Children thrive when they have regular interactions with responsive, caring adults. Families experiencing significant stressors related to financial insecurity, housing instability, or the impact of systemic racism and trauma can be overloaded with stress, interrupting those interactions. Over time, and without adequate supports, overloaded families can become vulnerable to adverse experiences, ranging from toxic levels of stress to involvement in the child welfare system, and even family separation for reasons of neglect. How might we support and empower overloaded families, so that they may overcome these challenges? How might we see families for their strengths and potential rather than as defined by their darkest moments?
Today’s episode included the following speakers (in the order they appear):
Opening quote: Ashlee Jackson – Family Support Specialist II, Children’s Wisconsin
Host: Luke Waldo
Experts:
0:00 – Ashlee Jackson – “Just because one rose grew through the crack in the concrete is great, but if we took off that block of concrete, how many would grow?”
00:11 – Luke Waldo – Introduction to how root causes of neglect – trauma and systemic oppression – overload families.
2:58 – Bregetta Wilson – Shares her lived experience with the child welfare system when she was a child, her mother’s struggles, and her sister’s support and influence.
5:15 – Luke Waldo and Soua Thao – The challenges that Hmong families experience with language barriers.
6:17 – Hannah Kirk – Culture differences and the need for cultural competence in the child welfare system.
8:14 – Hannah Kirk – The mistrust that often exists between the families and professionals that work together in the child welfare system.
9:43 – Ashlee Jackson – Mistrust with the systems that should be there to support families – schools, healthcare, etc. – as there is fear that they will be reported to child welfare.
11:34 – Luke Waldo – While overloaded families face many challenges, they also aspire to overcome them.
12:35 – Theresa Swiechowski – Families struggle with mental health and substance abuse, and have limited resources to support them. These challenges lead to financial and housing instability.
16:11 – Soua Thao – Housing and financial instability. Lack of resources to support families with childcare, mental health, and housing. Soua tells a story about a family that was recently evicted.
19:30 – Luke Waldo – How do we start to recognize that we too often punish children for their parents’ past?
20:16 – Hannah Kirk – The impacts of segregation and bias.
20:42 – Luke Waldo – How these many challenges pile on and overload families.
21:36 – Luke Waldo – How might we change our systems and empower families, so that they may overcome these complex challenges?
22:17 – Bregetta Wilson – Shares more of her story when she was a child in the child welfare system, and when she asked her case worker, “Can you help my mom?”
24:40 – Hannah Kirk – Talks about how families are strong and the importance of seeing families through their strengths. “What has happened?” versus “What did you do?”
27:14 – Ashlee Jackson – Shares her lived experience with the child welfare system and the need to advocate for herself.
28:29 – Theresa Swiechowski – Talks about her a-ha moment early in her career when she first understood that an overloaded mother was doing the best she could for her daughter by sending her to camp all day.
31:04 – Luke Waldo – If we walk in the door asking what families need rather than what families did, it would change our approach of how we work with families.
31:30 – Soua Thao – Discusses the importance of cultural traditions and family support.
34:05 – Hannah Kirk – Making a point to talk about families’ strengths.
36:48 – Ashlee Jackson – The power of resilience, resourcefulness and building a network.
37:54 – Theresa Swiechowski – Resilience is a superpower. The strengths and challenges of family involvement.
39:41 – Soua Thao – Parents’ enthusiasm for learning how to become better parents.
40:47 – Theresa Swiechowski – “Strong, funny, optimistic people doing their best.”
42:40 – Ashlee Jackson – “They love their kids.”
43:14 – Soua Thao – Parents want the best for their kids.
43:53 – Luke Waldo – Gratitude and 3 Key Takeaways
47:30 – Closing Credits
Join the conversation and connect with us!
Ashlee Jackson 00:00
Just because one, you know, rose grew through the cracks in the concrete is great. What if we took off that slab of concrete? How many,you know, how many would grow?
Luke Waldo 00:10
Welcome to Overloaded: Understanding Neglect where we explore the complexity of child neglect, its root causes and challenges that families experience that overload them with stress, and the opportunities that we have to improve our communities, organizations and systems that build strong families and thriving children.
