Alia | UnSystem Roundtables

UnSystem Roundtables are a series of confidential, invite-only virtual conversations designed to bring together key leaders, decision-makers, and changemakers in child welfare. Each session convenes a small group of 6-10 individuals who have first-hand experience with the challenges and opportunities in redesigning the system.

UnSystem Roundtables are not open to the public.

Participants are carefully selected through an application process. Sessions are confidential and not recorded.

Rooted in Alia’s commitment to co-designing UnSystems, roundtables serve as brave spaces for real conversations—where leaders share successes, failures, and innovative approaches that challenge the status quo. Each session is built around a singular, high-impact theme, providing an opportunity for deep engagement and peer-to-peer learning.

Following each conversation, unattributed key insights are shared through Alia’s website, email updates, and social media, ensuring that these discussions spark broader transformation across the health and human services sector.

What Do We Do With “Unplaceable” Kids?

More and more children are being labeled “unplaceable”—youth with complex needs who cycle through shelters, detention centers, hoteling, or makeshift placements. This UnSystem Roundtable centers the difficult realities and the proven, practical alternatives that are helping jurisdictions move from crisis-driven placements to belonging, stability, and healing.

This session is for participants who can present examples of solutions that are working (or showing early results)—not just ideas. Please come prepared with the model, outcomes to date, and the enabling conditions that made it possible.

Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM CT / 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM ET
Co-hosted by: Amelia Franck Meyer & Erica Bañuelos

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Rising to the Challenge: How Human Services Associations Are Responding to Today’s Shifting Landscape

How are associations helping their members adapt so they can best respond to the needs of those they serve?

Across the country, human services associations are helping systems navigate rapid change—new federal directives and guidance, shifting funding and audit requirements, workforce shortages, provider instability, data/privacy expectations, and increasing public scrutiny. This UnSystem Roundtable brings association leaders together to surface what’s working now: the concrete tools, partnerships, and enabling conditions that are helping members adapt and still advance outcomes for children and families.

Important: This session is for participants who can present a brief, 2–3 minute example of a recent success or challenge they’ve experienced while servicing their members. This is not a listening or brainstorming session.

Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM CT / 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM ET
Co-hosted by: Amelia Franck Meyer and Reggie Bicha

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Each UnSystem Roundtable brings together child welfare leaders for honest, solution-focused conversations around the most pressing challenges in the field. After each session, we share a publicly available Insights Report—curated from the lived experiences, hard-won lessons, and bold ideas shared during the discussion.

You’re invited to download and share these reports, use them for strategic planning, leadership development, or simply as a reminder that you’re not alone in this work. While no comments are attributed to individuals, each report reflects the collective wisdom of peers navigating real-time transformation.

Addressing Workforce Turnover (and Retention) in Child Welfare

In this UnSystem Roundtable, child welfare leaders tackled the workforce crisis head-on—sharing what’s working now to reduce burnout, improve retention, and rebuild a culture where people stay because they want to. This Insights Report distills practical moves—centering staff well-being, reconnecting teams to their “why,” pairing culture shifts with structural fixes (caseloads, incentives, pipelines), co-designing with lived expertise, in-person trauma-informed learning, frontline “strike teams,” and cross-system pathways so child welfare isn’t the default responder—so agencies can stabilize today and sustain tomorrow.

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Driving Meaningful Change Amid Chaos and Uncertainty

In our inaugural UnSystem Roundtable, child welfare leaders from across the country came together to share how they’ve led through public pressure, political upheaval, and organizational crises—while staying true to their values. This session surfaced powerful insights on navigating uncertainty, sustaining reform, and leading with courage when it matters most.