Social Current is seeking competitive submissions for its 2024 Innovative Impact Award. Too often great ideas are kept in-house without recognizing their potential to create change beyond the communities where they were born. Social Current’s Innovative Impact Award identifies, documents, and celebrates examples of successful approaches to management and service delivery practices adopted by our network organizations.

The Innovative Impact Award will spotlight the efforts of Social Current network organizations—their staff, board, volunteers, and partners—who innovate for good to create lasting change with families and communities.

We invite you to share your successful strategies and serve as a resource for community-based organizations, leaders, researchers, and advocates across the full spectrum of human and social services.

Submissions should be focused within one of the following impact areas:

Applications should be submitted online by March 25. Submissions must include a synopsis of your innovative practice and a case study narrative that addresses the evaluation criteria. View the Innovative Impact Award program details, including submission guidelines, evaluation criteria, and eligibility.

Winner Benefits

The 2024 Innovative Impact Award winner will receive national visibility and promotion from both Social Current and participating national associations. The winner will also receive the following benefits:

View full award details and apply online by March 25. Contact Social Current with questions.

Social Current has always emphasized that together, we can create a greater impact. By working across systems, community-based organizations can establish a web of services that maximize their strengths and address their needs to better serve their staff and communities.

At Social Current, we provide multiple pathways toward purposeful partnership. From Strategic Industry Partners to Network Champions to Corporations and Philanthropy, we bolster our network’s impact by sharing their business solutions and opportunities.

Our President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson would like to introduce our Silver Strategic Industry Partners in this video. These five partners offer specialized products and services that benefit the sector:

Meet Social Current’s Silver Strategic Industry Partners

Brown & Brown Insurance: Long-time partner Brown & Brown Insurance is the preferred choice of over 1,300 health and human services organizations nationwide. They are dedicated to making a positive difference in the lives of their customers by helping to protect what they value most.

FlexAMS: FlexAMS offers a results-driven and cost-effective Electronic Health Record (EHR) solutions geared toward nonprofit health and human service organizations. They are committed to superior customer service and affordability, making them the top choice for many behavioral health and social services organizations.

Marsh McLennan Agency: Marsh McLennan Agency provides business insurance, employee health and benefits, retirement, and private client insurance solutions across North America. With inclusion and diversity at the heart of their shared enterprise, they work side by side across disciplines, businesses, and borders to solve their clients’ most complex problems.

Public Consulting Group: Public Consulting Group is a leading public sector management consulting firm that partners with health, education, and human services agencies. They offer a multidisciplinary approach to solve their clients’ challenges and favor long-term client relationships.

Triad: Triad is the leading provider of education, community, and career resources for our sector. They support the behavioral and mental health community, from student to practitioner, and offer discounted rates for our network.

Interested in partnering with Social Current? Contact Marisa Collins, director of strategic partnerships and partner communications, or visit our partnerships page online.

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing recently released a new vision paper for community-based provider organizations and states working to leverage the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) model to expand access to high-quality care.

CCBHCs: A Vision for the Future of Community Behavioral Health Care outlines a national vision for excellence in community mental health and substance use care and describes how clinics can leverage their CCBHC status to transform the experience of accessing care.

“We must take steps today to improve the quality of health care that will strengthen communities, help people in need, and improve health outcomes – tomorrow is too late,” National Council for Mental Wellbeing president and CEO Chuck Ingoglia said. “The overwhelming need for mental health and substance use care demands that we embrace innovative ways of structuring, as well as delivering and paying for care. The CCBHC model represents the best solution to accomplish that goal.”

The new resource captures innovations and best practices being used by CCBHCs that improve health outcomes, facilitate access to care, and demonstrate the value of the model. For clinics, it provides ideas to help design programs and services, streamline operations to ensure same-day access and develop a workforce capable of meeting increased demand for services, promoting health equity and improving health care outcomes. For states, it includes recommendations to engage with CCBHCs to better inform policy solutions to reduce barriers to care and coordinate statewide efforts like implementing the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Operated and certified in 12 states, CCBHCs have seen widespread bipartisan support in the last decade. Just last year, the CCBHC demonstration program was expanded to add 10 new states every two years, starting in 2024. As the program expands and more states begin drafting their state certification processes many will require accreditation.