Luke Waldo 00:35
Hey, everyone, this is Luke Waldo, your host for the podcast series and the Director of Program Design and Community Engagement for the Institute for Child and Family Well-being, our partnership between Children's Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's Helen Bader School of Social Welfare.
In our last two episodes, we explored underlying root causes of neglect, and how they can lead to child welfare involvement, and ultimately, family separation. Those root causes - trauma, systemic oppression and poverty - then show up in many different forms in individuals' and families' lives often compounding challenges like housing instability, addiction and mental illness that further overload families with stress. In today's episode, we will be looking more closely at how families experience and confront those challenges.
Our conversations in this episode are exclusively with our Lived Experience and Direct Practice experts who work alongside individuals and families that are involved in our Home Visiting and Child Welfare programs. I want to acknowledge and honor them not only for the dedication to this deeply complex and emotional work with children and families, but also for their bravery in sharing their own lived experience, as you will hear throughout today's episode.
To begin our conversation today, Bregetta Wilson, who's a Lived Experience Coordinator at Wisconsin's Department for Children and Families, will share her own experience with the child welfare system as a child, the challenges that her mother faced, and the powerful role that her older sister played in nurturing and inspiring her to use her voice to tell her story. You will then hear from Soua Thao, Home Visitor in our Children's Wisconsin Wausau region, and Hannah Kirk, Healthy Start Supervisor in our Children's Milwaukee region who previously worked for many years in our child welfare program. As a Family Case Manager and Training Specialist. And then Ashlee Jackson, Family Support Specialist II in our Children's Milwaukee region. They will talk about the systemic challenges that families face through language and cultural barriers, and the mistrust of the system and those that form it. As always, please leave your feedback questions and ratings in the comments and rating section of the podcast. Now, on to the episode.
Bregetta Wilson 02:48
So I would like to just take this moment to honor my big sister. She was, she recently passed away, but she was very influential to, to my life when you think about the experiences that we had, that I had as a child. You know, my family and I moved here when I was five years old, but my oldest sister stayed in Chicago. And it was my mom and my, my two younger sisters and I had an older sister that's outside of the one who lives in Chicago. And she was that role model for me when you think about like home ownership and the finer things in life, so to speak, that we didn't always see when we lived with my mom. You know, my mom struggled with some of her own life struggles that parents have, substance abuse and domestic violence. You know, I wouldn't call those the normal things that you hear most people struggle with, but they're not uncommon.
I ended up in foster care, me and my young sisters. And I ended up being a teen mom. But throughout that experience, you know, one of the things my sister was, my oldest sister in Chicago, her name was Michelle, she was very, you know, she always said, you know, you are going to use your story to help others, you're going to use your experience to help others. And so with that, you know, there was opportunities that came my way after, you know, with being a teen mom, aged out of foster care, but I'm grateful for her for always having faith in me. And for her really being inspirational to know that although my mom struggled, she really was like that mom for me.
Luke Waldo 05:15
Can you tell me a little bit more about what those crises are? What are the most common kind of stressors that you see with the families that you're serving, especially those in the in kind of the first, you know, weeks that you're meeting with them?
Soua Thao 05:31
I work a lot with Hmong families. So a lot of the stuff that I encounter with them or help them through is especially the language barrier of limited English. Even finding a job is difficult, or even meeting with their caseworker talking about their benefits for Badger Care, FoodShare. As simple as reading a utility bills, why the bill is so high, or if they got benefits from any job assistance, and not sure is that the bill or is that credited balance that we go through. Even when they are looking for a job and and when they want to work, it's hard for them to even sit through an interview, or pass an interview even to work in a factory or any kind of job.
Hannah Kirk 06:17
Something that I haven't talked about yet, which I have experienced, probably more times than I would like to in this position, is culture differences. And I say culture differences not only based on the population of Milwaukee County and the families that we serve, but also people who are not from the United States. I recall my first case, I had a family from Burma, they were Burmese. And I had to educate myself about their culture. And when I educated myself on their culture, the reason why the children ended up being separated from the parents did not sit well with me. I ended up having to testify about the cultural differences and how it is as a social worker, one of our responsibilities to be culturally competent, and to understand and know the differences between the two. And I had other professionals not be very happy with me when I provided that testimony. But it was true to who I was in the work that I do, and my responsibility. And my supervisor and I did not agree with why these children are separated from their parents. And I think that, for that specific case, and I talk about this case, frequently, with my trainees, and the trainings that I do, it not only highlights, you know, the culture difference and how things can be perceived differently, or how other cultures operate as a family unit, it may not look like how our family operates. But it's something that they know and that they're used to. And we have an obligation to understand that and at least educate ourself at the bare minimum.
