Since Karen Bass wants to claim the legacy of the Congressional Black Caucus as its principle, then she should be the one to tell the world about what they do on their servers, when it comes to trafficking tiny humans through Foster Care and Adoption.
She knows what goes on in Foster Care because she is the spokestoken for the Foster Care Committee and, for a hot second, lead the charge of the Congressional Black Caucus, which runs the system by championing the chattel ranching property ownership labels of "black & brown", or rather what the latest segregationists like to call targeted populations.
Not once has she ever reached out to me, which is an automatic indicator of a willing participant of stealin' the children, land and votes.
And, if she has the audacity to make a public disclaimer that she does not know who I am, well, then I believe we have validation that she is one of the "Elected Ones".
I will allow Karen to respond to my statement.
Of course, I make no bones in displaying my disdain for the dumb ass gentlelady, for she is only one of the "Elected Ones".
The Caucus has a server, you know.
It is absolutely amazing how Shelton McElroy states that his mother was 14 when her rights were terminated and the only reaction was the "Legal Genius" (trademark pending) giving a proverbial thumbs up to the credibility of their distracting from the child welfare system.
Cicillini wants a judicial rubrik for judgement, yet, has no clue of the child welfare system, with the committee making no comment on the juvenile system, the criminalization of children or the predictive modeling crap that goes along with the dumb pretrial detention programs.
The commercial bail system is chattel ranching where chick touted how her family survived taking in foster kids
Another no money no justice moment where if you cannot afford bail you cannot afford an attorney and if you can mustard the money for representation, it will not be adequate, with absolutely no mention of Guardians ad Litem, who are not licensed attorneys, nor CASA volunteers, who are not even sworn civilian officers of the courts.
Not one mention of Child Protective Services.
What happens when the parents go to jail for an inability to secure a bail bond?
The kids go to foster care, but the Committee did not seem to find that to be a subject of interest.
What was of interest to me was that Mary Smith, who has a family bail bonds business, started out as foster parents.
You can do the math by calculating the number of foster children times the monthly foster care payments, and possible adoption tax incentives, but hey, what do I know?
I know the committee addressed nothing about trafficking tiny humans, but for this particular hearing, it is juvenile justice and the billions to be made in the private sector of chattel law.
Witnesses
Mr. Brandon Buskey
Deputy Director for Smart Justice Litigation, American Civil Liberties Union Criminal Law Reform Project
Judiciary is holding hearings to find out why the U.S. separates children from families...but only in immigration.
I do not believe it is fair to hound the Department of Homeland Security and ICE because this is about Child Protection Laws of the States constructed by transposing the administrative model of selling chattel.
The proper target to query on the U.S. history of trafficking tiny humans would be the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice because the names of these models are:
Child Abuse and Treatment Prevention Act (CAPTA)
&
Adoption Safe Families Act (ASFA)
DHS is only doing what they were constructed to do which is to hand over tiny humans to the privatized state contracts.
Not once does Judiciary say:
Child Protective Services (CPS) there was one instance;
Foster Care;
Adoption;
DACA,
DAPA,
Medicaid fraud; or,
Children's Trust Funds.
Always remember, it takes a judicial determination to turn on the federal funding spigot!
To assist Judiciary staff in providing the history of U.S. child separation law and policies, I have provided a tutorial video, below, along with my databases, so there is no excuse to ignorance of the law and the modern day understanding of the Terry Stops standard of "stop, identity frisk & tag" applies today as an automatic snatching of tiny humans to find out who possesses parental rights as legal guardian.
In this situation, ignorance of the law is no excuse for the Member of Judiciary, because I have constructed and provided searchable databases in the links, of which I have maintained specifically for Judiciary, for over 10 years, so they cannot even come up with a situation accusing me of lying or not knowing what I am saying because no one said a word when I started working for Judiciary...which means...if they get it wrong, then we have some serious ethics issues going on in committee....right?
Collins was open to admit that the Committee has no clue of what goes on in the separation of children from families.
Lofgren admitted that she was clueless on child welfare law and policy.
Buck talked about loophole laws but did not speak upon child welfare.
Child trafficking spills over our borders because we fund the operations in international refugee and adoption programs, to name a few, but not one mention.
Sesenbrenner asked about DNA for reunification.
Sheila Jackson Lee submitted U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, et al on all the private contractors who have these child welfare procurement contracts in acquiring children. It seems Her Flatulent Boviness is pushing for more privatization to implement IT tracking databases. Funny thing, I should see if she has any financial interests in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Amber Alert and other child welfare NGOs. (ssshhhh...I already found everything and she wants more money for her rogue ass crew.)
Chabot called people coming in illegally from the Southern border with children knowing of the "ger out of jail free card" because the kids go into the system, and the coyotes go back to do it again, which seems to be quite lucrative with privatized child welfare contractors.