Through COA Accreditation, a service of Social Current, we can ensure CCBHCs meet that accreditation requirement and successfully implement and build upon SAMHSA’s 2023 CCBHC Certification Criteria.

Learn more about how COA Accreditation standards support best practices for CCBHCs by visiting our website or joining an upcoming webinar.

Visit the National Council’s website to download the vision paper.

Social Current has always emphasized that together, we can create a greater impact. By working across systems, community-based organizations can establish a web of services that maximize their strengths and address their needs to better serve their staff and communities.

At Social Current, we provide multiple pathways toward purposeful partnership. From Strategic Industry Partners to Network Champions to Corporations and Philanthropy, we bolster our network’s impact by sharing their business solutions and opportunities.

Our President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson would like to introduce our Gold Strategic Industry Partners in this video. These four partners offer specialized products and services that benefit the sector:

Meet Social Current’s Gold Strategic Industry Partners

CCNY, Inc: There’s always a human side to analytics, and that’s where CCNY comes in. With consultative services that encompass data collection, evaluation, analytics, predictive modeling, and quality improvement, it’s their job to facilitate data-driven decisionmaking for those who work in health and human services.

DCM Associates (DCM): DCM’s nationally recognized and experienced leadership search consultants and coaches provide affordable expertise to help CEOs and leadership teams perform better as well as provide education, assessments, and surveys to help the entire organization, board, and leadership team develop best practices.

DCM offers a special executive search rate for Social Current’s COA-accredited organizations or Engagement Package holders year-round. They also invite you to participate in this nationwide CEO and Board Chair survey through Oct. 23.

Mutual of America Financial Group: Mutual of America offers a wide variety of pension and savings retirement plans for organizations of all sizes. They provide full services for 401(k), 403(b), Profit-Sharing, and 457 Deferred Comp plans and deliver the cost-efficiency of a full-service provider. Mutual of America can help you meet your investment, communication, and administrative responsibilities. No brokers, third-party administrators, firms, or individuals in the middle to drive up costs and delay plan-related services. They work directly with their clients.

Your Part-Time Controller (YPTC): For over 30 years, YPTC has helped to build stronger nonprofits. With over 1,400 nonprofit clients from coast to coast, YPTC assists with their financial management needs. These services include:

Learn more about YPTC in this Partner Highlight.

Our Strategic Industry Partners support our annual SPARK Conference. Register today for SPARK 2023, Oct. 16-17 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Interested in partnering with Social Current? Contact Marisa Collins, director of strategic partnerships and partner communications, or visit our partnerships page online.

Social Current’s Strategic Industry Partners offer specialized products or services to benefit our network. We are proud to spotlight our Gold Strategic Industry Partner Your Part-Time Controller. (YPTC).

For over 30 years, YPTC helps to build stronger nonprofits. With over 1,400 nonprofit clients from coast to coast, YPTC assists with their financial management needs—from internal, grant, and board reporting, to forecasting, budgeting, and cash flow management, and from bookkeeping and monthly financial statements to the development of customized dashboards.

How YPTC’s Services Benefit the Social Sector

At YPTC, they help to build stronger nonprofits, one accounting department at a time. They provide the accounting and financial management services that help chief executives and board members in the social services sector determine how effectively and efficiently their organization is accomplishing its mission and provide them with the timely, accurate information needed for decision making.

YPTC Services

  • Accounting and month-end close
  • Financial reporting
  • Analysis and recommendations
  • Data visualization
  • Scenario planning and cash flow forecasting
  • Board meeting attendance and training
  • Policies and procedures
  • Forecasting
  • Budgeting
  • Grant proposals and ad hoc reports
  • Grant management
  • Audit turnaround
  • Federal awards grant writing and tracking

Why YPTC Partners with Social Current

“YPTC works with many types of social service organizations, whose missions are important to the communities in which we serve, and to our staff who serve them,” said YPTC Manager Sandra Magri. “Social Current works to strengthen the social services sector. YPTC partnering with Social Current makes perfect sense!”

Free Webinar from YPTC: Budget Essentials for Everyone

Ensure your organization is ready for budget season. Invite your program directors and department heads to join YPTC to see the their free webinar Budgeting for Impact: Nonprofit Budget Essentials.

Visit the YPTC website for news, webinars, and resources and to work with them.

Meet YPTC in person at SPARK 2023, Oct. 16-17 in Bethesda, Maryland.