The first word that comes to my mind is trust, both ways, by our clients. And then on our end. I think that it is a struggle, because of the stigma that comes along with when children are removed from the home and hearing CPS is involved. I think that people just think the worst initially, and our clients don't trust us. A lot of professionals in this role have a hard time trusting of the clients initially, how do I know that they're telling the truth? How do I know that this is really what's happening? How do I know that there's not more going on? That's not not provided to me? And the truth is, there's probably a lot more underlying under the surface that you don't know about because these clients aren't willingly going to come to you and spill out their whole life story to you. We, the reality is, we work with involuntary clients and they're not here because they want to be. And that is a struggle in itself. And so the trusting factor goes both ways. And I think it's very difficult to overcome. If you don't have the ability and understanding of different cultures and what people in Milwaukee County have the ability to have faced, you know, there's a lot of poverty in our city.
Ashlee Jackson 09:44
But honestly, I've heard, I believe it's really a distrust in their community. A lot of times our parents, you know, we keep talking about generational things, you know, they grew up in the same communities they say, you know, here, go to the same schools and things like that and because it's areas where they don't, you know, aren't teaching these positive nurturing things with parenting and stuff like that they only know, you know, can only do what they know. And so they don't trust us, teachers, police officers, doctors, anyone with, you know, the really critical things because it's usually that perception at the end, they're gonna call CPS, and then we're involved anyways.
So they kind of do things on their own and maintain and again, with that resilience be nice that we don't have to say this about people. However, we still have to acknowledge that for a lot of these people, it is resilience that gets them out of this, because of all the kids in their high school, all of them ended up pregnant or, you know, in prison besides one or two. So we have to, you know, really, still be okay with acknowledging them. And praising them for that. We say, just because one, you know, rose grew through the crack in the concrete is great, what if we took off that block of concrete? How many, you know, how many would grow?
But for us, yeah, I think it's just trust and that having that positive support, and then accesses to resources. You know, they, we have certain things we have a lot of things but actually being able to qualify for certain programs or things like that you see happen a lot of times for families where it's like, you know, income requirement, they aren't doing job searches, or you know, they can't travel to, to work searches at this place kind of thing. And then that hinders them from the services they really need to provide for their families.
Luke Waldo 11:34
I decided to open today's episode with Bregetta's segment as she demonstrates in her own experience that one's childhood or family struggles do not define one's life journey and identity. I hope that today's episode reflects Bregetta's opening story and sentiment, and reminds us that while overloaded families may face many complex challenges, they also aspire to overcome them. We then heard Soua, Hannah and Ashley talk about the systemic challenges that families face from language and cultural barriers to mistrust and isolation. They offered opportunities where we can do and be better.
In this next segment, we will explore how trauma and poverty manifest in families lives as told by Soua, Hannah and Theresa Swiechowski, Family Support Supervisor in our Children's Merrill region in western Wisconsin.
Theresa Swiechowski 12:22
I think in our area, we really have a lot of challenges in mental health and substance abuse. Addiction is very prevalent in our community. And the lack of resources that go with that, it's unfortunate we don't have a lot in place to help these families. There's a lot of gap of services between let's say social services, the jail, we are very restricted to, to what we can offer. We don't have a lot of facilities up here that even address that. So I think that is one of our biggest challenges.
And along with that generally comes homelessness, evictions. I deal with evictions all the time. And then the lack of housing. So we don't have a lot of income based housing here as well. It's very limited. If you put in an application for housing, you have 100 people looking for that that same same apartment, and it's not necessarily people who are even income based. You're competing with people that are just people finding apartments. So it's very challenging. I think our resources are very limited. They change from county to county, so we work with four counties. So what I see in Lincoln County and Merrill where my main offices isn't going to be the same as Rhinelander, Minocqua, or Eagle River. We kind of have inter weaving type challenges within our own little Northwoods system.
