Full Circle Family Engagement

01/08/2026

It can be hard to keep faith in humanity when so much is happening to shake peace and integrity. The world’s turmoil can have us all feeling anxious, unsettled, overwhelmed, even angry or scared. It is important to do everything you can with patience, and in love, for yourself and others, globally, locally, and within your own four walls. Take care, keep going. ♥️💫

01/08/2026

We humans can often be our own worst enemy. Take a deep breath, simplify where you can, and keep going. ♥️💫

01/05/2026

It is time to stop perpetuating child welfare narratives and common assumptions that go directly against vital research and powerful lived experience. To believe the lasting damage to parents and relatives that removals cause somehow resolves itself over time because of ideas like – “children are resilient” or “forever families step up” is not only false but also self-serving. We need to be honest and diligent in our conversations and implementation of change to address the lifelong impact of family fragmentation.

One way to start is examining the language we use and begin working in truth; from the processes and frameworks our work is structured around to the dynamics and cultures within our workplaces.

Let’s look at the word “permanency”. The word alone seems impossible in relation to a child's evolving needs, family circumstances, add in a daunting court process all to muddle the intended sense of belonging and lifelong connections child welfare defines it as.

Asking better questions about “permanency” will help move us all toward the change so desperately needed. Is the work you are doing genuinely rooted in promoting healing and sustainability? Are the plans you are creating being done with families or are they being imposed upon them? Are the goals you are expecting to be achieved truly connected to real-world needs or are they leading to poor long-term outcomes? Are you looking for healing or for compliance? How are you moving away from bureaucratic "permanency" toward relational healing and family integrity in your work?

The same needs to be applied to child protection as a profession. It is often highlighted that child protection workers leave the field due to the tension between system demands and the actual needs of the families they serve. That being true, and widely accepted across various helping professions, what is not highlighted and is a significant factor is how often workers leave because their efforts to meet those needs with integrity, honesty, and empowerment have been met with manipulation, corruption, oppression, and narcissism in the workplace.

When you realize that moral injury mirrors the traumas families face with intervention, how are you coping, and how are you prioritizing the support and voice needed to end this?

Keep asking better questions. Work in truth.

01/01/2026

Being called upon to do the right thing is not always easy but we must work with families remembering and honouring their right to thrive even while they are healing.

Child protection intervention should not continue to determine fates that fuel systemic injustices and the traumatic failures in protecting children’s wellbeing and pathways to self-determination and belonging.

It is more than time to work in truth. Without it, real change will continue to be thwarted by the masks of rebranding, with privilege and power remaining protected, and harm perpetuated for generations to come.

End the disguise.

Building a True Prevention and Kin-First Child Welfare System Requires Bold Structural Change

To genuinely prioritize prevention and kinship care, we must confront a hard truth: you cannot simply add kin-first policies on top of an entrenched non-kin foster care infrastructure. Real transformation demands dismantling and replacing the old system.

• Traditional placement desks (in the U.S.) or resources teams (in Canada) are designed to find stranger-care beds. They default to non-kin options when kin searches take time or resources appear limited.

• A prevention and kin-first system requires standing up an entirely new, smart, urgent, and well-resourced infrastructure focused on:

• Preventing removals through rapid, flexible material and clinical supports for parents. • Urgently identifying, assessing, and connecting with kin—often within hours or days, not weeks. • Reducing long-term material hardship through cross-system partnerships (housing, income, health).

If we keep the old placement machinery intact while claiming prevention and kinship as the goal, we are effectively running a foster care system in disguise. Kinship becomes an afterthought, not the default.

Evidence from partial reforms shows progress is possible when infrastructure shifts: rising kinship placements, fewer entries, and better child outcomes. But lasting change only sticks when the non-kin pipeline is deliberately taken down and replaced with responsive, family-centered alternatives.

Leadership capacity—not family capacity—is the bottleneck. The kinship networks are already there, in fact have been there for generations, previously uninvited and unwelcome. The question is whether agencies have the leadership vision and courage to rebuild their core operations around them.

12/29/2025

Separation is often not easy for anyone, the mediation process can help you move forward with focus, clarity, and hope. Have questions? Feel free to connect!

12/05/2025

Such an important message below, especially as winter has arrived and the holiday season is in full swing. ♥️❄️💫

12/01/2025

December is here already. 2025 has felt like the fastest year of my life so far. With that comes a mixed blend of joyful blessings and some really tough stuff too. It’s important to remember that two things can be true at the same time.