To learn more about partnering with Social Current, please email us.

Cover image of the mental health supplement.

Social Current is proud to be part of Mediaplanet’s Mental Health campaign, which launched today. This supplement to USA Today includes the article, “There Is No Time to Waste: Addressing America’s Youth Mental Health Crisis” by Social Current President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson. In the article, she outlines the complex challenge of youth mental health, emphasizes the importance of cross-system collaboration and early interventions that are tailored to each child and family’s needs and culture, and asserts confidence that we can build on momentum seen through federal investments in mental health and decreased stigma.

“The message is clear — we must prioritize access to a comprehensive, coordinated, upstream network of mental health services and supports, and this must be done in collaboration across all systems that interact with youth, including child welfare, education, juvenile justice, mental health, and primary care,” says Levison-Johnson.

Social Current supports youth and family mental health by strengthening the social sector through consulting on equity, diversity, and inclusion and workforce resilience; engagement packages, now Impact Partnerships; learning solutions; and COA Accreditation. Our COA Accreditation standards help ensure quality mental health services are available through community-based organizations.

The publication also includes articles from:

Mental health has been in the spotlight over the past few years, and this campaign aims to keep important conversations about the topic going long into the future. This campaign shares resources for those in crisis, tips for talking to a loved one dealing with mental health issues, strategies for combatting compassion fatigue, and so much more.

Pick up a copy in today’s USA Today or flip through the pages online.

COOK COUNTY, IL – Cook County Health’s Project CHILD (Collaboration of Helpers Lowering Deaths of Children), today released their final evaluation report for the Child Safety Forward initiative funded by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with technical assistance led by Social Current. Child Safety Forward is a multi-year demonstration initiative, launched in October 2019 by the DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime, that engaged five sites across the United States in research, planning, and implementation around strategies aimed at reducing child injury and fatality from abuse and neglect.

“Our data review indicated that an average of 10,000 serious child injuries or deaths due to suspected abuse or neglect are reported annually in the state of Illinois with higher rates in rural counties such as Peoria and Vermilion than the more densely populated Cook County,” noted Verleaner Lane, project director for Cook County Health’s Project CHILD. “We also found that 50 percent of the children who die from fatal injuries caused by maltreatment are unknown to the child welfare system. This data led us to take a public health approach by convening a multi-disciplinary group of community stakeholders who work to support families in a variety of different settings. The identified stakeholders included healthcare providers, community health workers, maternal infant health providers, educators, and social service providers.”

The late Marjorie Fujara, a world-renowned child abuse pediatrician, who led Project CHILD before her passing in 2021, noted during the initial planning phase of the project: “Child protective services, law enforcement, and medical professionals have worked together to investigate and respond to cases of child maltreatment and resulting deaths, but none have produced lasting results in terms of preventing child fatalities because of the lack of communication and bureaucratic nature between each agency; this has produced gaps in the system that have led to dire consequences. This project aims to identify the gaps and barriers to current approaches, policies, and procedures that exist to address child abuse and neglect in children aged three years and younger in three specific Illinois counties (Cook, Vermilion, and Peoria), to determine what prevention and intervention strategies work best for families in this area, and to ultimately decrease the number of child fatalities, near fatalities, and recurring child injuries caused by child abuse and neglect in those three Illinois counties.” 

Key elements of the project strategy included:

The multi-disciplinary team (MDT) was comprised of the following organizations: Children’s Advocacy Center of Illinois; Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center; Office of the Inspector General Illinois; Hoyleton Youth and Family Services; The University of Illinois: Child Protection Training Academy Simulation Lab; Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago: Child Abuse Pediatrics -Telehealth Partnership for Resilience (Educators); Be Strong Families (parent engagement); Illinois Department of Children and Family Services; EverThrive Illinois; Calumet Public School District 132; IL State Police- Effingham; Alton Police Dept. Force Commander of the Southern IL Child Death Investigation Task Force; Southern Investigations Commander Division of Criminal Investigation 18; and more.

