R.A.C.E. Forum Follow-Up

Realizing Accountability Creates Equity

R.A.C.E. Forum Follow – Up

Those who gathered at Imani on November 16^th, 2013, to discuss recommendations for reform of service to families and children of color who have engagement in the child welfare system agreed that reasonable next steps for action included the creation of work groups dedicated to the following topics:

1. School Engagement in Child Welfare

2. Recruitment of Foster Care Families

3. Building support for natural families and extended families

4. Improving Legal Representation for parents and children

5. Eradicating Racial Disparity from the Removal Process

To make progress in these areas that impact our system, our children and our families, we invite all present to sign up for one of these work groups by emailing Marion Gibson at [email protected]. Please advise if you are willing to chair or co-chair the particular work group that you want to sign up for.

The next meeting of the RCCW is slated for December 13^th. We will plan to spend the first thirty minutes of that meeting in these work groups for those who can be present. A chair or co-chair will be selected for each work group. Discussion will be held in the work groups on work group action steps and reasonable timetable for implementation. We will then share the discussion for action steps/proposed timetable for implementation with the larger group and incorporate the ideas generated into work group proposals to share with the larger membership and all who attended the R.A.C.E. forum. That communication will be emailed out by the New Year to all who signed up for attendance at the R.A.C.E forum and all on the RCCW email list.

The January meeting of RCCW is slated for January 24^th. We will ask that the work group chairs/co-chairs convene their work groups by person, phone or email once before the January 24^th meeting. On January 24^th each work group will then be asked to present further developed action steps for their work group with a proposed timetable for implementation. We will offer further refinement of those plans as a large group and then together establish RCCW’s plans for the year based on the actions of the individual work groups. Decisions made at the January 24^th RCCW meeting will then be shared with all who are on the RCCW email list and all who signed up in attendance at the R.A.C.E forum.

We appreciate your commitment and act in hope that we can bring better service to all our families in Fayette County and in that process eradicate the continuing vestiges of racial disparity that all of us stand opposed to.

Sincerely,

Fayette County RCCW Co-Chairs:  Marion Gibson and Rebecca Ballard DiLoreto

Comments

[Randolph Hollingsworth]

6 workgroups were formed ... more information coming. For details on child-wellbeing in Fayette County compared to the state averages, see the "Kids Count" report at http://www.kentucky.com/2013/12/10/2980467/child-well-being-in-fayette-county.html