Community In-Site

The child welfare field is increasingly focused on shifting toward a broader vision of family well-being, one that emphasizes prevention, stability, and keeping families together whenever possible. But a fundamental question remains: can the system we have today actually become a family well-being system?

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Sixto Cancel, founder and CEO of Think of Us, about what it would take to transform the current child welfare system into something fundamentally different. Drawing from both his lived experience in foster care and his national policy work, Sixto reflects on why he believes change can happen from within rather than starting over entirely.

He explores how the system developed over time, why safety remains a central concern, and what it might look like to build a family well-being framework using the infrastructure that already exists. The conversation also touches on the broader conditions required for transformation, including government investment, community-based support, economic stability, and preparing young people for long-term success.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple answer. Instead, it invites listeners to think more critically about what transformation would actually require, and whether families would feel the difference.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are a few resources that Sixto wanted to share with you.

• Think of Us
• LinkedIn

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Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

The child welfare field is increasingly asking what it would take to fundamentally change how we support families, and whether the systems we have today are capable of evolving into what communities and families have been asking for.

One of the ideas at the center of that conversation is abolition. For many, it has existed as a critique from outside the system. But as that conversation moves closer to positions of leadership, new questions are emerging about what it would actually look like in practice.

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Angela Burton, an attorney and advocate who was recently one of the final candidates to lead New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services.

Drawing from her perspective, Angela outlines a practical approach for how to build the infrastructure that would support the needs of communities and families while preventing investigations and removals. She also explores how abolitionist ideas translate into leadership, what changes might be possible within existing systems, and how strategy, accountability, and decision-making would need to shift.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple answer. Instead, it invites listeners to think more critically about what it would take to move from critique to implementation, and what meaningful change would actually require.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are a few resources that Angela wanted to share with you.

• Reinvesting Upstream - NYC Family Policy Project
• Narrowing the Front Door
• Proposal for the Office of Family Well-Being_12.19.25
• What is the Child and Family Wellbeing Fund?  | Schuyler Center

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Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

Termination of parental rights is often described as a last resort, something that happens only after every other option has been exhausted. But many families and advocates question how those outcomes are shaped long before a case reaches that point.

In this episode, host Valerie Frost speaks with Toia Potts, a family advocate and organizer with Emancipate NC, about the role legal representation plays once families enter the system. Drawing from her experience and her work with Carolina Parent Defenders, Toia walks through what meaningful legal advocacy should look like in practice. She also describes the common gaps and how they can influence the trajectory of a case.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple answer. Instead, it invites listeners to look more closely at how decisions are made, what shapes those decisions, and what it actually takes to prioritize keeping families together.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are a few resources that Toia wanted to share with you.

• CPS Stole My Children - Toia Potts - Inquest
• Motherhood Cannot Be Erased By The State | Toia Potts | TEDxLake Alfred
• Home | Black Mothers March
• Home - Emancipate North Carolina

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

For more than twenty years, there has been a growing emphasis on youth engagement — inviting young people into the conversations and decisions about the systems that impact their lives. However, there are still fundamental skills that many people are developing that are grounded in working with people with lived experience as experts. 

Today, we’re joined by two child welfare advocates who are focused on that question—particularly how shared decision-making can shape solutions that actually work. Blanca Goetz is a Jim Casey Fellow and youth advocate, and Kathleen Holt-Whyte is a senior youth engagement consultant with Cetera Inc.

Together, they helped develop the Elevating Youth Engagement, or EYE, curriculum. Developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in partnership with Cetera Inc., EYE builds on more than two decades of the Casey Foundation’s national leadership in authentic youth engagement. The curriculum brings together system leaders and young people to explore what meaningful partnership in improving outcomes for young people in foster care can look like.

This conversation explores what happens when systems move beyond simply including young people and begin to consider what it takes for their perspectives to actually shape decisions.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here is a few resources that Blanca and Kathleen wanted to share with you.

• Elevating Youth Engagement - The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Elevating Youth Engagement: Recording Now Available - The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Elevating Youth Engagement: Recording Now Available - The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Cetera
• Brain Frames: Short Tools for Positive Interactions With Youth in Foster Care - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

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Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

This episode of Community In-Site is a re-release from Season 2 with Dr. Jessica Pryce. Dr. Pryce is a research faculty at Florida State University and author of Broken: Transforming Child Protective Services. Dr. Pryce is a nationally recognized thought leader on child welfare workforce development. In this conversation, Valerie and Dr. Pryce talk about the agent–advocate–activist journey framework in Broken that challenges professionals to reflect on their role within systems and consider what it means to move toward advocacy and transformation.

Drawing from her experience as a Black woman working in child welfare, Dr. Pryce explores how the experiences of people impacted by the system can serve as critical data for change. She reflects on the discomfort, tension, and responsibility that come with questioning long-standing practices and assumptions.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple path forward. Instead, it invites listeners to think more deeply about power, perspective, and what it takes to evolve, both personally and institutionally.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here is a few resources that Jessica wanted to share with you.