Among the insights from the Project CHILD strategies was the importance and impact of simulation training. The Child Protection Training Academy, located on the University of Illinois  Springfield campus had created a simulation training model for DCFS Child Protection Investigators, which they deployed on behalf of the Project CHILD team. The simulation training utilized the “Hailey” scenario – one of the four cases created in partnership with the University of Missouri STL as part of a project with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) called FORECAST. The Hailey case involved training for recognizing elements of unsafe sleep practices based on a fictional family with numerous underlying conditions including domestic violence, mental health concerns, substance use disorder, and suspicions of sexual & physical abuse. 

The first MDT participated in simulation training on October 20, 2021, with 12 participants representing law enforcement, child protection, CAC staff, and prosecution. To draw attention to unsafe sleep practices, the environment was staged with a pack and play that was cluttered with clothing, bedding, and other objects. In addition to the pack and play concerns, the team strategically placed the simulation doll on a soft couch, to draw attention to other risk factors for unsafe sleep. Though the training was conducted on Zoom, the teams were able to “investigate” the environment through the use of the “proxy” who walked through the home with a camera, enabling the participants to see the home and its contents. Team members could ask for close up examination of particular items in order to determine what questions they might need to ask to gather additional evidence. Later trainings added additional risk factors within the house, such as a premature infant, smoking, and an additional toddler.

One of the key takeaways from the simulation training was that safe sleep issues were often not the primary concerns of members of the MDT as they observed the family’s home. In fact, upon interviewing the team, Project CHILD learned that safe sleep practices are rarely included in law enforcement training. 

“The work of the Cook County Health Project CHILD team has shed new light on developing and implementing a true multi-disciplinary, public health approach to preventing child abuse and neglect injuries and fatalities,” noted Amy Templeman, director of the Within our Reach team at Social Current and the head of the technical assistance team. “Their use of simulation training to identify not just risk factors but areas of needed improvement in training across multiple disciplines offers us a road map to help inform the field of child welfare and partners in best practices moving forward.”

“We have known for some time that reducing child maltreatment injury and death is a goal that encompasses a wide range of systems and cannot be solved by child welfare alone,” noted Stacy Phillips, Victim Justice Program Specialist with the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) within the U.S. Department of Justice. “The Cook County Project CHILD initiative is helping us identify the stakeholders who have an important role to play in keeping children safe and the tools and resources they need to be effective.”

In addition to Cook County Health, the other Child Safety Forward demonstration sites include St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut; Indiana Department of Health; Sacramento County CA’s Child Abuse Prevention Council; and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The final report from St. Francis Hospital was released in February 2023 and can be accessed here. The remaining final reports will be issued in the summer/fall of 2023. The technical assistance team is led by Within Our Reach, an office at Social Current.

About the Within Our Reach Office 

Within Our Reach is an office established within Social Current (formerly the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities) to further the recommendations of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. The goal of Within Our Reach is to equip policymakers, practitioners, and advocates with the tools they need to fundamentally reform child welfare. Based on the commission’s national strategy, desired reform includes a proactive public health approach—a shared family and community responsibility to keep children safe. Within Our Reach is made possible through collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve, and prevent the need for foster care.   

About Social Current

Social Current activates the power of the social sector by bringing together a dynamic network of human/social service organizations and partners. Leveraging the collective experience of the field and research, we energize and activate the sector and drive continuous evolution and improvement. Social Current amplifies the work of the social sector through collaboration, innovation, policy, and practice excellence. We offer access to intellectual capital of thousands of professionals within our network through peer groups, learning opportunities, collective advocacy, individualized consultation, tools, and resources that address the sector’s most critical challenges.  

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Disclaimer: This product was supported by cooperative agreement number 2019-V3-GX-K005, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) has awarded a contract to the Health Federation of Philadelphia — which will partner with Social Current, a network of social sector organizations working together to activate the power of the social sector —  to create a learning community and deliver trauma-informed training and technical assistance to DHS staff and contractors. The award is responsive to Pennsylvania’s 5-year Title-IV E Prevention Plan outlining the state’s vision for becoming a trauma-informed, healing-centered state as explained in the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 and Governor Tom Wolf’s 2019 Executive Order on protecting vulnerable populations.  

The training will be targeted to DHS staff, Community Umbrella Agency staff and provider agencies, including kinship care/foster care, residential (congregate) care, and juvenile justice providers. Efforts will include establishing a trauma-informed framework for child welfare service delivery to serve children and families who have had chronic adverse childhood or other serious, traumatic experiences. Additionally, the goal of the training will be to support and enhance workforce well-being and resilience, and to address disparities in the percentage of families of color who are reported to child welfare agencies.

