Breaking Old Habits: The Tension and Promise of Shifting Power

This week’s episode sheds light on the persistent challenges and significant opportunities in engaging people with lived experience in child welfare system transformation. While there is a lot of interest and focus on lived expertise, the truth is that working with the community is critical, but agencies often lack the skills and experience to do this well. It’s easy for leaders to fall back on old ways of thinking, outdated power dynamics, and entrenched incentives. Elliott and Tecoria talk to Jennifer Holman, Oregon Department of Human Services’ Family Preservation Manager, and Jeanine Morales, a Senior Advisor and lived expert at Foster America. They share their journey and the challenges along the way of altering traditional government approaches to focus on community-driven solutions.

While they outline how ODHS is working towards being better at integrating voices of lived experience to create meaningful change, they are honest that they don’t have the answers. What they want to leave listeners with is what you do when you don’t have the answers. For example, be patient, be honest, and prioritize relationships.