With that being said, going in home, so I'm one on one with families all the time. Another challenge that I see often up here is the unhealthy boundaries that a lot of our family struggle with. They're generally in recovery. They generally have that extended family, and then they have to try to have these healthy perimeters in place. And I have noticed that a lot of our families have struggled with that as well. I believe it's been around for a long time and we just would not have had the language about it. Like you said, it's kind of like saying what came first, mental health or substance use? Substance use or mental health?
And I think that our communities up here have struggled in mental health for many years, we just have not had the resources. If there's a silver lining of COVID, I think that has brought light to a lot of our mental health in our children. And I think that is where we lacked the resources to begin with, I think we took a lot out of our school system for support for children. And hence, we increased our substance use up here. I was just a general increase, just from being a citizen here, say, not even in the field. And having five children who have gone through our school system, you know, all are adults now. And I could just see a pattern of increase of young adults and in the drug abuse being younger and younger and younger. And that's that generational thing. That's that extended family, that's that lack of resources and mental health support for for families.
Soua Thao 16:11
Some of the issues, challenges that I run into is, you know, the basic needs like housing, and daycare. Because right now, with the pandemic, there's only, they're only open so many slots for, for children. And if you have more than one, or the shift doesn't match, if you know, you need to work so you can provide for housing while you can't, when you have, if you're a single mom with children. So that's what I run into is, you know, I think the biggest challenge is not having enough resources to help the families, due to you know, either housing or daycare.
And I think, I believe in mental health. I know that a lot of people don't really talk about, you know, mental health, but I think, you know, it's real, and it's there. And I don't think we have enough services for families that need help, or even for themselves, knowing that they do have a mental health that they need help.
I have a family that was recently evicted from their trailer home, and now is staying and I think, to be at a hotel room for like three weeks now, and then the kids will go to a family member. And so she is able just to go see her kids when she's available, because she works and she can't have the kids at the hotel. Because, you know, the kids are, you know, kids need to play, no kids allowed, you know, and they can get kicked out and they can't risk getting kicked out because they don't have a place to go. I wish we have enough, you know, like housing plans or housing for these families or, you know, have programs for daycare, so they don't have to stress about, hey, you know what I can do with my kids when I go to work. And if I don't have daycare, I can't go to work and ready to go to work. I don't have any money to pay for rent.
So we're where we live, obviously, there's housing programs, but due to her background and poor choices, she can't get into any of the housing program, because that will really help her because she's a single mom with two kids. But yet at the same time, you know, with, you know, if they have a felony on their background, it could be years. Or currently, while they can't, they won't qualify for housing assistance in which that's a bummer. Which I appreciate that here in Wausau we do have housing for families. But at this point in time, even our Section VIII, but I believe our Section VIII housing list is there closed. So it's very hard for families that had made poor choices. And even if they're working, it's not enough to you know, to pay rent, because rent is so high nowadays. And without the assistance, the community assistance or housing assistance, that services makes it kind of impossible for them to even get into housing. And I believe that renters know, landlords look at their criminal background, their criminal history. So if they, I mean, that's even hard to get a house or rent or an apartment. So I see that it's difficult when you are kind of in the situation.
Luke Waldo 19:29
Right? It's hard to, how do we as a society, overcome some of these kind of punitive stances of like, well, you you made a mistake, mom, therefore, we're not going to give you access to these resources that would help you get a house? How do we start to, how do we start to recognize that if we punish mom for something she did in her past, we're also now punishing her children? We need to recognize that yes, we make some poor choices. Adults make some poor choices or even young adults make poor choices at times. And are there consequences for those actions? Certainly. But we need to recognize that those then carry over to the next generation. And these young children now are suffering those consequences.
Hannah Kirk 20:14
Milwaukee is extremely segregated, and so where our families come from and where they live plays a big role in how they parent their children, or what their thought processes are. And if you don't understand that, or don't have maybe your own personal experience with that, that it's going to be very difficult to navigate that.