“The Health Federation of Philadelphia has a 40-year history of supporting health and human services systems in Philadelphia to ensure high quality and equitable access to care for all residents” CEO Natalie Levovich said. “These deep local roots, along with our strong partnership with nationally recognized Social Current and a team of diverse local consultants with expertise in trauma-informed care, anti-racism, child welfare training and research and evaluation, sets the stage for meaningful, effective work that will result in a stronger, more equitable child welfare network in Philadelphia.”

“Social Current works across the human services sector to apply learnings from neurosciences and trauma-informed curricula to enhance workforce resilience, support equity, diversity and inclusion, and build the capacity of the human services workforce to thrive in the systems in which they serve,” noted Jody Levison-Johnson, president and CEO of Social Current. “We are thrilled to partner with the Health Federation of Philadelphia, our long-standing partner Public Health Management Corporation and others to develop and support individual, collective and organizational resilience for those in the Philadelphia DHS staff and partners.” 

The relationship between the Health Federation, Social Current, and our other partners brings together local and national expertise on trauma informed care and leading effective learning communities. Building on the Health Federation’s experience working with DHS and many other key organizations in the region, Social Current draws their expertise at the national level working with the full range of human service agencies, with a strong focus on those serving children and youth.

About the Health Federation of Philadelphia The Health Federation of Philadelphia serves as a keystone supporting a network of Community Health Centers, as well as the broader base of public and private-sector organizations that deliver health and human services to vulnerable populations. HFP promotes community health by improving access to and quality of health care; by identifying, testing and implementing solutions to health disparities; and by providing training and technical assistance to help other organizations operate more efficiently and effectively. 

The Child Welfare League of America publishes a bimonthly issue of Children’s Voice, a magazine that features a wide array of topics that encourage public discussion and debate among those who are committed to helping children and families. In their first issue of 2023, Social Current leaders were among those voices in two different feature articles:

Read both articles and consider purchasing the rest of the Children’s Voice issue to learn from what others are doing in the sector.

By: Jody Levison-Johnson and Amy Templeman

All families need help sometimes, and to deliver that help, we must understand the external conditions that impact their lives. The human and social services sector is at the forefront of an evolutionary change, one that aims to realign social services to be more preventative with greater upstream resources that focus more directly on addressing the social determinants of health (SDoH) to achieve better outcomes.

While we have increased our understanding of the importance of addressing external conditions, including social and economic opportunities, access to community-based resources and supports, greater health equity and more, our nation’s investment in place-based supports has not kept pace.

For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has shed a harsh light on the public health disparities in our nation. Communities of color are more at risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022), demonstrating that ZIP codes are still the top determinant of how we live, work, and play (Ducharme & Wolfson, 2019). The opportunities lie in examining the discriminatory practices that undermine well-being so that systems can better address root causes.

The potential to improve health outcomes and more fully address SDoH through greater investments in human services could transform a range of systems, including health, education, welfare, and criminal justice systems and ultimately result in greater well-being for all families.

To achieve this will require a tremendous shift in resources, both at the federal funding level to redirect funding to more front-end resources, through policies that adapt to a more preventative approach, and in the way that place-based services are delivered by community-based organizations. Too many of our social systems were structured to respond only after harm occurs; by realigning our nation’s social service delivery systems and reimagining the power and impact of the social sector, we can deliver on the promise of equitable access to health and well-being for all people.

Our Nation Under Invests in Social Services

The Commonwealth Fund recently released a report that ranks the United States last in health care systems among 11 of the wealthiest countries in the world, despite having the highest percentage spending of its GDP on health care. The United States spends twice as much on health care as other developed nations and yet, fares the worst in key health metrics, such as life expectancy and maternal and infant mortality. In fact, a recent report from the CDC found that the United States has the highest rate of maternal death of any developed nation (Kekatos, 2022).

How can that be? According to data from the Bassett Healthcare Network and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, only 20% of health outcomes are attributable to actual health care while 80% are attributable to SDoH, including environmental, behavioral, and socioeconomic factors (Bassett Healthcare Network, n.d.).

It’s telling that our nation’s investment in human services that address SDoH is among the lowest in developed nations (Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, 2018). Researchers have begun to draw a direct linkage between that investment disparity and health outcomes, noting that “states with higher ratios of social to health spending had better health outcomes one and two years later” (Bradley et al., 2016).