The holiday season is not the happiest time of the year for more people than we might think. Be gentle with yourself, and with others.

Simplify where you can, and don’t underestimate the power and warmth of sharing a cup of coffee with someone. It’s very rarely about the coffee. ☕️ ♥️💫

11/25/2025

Taking a minute to share that there is officially a new family mediator in town (and surrounding areas!) 😊 and to send a big thank you to Jason, our parents, and kids for their constant support, encouragement, and love. As I evolve, so does my opportunity to blend my strengths in what I can offer as a helping professional. 🎓📙🙏🏻

11/03/2025

When discussing ways to change or enhance child welfare practice, I am often asked where can we start?

From my own learning, I know that a vital place to begin is asking questions that will take a deep dive into how we interact with people, asking ourselves what language are we using, and are we recognizing the messages we are truly sending to and about the families we are to be in service of?

All too often, we do not realize how we are undermining and weakening families rather than supporting them to heal and strengthen themselves.

This is particularly noticeable in foster care campaigns. If you did a quick internet search for top foster care campaigns you would get tons of slogans and taglines such as:

“Let’s Raise the Bar: provide a safe & loving home”
“Open your heart, open your home”
“Every Child Deserves a Home”
“Fostering Hope, Changing Lives”
“Be the Change in a Child’s Life”
“Love Makes a Family”
“Transforming Lives, One Child at a Time”
“Foster Care: Where Love Begins”
“Every Child Deserves a Chance”
“Foster Love, Foster Hope”
“Creating Families, Building Futures”
“Foster Care: A Journey of Love”
“Together, We Can Make a Difference”
“Every Child Needs a Champion”
“Foster Care: Healing Hearts”
“Home is Where the Heart Is”
“Changing the World, One Child at a Time”
“Foster Care: Love in Action”
“Giving Children a Brighter Future”
“Every Child Deserves to Be Loved”
“Be a Hero: Foster a Child”
“Fostering Dreams, Building Hope”
“Foster Care: The Heart of the Community”
“Every Child Deserves a Family”
“Foster Care: Changing Lives Forever”
“It Pays to be a Good Parent”
“I Don’t Need your Sympathy, I Need You”
“Foster Dreams and Raise Hope”
“Foster Care, Foster Family, Foster Strength, Foster Healing, Foster Love”
“Let Love In: Foster Parents Needed”

These are all meant to evoke an emotional response in communities to gain interest in becoming paid by your local CAS/CPS to care for children and youth.

Building community starts with respect and integrity. Child welfare agencies need to stop perpetuating a narrative that says parents who are struggling and need real support lack what people better than them can readily give. It is more than time to be honest and open about agencies continuing to use foster care campaigns that undermine families and their abilities to heal, problem solve, and protect the children they love. Imagine all the healing, strength and the love in action that would happen if all the time, money and resources that go into these campaigns went directly to families and community building instead. Let families be their own heroes.

10/27/2025

Are you in a human service profession? In no particular order, if you take a moment to reflect on your career to date, ask yourself, how much time, effort, and attention has gone into your participation in things like:

- mandatory trainings
- weekly meetings
- lunch and learns
- webinars
- guest speakers
- collaborative committees
- innovation projects
- assessments
- audits
- court forms and affidavits
- consent for information
- identity data collection
- case consultations
- checklists
- sidebar chats
- labour relations
- funding cuts
- new pockets of funding
- grant writing
- charity drives
- reorganization
- rebranding
- community partnership
- social media campaigns
- mileage and time sheets
- vacation banks, sick time, seniority lists, and lieu time calculations

Then ask yourself how any or all of that has contributed to the healing, health and wellbeing of the people of whom you and your agency are in service of, what would your answer be? What would the people on the receiving end of said services be?

Having a lengthy career in Ontario child welfare myself, I’d venture a guess that many of you might say none of the above really matters if you do not have good relationships with the people you work for or the people you work with.

How will you show up differently?
Who will you be in your work?
What relationship are you really offering?

10/27/2025

10/03/2025

“…. where there is no us and them, there’s just us.” ♥️💫

Fr. Gregory Boyle, S.J., MDiv. '84, urged Boston College School of Social Work students to embrace ‘radical kinship’ in their work during a Q&A at the school; he was on campus in September to speak at First year Convocation. READ ➡️ https://on.bc.edu/FrBoyleSSW