Luke Waldo 20:42
As we kind of come to the the end of this conversation, you both have talked a lot about, you know, the families that you serve, are not experiencing just one challenge, right? I don't think I've heard anything from either of you to believe that you're serving families that, for example, are only struggling with say addiction, right? This is generally again, a constellation of issues. So if they're struggling with addiction, they may also be struggling with mental health. If they're struggling with both of those, they may be struggling with their employment, and therefore they're struggling with issues of poverty, and that of course, then compounds into other issues as well.
Luke Waldo 21:19
As families face these complex challenges that often start with systemic inequities or failures, and grow more complex through the constellation of issues that emerge from generational trauma and poverty, how might we change our systems, and support and empower overloaded families so that they may overcome these challenges?
In this coming segment, we will hear from Bregetta, Hannah, Ashlee and Theresa, as they tell us about the power of listening without judgment to truly understand what families need.
Bregetta Wilson 22:17
I would like to leave with a little bit of my own story for that question. When you think about, you know, how do we keep families together? I recall my own experience, and I share this because I've always been transparent about about my life, about my journey. I remember when my mom, when I was removed from my my mom's home. And I never forget, my social worker was a little short lady came in. And I always would say, can you help my mom? How are you helping my mom? And so I think a lot of children have asked that question. How are you helping my mom? Because my mom needs some help. She needs these things. She didn't do this because it was by choice, or it was because she doesn't love me.
You know, I think if we asked what families need first, it will help us elevate putting families first. It really speaks to that. Putting families first is asking what do families need, and really addressing those issues within our spheres of influence, within the power that we have, within a decision making that's taken place at every level of child welfare. Because everyone in child welfare has some level of power. If we walk in the door asking what families need versus what families did, it will change a lot of our approach to how we work with families. If we advocate for dollars to be shifted, and look at other states that have done certain things around providing subsidies around dollars for families for basic needs, and we advocate towards that, how would that change families staying together?
Hannah Kirk 24:27
I would say that they are strong. That's the first word that comes to mind is that they are strong. And initially, it may be difficult to see their strength and it may be difficult for themselves to see their own strength, but they are strong, and it will come out eventually. And I want people to know that and to consider that. And to really think and shift their, you know, I had to shift my thinking right when I got into this role and think about how to pose or understand these families better. And I think the shift that I made that has been most impactful with this population has been not so much focused on the question of, Why did you do what you did? And more so, What has happened to you? What has gone wrong? And switching my mentality from the why to the what has completely changed how I've worked with my clients.
I think that if we're talking about clients that come into contact with CPS, or has been separated from their children, I think what they need most is somebody to listen to them. I think that too often, there are judgments being made, and not somebody to just sit there and listen. And sometimes it's an excruciating amount of time that you just have to sit in silence and let them process and get out what they need to get out. But I think that that's what they need. Because if they don't, then you may never understand their full story or how they got to where they got. And so that's what I think that they need most not only as another human, but as a professional entering their life. And you're now having to build this relationship with somebody new and they're looking at you as though you know, you're a professional, you know, know anything about what I'm going through, you've never had your kids taken away, you've never had to experience getting kicked out or evicted, you've never had to sleep on on the streets, and that that's all true most cases. And so to be able to set your pride aside, to set aside your professionalism, and just listen, I think is what they need.
Ashlee Jackson 27:16
So there are quite a few things that I can give, as reasons why I got into this, but primarily I have personal experience with child welfare in the City of Milwaukee. I grew up during a very rough time where social work was not of any importance, yet case managers that weren't very aware of things. And so I used to have to advocate a lot for myself, and actually, at one point in time, petitioned the judge in court to pay for me to get my driver's ed course at the time. And argued my own little defense about why I should be able to get it. And at that moment, the judge Carl Ashley said, you know, like, you know, that this is what you're supposed to do, right? Like, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this forever, because it combined the two things that I truly love. I love to debate. And I also have a passion for teaching. So he's like, you know, this is, you're just going to ball it all into one. Long story short, I did get my license paid for through the city of Milwaukee, which was never done before that. And I just knew from then on, it was time to make some changes for our community.
