We are continuing and expanding our ethical, equitable co-design (or 2E Co-design) in our most comprehensive project to date: a five-year partnership with Rock County Human Services. The most recent work is a movement called Rock Families First, aimed at eliminating racial disparities in the number of youth coming into foster care, reducing the number of children placed out of home, and increasing engagement and satisfaction with parents.
While African Americans make up 7% of the Rock County population, they represent 22% of all youth involved in Child Protective Services (CPS). After two years of system readiness and community mobilizing, Alia brought together impacted parents with CPS leaders and staff to co-design an answer to the question, “How might we keep more Black families in Beloit safely together?” The co-designed solutions are found in the Idea Book: A New Future for Families created in partnership with Black parents in Beloit, WI.
Now, Rock County Human Services (the system), the BeeHive (impacted Black mothers in Beloit, WI), and Alia (the convener) have been hard at work to turn these co-designed ideas into action. Most recently, parents and systems folks came together to begin to develop a practice model for Rock County Human Services. After a year of collaboration with a cohort of system folks, the BeeHive identified seven pillars that serve as a foundation for the practice model, all housed under the broad umbrella of safety, which must always be our first priority. These pillars center the needs of families and address how to build trusting relationships between families and the system.
We continuously come back to our simplified purpose in this work: to keep children safely with their families. To ensure that parents can get the help they need earlier—without risking losing their children—we are strengthening and building a robust community-led network of supports.
Because of co-design, the parent voice is infused into actual policy and practice in Rock County. This is known now as “the Rock Way” and is dramatically improving the lives of children and their families. Internal capacity building and community co-design work in Rock County since 2018 has led to an overall decrease in the number of youth in care by 73%** and the use of residential care by 34%. Parents are not just serving as an advisory board; rather, they are actually influencing the system and building their own capacity to serve as a peer network of support in their community in an informal (albeit impactful) way. Because of their lived expertise, they are valued, included in designing new ways of work, and compensated for their commitment of time to the effort.
Alia believes that transformation in child welfare is a cycle that never ends. Our belief is that those closest to the challenges are also closest to solutions, and our experience has been that new solutions arise when we listen to the experiences and perspectives of families. Real change happens when families are encouraged and empowered to identify their ideal outcomes and dream of achieving them. We are committed not only to meeting families where they are at, but also where they dream. There is so much more to come in Rock County in the next few months as we advance to our next phase of implementation; stay tuned to be even more inspired!
** Compared to only 22% Nationally
** Compared to only 32% in Wisconsin
National data collected and analyzed by the US Government through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) between 2018 and 2023