Wonder Hello, my name is Jeremiah Donier, and I am a birth parent from Washington State. I am here to open your minds and hearts to the wonder of working with family consultants, and seeing us as your colleagues. What is wonder? It is something you have as a child and often lose on the way to becoming adults, it’s akin to love and is mixed with fear and excitement. There is no place for anger and hate in wonder. Wonder is what you feel when you meet someone who is mutually attracted to you. New parents feel it when they bring a child home for the first time. It is like these plastic toys I have here, I’m going to fly some over the audience, don’t worry they won’t hurt. Before I do this I want you all to know I lost my sense of wonder 10 years ago, I messed up and hurt my little baby girl. At three months she was taken away in a hospital and placed in foster care. Thankfully I got help, I learned to be a safe, caring and committed father. (FLY) After I reunited with my family and my case was closed successfully, I became a volunteer parent partner and consultant. (FLY) I began doing this work to help other families, and ended up collaborating with others to start a state mandated parent mentoring program. Several years ago, I joined a state level committee of parent partners focused on improving child welfare. During the training for this work, I learned when parents are engaged early in their case, it builds trust and leads to better outcomes for children. At the same time, I was also working for a nonprofit which offered a child mentoring program. I remember wondering, if parents needed mentoring too?! (FLY) So I started working with others on this idea. The parent partners I worked with found our biggest challenge was building trust with professionals. At that time there was a group in Washington State with the motto “fight child welfare”. However, this was not our stance, we wanted to be proactive, to address change, to build capacity and to be child welfare allies. In my local community, Spokane, I started a parent partner committee with the support of one other parent and a social worker. (FLY.) As we recruited others to our team, parents, some service providers, social workers, and more; we worked together on parent mentoring ideas. We worked for over three years on a program, we tried different things, but none quite fit the needs of parents. Still we tried and we wondered, while also doing community outreach and celebrating family reunifications. In the meantime, on the state committee I worked with other parents and professionals on policy. Some of these allies worked with national parent partners on another parent mentoring program model. In January 2013 the Parents for Parents program was started on opposite sides of Washington State, in King (FLY) and Spokane (FLY) counties. After just a few classes, attorneys and social workers reported parents were more open with communication, and expressing hope they could resolve their cases. Within a few months Washington State’s Children’s Administration named the program a “promising practice.” As the program continued to show a significant reduction to the time and money spent on child welfare cases, funds were dedicated to expand it to seven more counties! (FLY) This gained the support of even more state legislators and child welfare administrators. On July 24 2015, the day my youngest child turned five, Washington State had a new law. (FLY) It is the first nationally I am aware of, and this law recognizes the importance of parent mentoring, and the role of parent partners as experts in this process, and it also mandated the Parents for Parents program be expanded statewide. So now you might wonder what comes next. As a family consultant I want to work with you, to help families bridge the gap between child welfare and community. I want to consult on building programs which help all families, including:
Sustainable programs which engage men to be responsible, caring fathers. (FLY) Programs that teach social workers to be pro-active with fathers instead of re-active to the fear of men. (FLY) Programs that teach the difference in maternal (mother) and paternal (father) roles, and why these wonderful differences are vital in ensuring child well-being, safety, and permanence. (FLY) and programs that help couples to be respectful co-parents, nurturing their children together. (FLY) In closing, I know each of you are here, because you care about these things and much more. I hope I instilled within each of you a sense of wonder about the work my fellow family consultants can do with you as colleagues. Each of us brings our own unique, dynamic, tangible and WONDERFUL expertise to the Center; and we are here to provide the best consulting possible. So, as we move forward into doing this work together, let’s do it with the sense of wonder that supports the children we all love. (FLY) Thank you!