Theresa Swiechowski 28:30
So I'm going to age myself a little bit. So when I was first attending UW Oshkosh, fresh out of high school, I started working for the Boys Club of Oshkosh. So it was not even the Boys and Girls Club of Oshkosh yet. And our very first summer I worked there all through college, the first summer that they started to transition the girls into the Boys Club, I should say, we had a summer program. So before our club even opened up a little girl seven years old, very, very, very small, was the first one dropped off. She was the last one picked up. And I of course was very young, as well. And I was it was I just felt so bad for her. She was so little, so tiny. And I remember commenting to some of my co workers like, wow, her mom was really work long hours. And one of the program coordinators said her mom doesn't have a job. And my immediate reaction was, Oh, that's so sad. Why doesn't her mom want to spend time with her? Or what an awful mom to not want to spend time with her. So I was very curious about this. And lucky for me, I had awesome mentors there. And that was my first insight.
I think on the flip side of families struggling, she was doing the best she could, she was actually doing better for her child because she could have been protecting her from a domestic situation at home. She was allowing her daughter to have structure all summer long. So she was actually being a good mom. And that's when I, that fall, changed my major from Criminal Justice, which is more of a punitive type system, to prevention and intervention. And I changed my major to Human Services, which at the time was a new field, it was very new, right? I think we were one of the very first universities to have that. And we were under the very first classes as well to go through it. So that's kind of my story of starting out of kind of that aha moment.
Luke Waldo 30:47
In this final segment of our episode, we will hear more from Soua, Hannah, Ashley and Theresa, as they talk about the strengths of the families that they serve. As you are listening, ask yourself how they demonstrate what Bregetta said in the last segment. If we walk in the door asking what families need, versus what families did, it would change a lot of our approach of how we work with families.
Soua Thao 31:30
So in our Hmong community over the years, they come in different groups. Our last group among families, refugee families came back and I believe in 2004 or 5, we had a huge group among refugees that came to Wausau. And we had a really big group that joined our program due to just being new to everything. In our community, we do celebrate New Year's every year, but due to COVID, we haven't, we didn't last year, and I believe the year before. But hopefully we can continue that tradition that everybody looks forward to once a year. And different clans meaning different last name, like I'm a Thao, we normally would have our own smaller group of our New Year versus the big New Year for everybody. That happens normally in November of each year.
I think the reason why a lot of Hmong families relocate here is because they go where the relatives are really, Hmong families usually follow the group or their family members that are already in a specific state. Like there's a lot of Hmong families in Minnesota, there's a lot of families in Wisconsin, there's a lot of Hmong families in California, I think it's just where they usually go, or follow or live where their group or Clan lives. Because I think the biggest reason is just so they have family members or support. In a lot of the Hmong families, they joined their family in a certain state due to, you know, support, they already know that the families will help them if they need help, connect them to, you know, either churches, for housing, for them to connecting to where they need to go. Most likely, that's probably where they locate where they are.
On the flip side to that. I do have families that, a lot of my families, Hmong families don't get evicted. I'm not saying that not ever, but because they do have the family support. A lot of, most of them are two parent with their children. And if it's a young, if it's a young adult, then you know, they obviously have the parents to fall back on, or brothers or siblings that they have that they can stay until they can get on their feet. So I do not see eviction a lot in my Hmong community. I'm not saying there isn't none, but the ones I've worked with that I haven't run into any issues with housing issues.
Hannah Kirk 34:06
I love talking about strengths, because I don't think that enough people talk about them. Yeah. And so when I do my family team meetings, or even if I am just meeting with a professional about a client, I always make it a point to ask about client strengths. I will say I do throw people off when we do our case transfers. And we're in there and it's a room of professionals, right. And we're all talking about why this case came to CPS and what the concerns are, and at the end, I say, Okay, we talked about all that now, now tell me some strengths of the family. And it throws people for a loop. And for me, I don't think it should be that difficult to answer because I think people everybody has a strength. It just maybe you have to dig a little bit deeper, but there are strengths within everybody. I think that a lot of the families that I have had been able to work with over the course of all these years, right, I've been here for a little a little while, is their ability to be resilient. I think that is the number one thing in my families is their resilience. And they may not see it, or they may not believe it initially. But while we continue to work with one another, we have ongoing conversations of hey, like, how are you feeling? You know, now that we have this, this and this in place, What's your outlook on this? What's going on? And I have had so many clients tell me, I didn't believe that I could get this far, I didn't believe I could get my kids back. I didn't believe that we could do this together.