The pandemic helped us all understand that no family is immune to stress or challenges. Stress can overload families and contribute to greater risk of adversity. Times of turmoil often pave the way for key societal shifts. Today, we have the opportunity to shift our focus more toward addressing social determinants and realign our systems to better support all families.

Supporting the Shift from Child Welfare Systems to Child and Family Well-being Systems

A blueprint for this can be found in the shift from child welfare systems to child and family well-being systems that offer families the support they need to prevent harm before it occurs. The transformation that we see today is moving away from the idea that it is solely the function of the child protection agency to keep kids safe. Instead, CPS is one component in a shared, community-wide responsibility for child and family well-being with an emphasis on prevention and a public health approach that addresses SDoH.

For our child welfare system to truly move to a preventive approach, upstream resources must be rooted in community and not tied to intervention by a government system to access them. This would require communities working in partnership with funders (often governmental entities) to identify their specific needs and design supports that effectively respond to them.

In fact, in December 2021 researchers from Tufts Medical Center found that incidents of child abuse actually dropped during the pandemic at the start of the lockdown, despite many pundits suggesting that incidents would rise due to children being isolated at home (Sege & Stephens, 2021). Evidence suggests that while the pandemic increased familial stress for many, it also afforded families access to additional financial supports and increased time at home contributing to enhanced parent-child attachment. These factors, the researchers believe, potentially account for this drop in abuse and maltreatment.

We are at a unique moment in history. Our deepening understanding of what it takes to weather the storms of a global pandemic is resulting in a shift in the way we think about supporting families. In fact, we are more primed than ever before to think about economic and family supports and to tackle child welfare in a way that emphasizes supporting families over penalizing them.

And that thinking is supported by an ever-growing body of research. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago recently released a brief on the impact of concrete economic supports for families and its correlations to reducing involvement with the child welfare system (Wiener et al., 2021). Their research identified poverty as a key driver of child welfare system involvement and suggested that even modest economic supports could help stabilize families and prevent the need for removing children from the home.

Systems Transformation is Complex but Achievable

Reshaping child welfare systems into child and family well-being systems that can address SDoH will require a broad focus on system transformation. With shared values focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion, we must modernize child welfare systems through redesign with parent and youth partners, drive cross-system integration and operations, provide sustainable financing, and remove systemic and structural barriers upholding racist practices and policies that contribute to poor health outcomes.

In 2021, with those goals in mind, key leaders in the social service sector and Social Current convened a group of human service sector leaders to develop guiding policy principles for the social sector’s work through the lens of SDoH. The group identified seven guiding principles that are critical to addressing SDoH across the child welfare sector. They are:

Partnering with the Entire Health Ecosystem

Changing Power Dynamics

People-centered Focus

Addressing Root Causes

Anti-racist Approaches

Forming and Scaling Solutions

Prevention and Early Detection

System transformation is never easy, but these guiding principles can be applied as a roadmap for change and help transform a broad range of social sector systems in a way that is responsive where it needs to be and fair in its treatment and decision-making for children and families. And these lessons are applicable across the entire social and human-serving ecosystem, including child welfare, health care systems, juvenile justice, education, and more.

Jody Levison-Johnson is the President and CEO of Social Current, an organization focused on advancing the work of the social sector through collaboration, innovation, policy, and practice excellence. Jody is a longstanding champion for systems change that helps individuals and communities thrive. Over several decades, her career has crossed a variety of settings including private providers and state and local governments. Jody holds a MSW degree from Syracuse University and a MA and PhD in Leadership and Change from Antioch University.

Amy Templeman, a kinship and adoptive parent, is the director of Within Our Reach and director of practice excellence at Social Current. In these roles, she works to support families and promote equity. Before joining Social Current, Amy served as executive director of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, leading the effort to produce a report to the president and Congress. Amy helped to establish the Office of Well Being at the District of Columbia’s child welfare agency. She gained research experience at The Urban Institute and Johns Hopkins University.

References

READ PDF VERSION

This article was originally posted in CWLA’s Children’s Voice Magazine – Vol. 32 #1, 2023. To read through the entirety of Vol, 32, purchase the issue on the Child Welfare READ of America’s website.