Racial Justice In The Child Welfare System
Background
Over a year ago, CFPIC launched a Race, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion webinar series intended to strengthen our understanding of the complexity and diversity of the communities we serve in order to improve our practice. These sessions on the African American, Native American and Latinx experiences in the child welfare system provided historical context for structural racism and created opportunities for leaders to explore possible connections between the CPM Leadership Behaviors and the antidotes to dominant culture. We look forward to integrating the wisdom from these sessions into the values and behaviors within the Practice Model. Click below for examples of the salient points from each webinar series.
Supporting Child Welfare Directors:
Based on what the Faculty learned from the Listening Sessions, they identified some additional steps to support the Directors in addressing these issues, with the understanding that strategies that work in one community may not work in all others, due to the wide diversity of communities across California.
Beginning in October 2020, the Faculty provided a series of Zoom sessions that addressed racial justice issues in the Child Welfare system.
Leveraging CPM To Build A Race Equity Culture
Session 1, on October 29, 2020, focused on becoming familiar with key terms to establish a common understanding about racial equity/inequity in the Child Welfare system and knowing the context and history of racism within the child welfare system in order to appreciate the impact that race equity has on decision-making within our field.
Changing Our Behaviors To Change Our Culture
Session 2, “Changing our Behaviors to Change our Culture,” on February 24, 2021, offered participants the opportunity to acquire ideas about entry points into the work of anti-racism within our systems, examine how the antidotes to white supremacy culture can transform organizational culture, and continue to explore together what we can do to promote equity in our organizations.
Learning From Our Past And Present To Create A More Promising Future
Session 3, “Learning From Our Past and Present to Create a More Promising Future,” occurred on April 27, 2021. This interactive event reflected on 20 years of REI work in California’s child welfare agencies by looking back on past strategies utilized to address racial disproportionalities and disparities and offer counties an opportunity to share their current efforts through facilitated discussions.
Growing And Linking Our Knowledge About Data, History And Sovereignty To Strengthen ICWA Practice And Leadership Behaviors
On August 19, 2021, we held the first of a three part series exploring the history of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), its impact on the Child Welfare system and successful approaches to its implementation in California. This inaugural session, “Growing and Linking our Knowledge About Data, History and Sovereignty to Strengthen ICWA Practice and Leadership Behaviors” focused on what data tells us about Native families and CWS and confronted the historical context of the Native experience and the impacts of government laws and practices on Native children and families.
Session two:
Session three:
Many Cultures, One People: A Deep Dive into the Experiences of Latinx Families in the Child Welfare System and Using the CPM to Forge a Better Path
This three-part series was created to help participants understand the history and diversity of Latinx populations and how to use the CPM as the vehicle to improve the experiences and outcomes for Latinx children and families engaged in the child welfare system.
Session one:
Session two:
Session three:
Additional Resources
The Faculty are maintaining an on-line Racial Justice Resource Folder on our Google Drive that incorporates a wide array of articles and links that can be helpful to the larger community as the Directors and their colleagues explore how to address racial justice issues. Click below to access the folder.