And you know, there's a stigma around CPS. And the stigma comes along very heavily with the clients that we work with. It's unfortunate, but I think that part of our job is to also educate our clients on what our roles are, and what our responsibilities are. And number one, getting kids back home. But it helps a lot, when you are able to look a parent in their face and say, You know what, you're strong, I can tell that you love your children, I can tell that you have tried your best, I can tell that you're going to be open and honest with me. And that's going to be what's going to get your children back the fastest. I also think that a lot of my families do come with a lot of family support. And that's a big strength in itself, because we get clients who have no support, or they don't think that their family will support them. And then we'll host a family team meeting, and you've got a cousin and aunt and an uncle and a brother that show up that want to support them. And it's awesome to see because they themselves don't believe that they have people in their corner. And then when they do show up, it shows a lot.
Ashlee Jackson 36:50
First and foremost is resilience. Most of our parents have already had, you know, traumatic experiences that they're going through and working through. And so just seeing how strong they are, when this comes in, and that determination is a huge strength for them.
Ability to network is a big one in the city. They, I've had families, you know, suggest things to me that I didn't even know was a resource in the city. Because we do have a lot of them out there, smaller ones. So they're really good at networking and figuring out, you know, where they need to go for whatever it is they're seeking, whether that be for you know, like Food Share, you know, medical systems, those kind of things they can. I've had parents in parenting classes, excuse me, network and move things around with like, No, you need to call this person or, you know, this is the number and they'll, you know, answer your call right away kind of thing, supporting one another. And so being positive about it, even though they're in whatever situation.
Theresa Swiechowski 37:51
To piggyback off of Ashley, resilience, of course, popped into my head immediately. I always remind parents that resilience is a superpower. And so many of our families that we deal with, again, I bring back kind of the generational thing. I'm not sure if that's in just our area, I hope, it's I know, it's not just in our area, but we're very rural areas. So networking is a thing. But it's a very surprising thing sometimes, and we don't have a lot of group programming. So when groups are brought together like our parenting class, I facilitate the parenting class often, I'm often surprised as Ashlee, like some of the networking that they are able to come together with. But I think that we're a little bit more isolated up here. Our resources are a little bit more sporadic. We differ from county to county with our resources. And generally counties don't share resources. So that's kind of a challenge. So the strengths I think really do depend a lot on and I lean on this a little bit more, again, is extended family. A lot of our families are very connected to their extended family. I don't know if that's unique to our area, but I see it a lot within our families. There's aunts, uncles, grandparents, you know, that sometimes contribute great strength, but sometimes are also a hinder. I see that within our family dynamic up here up in the Northwoods.
Soua Thao 39:42
Number one is because they want the program, they want the Start Right program. And two is when we go in home, if there is not a lot of crisis they do enjoy learning different techniques or parenting skills or just little simple as an activity to do with their child. And a lot of my Hmong families grew up not having much education, or not having any education at all. And they're coming to America and in having this great opportunity of, of learning it and want to support their kids in school, so they want to learn themselves to better themselves, so they can better help their children through school. And by what we Start Right offers them is, you know, simple activities or interactions that don't need a whole lot of money to do or just to sit and read a book together or, or, or sing songs, that it doesn't cost anything. But I think it's just that they learn just simple technique that they can do to help their child grow.
Theresa Swiechowski 40:45
I actually had this question given to me, in sort of a way, by a doctor, I actually went to a doctor's appointment for myself. And he asked me what I did for a living. So I was trying to explain it. He kept on looking very perplexed for some reason, and I'm not sure why maybe I just didn't explained it very well. And I said, I at the bottom line, I said, like a social worker. And he's like, oh, like a social worker. He goes, Oh, my gosh, you must just see awful things. I said, No, I walk into a house and I see strong, funny, optimistic, wonderful people who are trying their best to do what they can with the resources they have. And his face just fell. And he goes, I never thought about it that way.
