Impact Child Welfare Team also hosted our second annual Child Welfare Convening in early December 2022 with a beautiful cultural theme of Storytelling at the Crossroads of life and systems. The conference was captured by a local Artist, Serena Tijerina, who started the day with a blank canvas and painted throughout the day, then revealed her masterpiece during the closing of the event. This masterpiece displayed various images and colors reflecting the many stories told throughout the day, surrounding children and families. The Child Welfare Convening banded with keynote speaker, TiTi Ladette and a panel of seven multidisciplinary providers, community members, and parents/youth adults with lived experience - Tanya Rollins, Tameka Pounds, Joshua Banks, Shellie Ryan, Minnie Cardona, Paul Saldaña, and Adrian Potter. The powerful day was closed by the honorable Judge Aurora Martinez-Jones, sharing hope and the reality that systemic approaches to serving children and families are transforming in her trauma-informed court. Mission Capital leaned into co-creating an atmosphere with each presenter and hundreds of diverse audience members to identify systemic barriers and co-create a healing-centered (trauma-informed & equity) approach to transform the child welfare system. The convening was co-designed by the Mission Capital Child Welfare Strategy Committee that includes multidisciplinary providers, the community, and parents/caregivers/youth with lived experience.

Child Welfare Race Equity Collaborative (CWREC) Community Event

MCCICW supported the Child Welfare Race Equity Collaborative (CWREC) Community Event in the summer of 2022 in Dove Springs, Texas, one of the top three zip codes in Travis County with the highest reports to the Department of Family Protective Services (also referred to as CPS). The event was hosted by the CWREC leadership committee led by Tanya Rollins, Founder of iVOICES, Honorable Martinez Jones, District Judge 126th Travis County Court, and Michael Martinez, Sr. Director Family Casey Program. A panel discussion with Minnie Cardona, Eloise Sepeda, Tanya Rollins, and Constable George Morales was held to share information about the impact of the child welfare system and systemic barriers in marginalized communities. Various agencies partnered to provide resources and giveaways, and multidisciplinary providers shared space in a restorative justice dialogue during the event with attendees. The City Of Austin Councilwoman, Vanessa Fuentes, was in attendance to listen and support her District 2 constituents and efforts to promote child and family safety and wellbeing. Casey Family Programs donated box fans for residents who attended and neighbors because of the extremely hot Texas summer heat.

Global Successes

Onondaga Nation

The Onondaga Nation regained 1,023 acres of ancestral land in New York. For this tribe, Onondaga Lake and Onondaga Creek are sacred and known as living relatives. When it was revealed that Honeywell manufacturers were polluting the bodies of water, the Onondaga Nation filed a lawsuit to regain the lost land. Winning the lawsuit not only gave back the 1,000+ acres, but Honeywell must pay  “5 million dollars to the Natural Resource Trustees, restore several hundred acres of polluted area, and construct 18 projects related to conservation and recreation, of which 7 have been completed.” (Good News Network)

Benevolence Farm

The Benevolence Farm in North Carolina disrupts the disparities of the jailing system in rural areas by providing support for women recently released from the system. The farm, “offers supportive transition after release from prison by providing safe housing, a guaranteed job, and other services — access to career-building classes, health appointments, and transportation — for incarcerated people who identify as women.” (Good Good Good Company) Over 32 residents recently released from incarceration have broken the systemic barriers for reentry and finished their high school diplomas, regained custody of their children, and started college, among many other accomplishments that would have been nearly impossible otherwise.

Maya Angelou in US Currency

Maya Angelou, renowned civil rights activist and poet, is the first BIPOC woman that will be represented on United States currency. She will be the first design shown on the American Woman Quarters Program in 2022. The four-year program will honor prominent women in United States history by placing them at the back of the quarter. (NPR)