About this Webinar
Child Welfare faced challenges prior to the global pandemic. In the face of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the needs of the most vulnerable children and youth have only intensified. Challenges such as foster family shortages, social worker burdens and exoduses, and the complex needs of youth facing trauma have become more acute and widespread.
At the same time, numerous agencies and organizations across the country have been working tirelessly to design and implement creative and innovative strategies and tools that can help alleviate the crisis, facilitate child welfare processes, focus on ‘whole-person care’, and drive positive outcomes for youth, families, and social workers.
This one-hour session will host a unique panel with diverse experience across child welfare, including experts in public policy and practice, former foster youth, and foster/adoptive parents. This discussion will highlight ways to harness data, increase collaboration, streamline processes, and better match children/youth with families and services for better outcomes and overall experiences.
Binti & Opeeka are collectively working with states and agencies to support child-welfare innovation & sustainable development with the use of ‘real-time’ data analytics.
Attendees will be able to ask questions and gain valuable information ‘take-aways’ which include how to make foster care more successful using ‘story-mapping.’ In addition, concrete examples will be offered on how to improve successful placements, increase permanency planning for all children/youth and how technology is essential for achieving ‘whole-person’ care.
Your Host
John Kelly
Co-Executive Director, Fostering Media Connections
John Kelly is co-executive director overseeing editorial and fund development for FMC.
John is the founding editor of The Imprint, FMC’s daily news website covering the fields of child welfare, juvenile justice and other youth-related services. He has been reporting and editing coverage of youth services since 2001, and is passionate about connecting these fields to quality, independent journalism.
John joined FMC in 2013, and oversees development and planning of the website’s coverage. He also writes Youth Services Insider, a regular column that focuses on national issues and federal policy. He began his journalism career at Youth Today, where he started as an intern and over the course of ten years became managing editor.
Panelists
Justin Black
Founder of Rising Over Societal Expectations (ROSE) Empowerment Group
Justin Black created the Rising Over Societal Expectations (ROSE) Empowerment Group with a vision to close the information gap for today’s generation of Black and Brown young adults after his experiences as a Black male in the foster care system. He has also developed policy recommendations while working with the National Black Child Development Institute resulting in a publication titled The State of the Black Child Report Card: Washington State.
Black studied urban and community development as well as a political and economic philosophy in countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Senegal, and South Korea. In his spare time, Justin loves watching sports and enjoys hot wings.
He aspires to challenge and expand the ideologies of how to build prosperous communities through interdependence and entrepreneurship.
Veronica Davis
Customer Success Manager, Binti (Former Senior Manager for Resource Families at Rhode Island DCYF)
Veronica is a State Launch Lead at Binti. For over 15 years she has worked in the fields of early child education and child welfare, with a focus on raising the voices of both youth and families. Before joining the Binti team, Veronica worked for the state of Rhode Island’s child welfare agency, overseeing a wide portfolio including stakeholder engagement and the recruitment, development, licensing, support, and permanency services for the state’s resource families.
She is passionate about impacting system change in child welfare by helping people do their jobs more efficiently, allowing more time to focus on relationships and communication with children and families. Veronica holds an M.S. in Education from Wheelock College in Boston.
Kevin McDonnell
VP of Sales, Opeeka (Foster and Adoptive Parent)
Kevin is a seasoned SaaS technology leader with over twenty years of leadership experience. Expert in process improvement and solution design. “Big idea” person with instinctive ability to formulate business plans and strategies and then execute them. Natural “change agent” skilled at motivating, encouraging, and inspiring others. Excellent creative writer, business development and marketing guru.
Kenneth McGill, EdS LMFT
Solution-Focused Care Senior Scientist at Opeeka