And I do, I, you know, I go in there strength based right off the bat, I leave my biases at the door, I try very hard to do that. And because it is so much easier for my job, to build off strengths than to concentrate on the negative. And it's not saying that we don't address what is happening in front of us, because we want accountability. We need accountability. But strength based. Right from the very beginning is so important. And it makes my job so much more nicer when I go home. So I do see a lot of strength. And you know, you you, you bring up the resilience and I agree with Ashley, we still have to praise it. It still has to be their superhero power right now. Because that's what's getting them through the day.
Ashlee Jackson 42:39
I think the biggest thing I would say is the fact that they're trying. They have a lot on their plates, and they're, they love their kids. I don't think I've ever worked with a family or a parent that was just like, No, this is, you know, I don't want to do this, I don't love my kids kind of thing. But there's a lot of challenges that they have to overcome. And so just knowing that they're trying, and they're people, and they're parents.
Soua Thao 43:14
I believe that the families I work with, or just, it doesn't just have to my Hmong families, I believe that all the families that we work with as a whole want what is best for their kids. And for my Hmong families, they have support with them, most families, remember in the beginning, we talked about why they moved to a certain areas because to be with other family members, so they have that support.
Luke Waldo 43:37
I want to begin my closing today by sharing that I found the conversations that formed the episode to be inspirational. I want to thank Ashlee, Bregetta, Hannah, Soua, and Theresa for sharing their why, their purpose through their life stories and how they influence and inform their service to children and families. While families live in poverty, or carry generational burdens like trauma or systemic oppression, we must always seek to be and do better. I hope that the conversations and experiences today have us all thinking about how we might listen more and judge less. How might we build trust with individuals and families by listening to their stories, and celebrating their strengths as Hannah shared with us today. I hope you'll come back for our next episodes as we continue to explore that question more deeply.
But before we go today, as always, I wanted to highlight three key takeaways to reflect on as we move into our next episodes.
1. The root causes of neglect that we've explored previously, poverty, generational trauma and systemic oppression can snowball into a constellation of challenges and overload families. When a family lives in poverty, they may not have access to reliable transportation or stable housing, which can lead to additional stressors and barriers to a good job and childcare. As we've heard today, our systems have a lot of work to do to meet overloaded families complex challenges. Additionally, generational trauma can pile on as mental health and coping struggles such as substance misuse, which makes the challenges presented by poverty and systemic oppression seem all that much more daunting.
2. If we truly commit to the belief that a person or family is not defined by their biggest mistakes or darkest moments, we position ourselves to see the potential, the growth, and the strengths of those that we serve.
3. Lastly, I chose to interview these five incredible people for this podcast because they exemplify authenticity. Each one of them brings their authentic self to their work, to the families and communities that they serve. Whether it's through a celebration of her Hmong culture and community, or Bregetta's and Ashlee's resilience and strength from their lived experiences with the child welfare system, they build trust by being their authentic selves. I am grateful to each of them for sharing a small part of their stories with us today.
Thank you for joining us for this fourth episode. We hope that you will come back and listen to our fifth episode next week, as we explore how our systems come up short for too many of our overloaded families, and also how those same systems support and empower families while also changing the conditions for future generations. We will be exploring Ashlee's opening question to this episode, and try to answer, if one rose can grow from under the concrete, how many could grow if we removed that concrete?
If you enjoyed today's episode, please share with friends, family and colleagues. Also, if you rate us on whatever podcast platform you listen to us on, it makes it easier for others to find us. To learn more about the experts that you heard today, visit the show notes, which is where you will also find links to sources or information that were mentioned in today's episode. Thanks again for joining us. See you next week.
Luke Waldo 47:30
This podcast would not have been possible without the support and talents of Carrie Wade, who is responsible for our technical production and original music composition. I can't express my gratitude enough to Carrie for all she gave to this project. I'm also grateful to Gabe McGaughey, our Co-director here at the Institute for Child and Family Well-being, who contributed to the ideas behind this podcast and interviewed some of our experts. Finally, I would like to thank all of our speakers that you have heard today and throughout the podcast for their partnership, their willingness to share their stories and expertise with me and all of you, and their commitment to improving the lives of children and families. I'm Luke Waldo, your Host and Executive Editor. Thanks again for listening and see you next time.