• To transform child welfare, take race out of the equation | Jessica Pryce
• Publications — Sharing Power | Shifting Mindsets
• Sharing Power | Shifting Mindsets

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

As the family well-being movement continues to push toward prevention, experimentation, and community-led solutions, what does it look like for philanthropy to support that shift? How can philanthropy be a leader in driving innovation and social change? 

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Marvin Smith, founder and CEO of Funding Bravely. He is also the host of the Funding Bravely podcast. Marvin's work focuses on how philanthropy can move beyond maintaining existing systems and instead support experimentation, proximity to communities, and community-led innovation. He discusses the balance foundations often navigate between sustainability, urgency, and how funding decisions influence which ideas move forward.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple prescription for philanthropy. Instead, it invites listeners to think more deeply about how power, risk, and accountability shape funding decisions and what it might take for philanthropy to support lasting change.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here is a site where you can learn more about Marvin's work. 

• Funding Bravely - Podcast - Apple Podcasts
• CEP_A_Sector_in_Crisis_FNL.pdf
• Cerulli Anticipates $124 Trillion in Wealth Will… | Cerulli Associates
• Marvin L. Smith | Substack

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Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

Direct cash support for parents can sound both simple and provocative. Research shows that neglect is the most common reason families become involved with child welfare, and it is often tied to economic hardship, which is why direct cash support has become part of prevention conversations. Some would say that giving families money, with no strings attached, is exactly what prevention should look like, while others raise questions about responsibility, trust, and accountability. 

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Melody Webb, founder of Mothers Outreach Network and lead of the MotherUp pilot. Melody walks through how MotherUp works and why it focuses on Black mothers facing economic stress and heightened system surveillance. She describes how their direct cash program helps parents gain financial stability, plan for the future, deepen their relationships with their children, and avoid deeper system involvement.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple answer. Instead, it invites listeners to look more closely at the assumptions we bring to parenting, poverty, and prevention and to consider whether distrust of families has quietly shaped the systems meant to support them.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here is a site where you can learn more about Melody's work. 

• Home - Mother's Outreach Network
• Building a Guaranteed Income to End the "Child Welfare" System | Columbia Journal of Race and Law
• Standing with Moms Film - Mother's Outreach Network
• MotherUpPhase2FinalReport20251102-1.pdf - Google Drive

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

When most people think about transitional housing for youth aging out, Mike Williams thinks about home ownership as a way to help them build generational wealth. Mike is the CEO of Dreams and Success Homes and SMART DREAMS Inc. Some would say that what Mike is doing is innovative and exactly what young people need, while others might say that mixing foster youth, real estate, and profit introduces new risks. How can innovation introduce healthy and necessary risk without putting young people in a situation where they don’t have the support they need to succeed. Mike knows this tension because he lived it when he transitioned out of foster care.

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost talks with Mike about these perspectives. Mike walks through the mechanics of his housing and mentorship model, including how homes are financed, how relationships are structured, and the safeguards built in to protect young people as they transition to adulthood.

This conversation doesn’t resolve the debate. Instead, it asks harder questions about risk, accountability, and what it takes to build new solutions. 

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here is a site where you can learn more about Mike's work. 

• DASH Foundation | Coaching & Housing

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

Some would say that reducing child welfare intervention puts children at risk, while others argue that too much intervention causes its own harm. How can stepping back be seen as both responsible leadership and potentially risky, and what does that tension reveal about how we define safety?

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost balances these perspectives in her conversation with Mollie Warren, Director of Boulder County Child Welfare. Mollie shares how Boulder County has reduced foster care entries while referrals continue, and how her team makes decisions about when not to intervene.

This conversation doesn’t resolve the debate. Instead, it asks harder questions about risk, accountability, and whether child safety can be measured differently when fewer families are pulled into the system.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are a few resources that Mollie wants to share with you. 

• Human Services - Boulder County
• Child Welfare - Boulder County

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected] 

Some would say that abolishing the child welfare system would put children at risk while others would say it is a beautiful vision for families. How can one idea, one word, spark such vastly different points of view, and what does this difference help us better understand about the child welfare system? 

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost balances these differing points of view in her conversation with Erin Miles Cloud, co-founder of Movement for Family Power and co-editor of How To End Family Policing. Erin explains what abolition actually means in practice, how safety can exist outside traditional systems, and what structures must be built to replace what’s removed.

This conversation doesn’t resolve the debate. Instead, it asks hard questions about power, accountability, and whether we can imagine a system that protects children without unnecessarily policing families.

Community In-Site is now on YouTube. You can go to the website to listen to episodes, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are a few resources that Erin wants to share with you. 

• How to End Family Policing | Join the Movement
• Movement for Family Power
• The Scholar & Feminist Online - Toward the Abolition of the Foster System

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [email protected]