Gohmert asks about children being separated from parents and put in jail with suspects in the justice system. Louie was hot and said that he did not need to be in that position because he could not answer the question. Louie asks about imprisoning children for the crimes of the parent.
Johnson identified Sessions of establishing the separation policy but does not mention that congress makes law, not policy. The Attorney General enforces law. Director McHenry could not answer on the construction of the policy.
Johnson got DHS to say they have no oversight of the fraud, waste and abuse in their private contracts.
Deutch opens with slamming DHS with sexual assault by staff and others on the unaccompanied children reported to DOJ.
Gaetz followed up on children being used as entry tickets, "mechanism of transit". He also talked about buy children in Guatemala, but has failed to talk about the United Methodist missions that set up baby farms to sell the kids into a good, christian home, nor dores he speak upon the children trust funds, but does enter into the record New York Times and other media articles, but nothing from my blog, as a staff of Judiciary. tsk, tsk.
Karen Bass set up the Congressional Foster Care Caucus, and it seems she is pushing "domestic best interest of the child determination" training. Bass said judges makes these decisions in "domestic child policy" which is false reference to foster care. The judges only render decisions to the placement of the child based upon recommendations report of a child welfare worker. It seems Bass is pushing the current U.S. child welfare system, which is nothing but modern day slavery.
Biggs tells stories of kids running around, lost and anyone claiming to be families, like young kids. He asks about the use of children in drug trafficking, which goes back to Fishman in Detroit with the White Boy Rick case.
Unfortunately, he did not go into asking the definition of a family because there is no legal definition for a family. Are these kids signed over through power of attorney? Are these kids put under corporate guardianship? Are these kids adopted? DNA would never answer these questions.
Biggs keeps going into the policies but fails to say that a policy is not a law, in his call for enforcing law.
Cicilline gave a moving statement on just now finding out about the hideous policies of separating children. You know what they say, better late than never!
Reschenthaller he wants to focus on human trafficking but cannot because the children go through child welfare, and are not documented. He is applauded Trump on calling out human trafficking. He has asked how reunification has prevented human trafficking.
DHS is clueless.
Once a kid in placed in the child welfare system, human trafficking is encouraged as a form of work.....so they can eat.....and stay alive until they can go AWOL. Adoption is the other side of human trafficking, but this area was not raised, due to a time constraint, of course.
Raskin mentions the ongoing litigation of child separation but does not understand that the States create child welfare policy. It is called rulemaking. Raskin needs to read CAPTA and ASFA.
McClintock was the first to mention Child Protective Services but asks DHS about it and does not know. He did not go into the powers of CPS but DHS did call them out dated laws.
Pramila talks about the asylum process of women in prison. She asks the panel if they are parents considering they are developing parent policies. She called Commander White a child welfare expert which is an excellent indication that she is clueless because White is far from being an expert because it only took about 20 years for this to come to Judiciary and I seriously doubt that he is a whistleblower.
Pramila needs to learn about CAPTA & ASFA.
Demmings asked about the criminal treatment of people crossing the border and what DHS believes Zero Tolerance Policy, single adults, the first time misdemeanors, causing a strain on resources in prosecution. She talks about her time as a police chief and what they did to make sure the children in her custody were treated better.
Demmings did not mention about the children who died in state care, where many may have been placed under the custody of a corporate parent, through the legal termination of parental rights, to be issued new U.S. birth certificates.
Cline called this a humanitarian emergency at the border, but called human trafficking a tragedy. He raised the treatment, recruitment and retention of ICE agents. It takes a special character to hunt down and catch humans, to transport them to a detention facility, to be transported...is anyone having a "Door of No Return" moment, here?
Scalon called out using the term UAC and not recognizing the children with humanity by ignoring the poverty. She talked about reunification after separation. She wants to know the child welfare policies and its history. DHS ICE has no clue because government has no clue.
DHS chick is testifying that suring the EO of making illegal immigration a criminal prosecution, it is coming up as termination of parental rights, but they do not understand HHS policy because there is no coordination.
Neguse is asking DHS about not doing the additional paperwork to reunify parents with children, and instead, shipping the parents off to lock up and dumping the kids in the system, which he has no clue of what it is.
The reason why DHS does not do the additional paperwork is because it becomes a state child welfare issue.
Stanton is asking when the policies to separate children of families began.
I am going with Dum Divarsas.
Stanton is asking about how traumatic upon a child being taken away from a parent and what the child welfare experts have put into these policies.
Jefferies is asking about the Trump administration separating children policies to deter immigration with the zero tolerance policy.
Jefferies asked about an understanding how we separate children from families to the response of "the best interests of the children".
The Peculiar Institution of U.S. Slavery was never abolished, read the Thirteenth Amendment.
Dean is asking about the work under Commander White of Knights of Columbus in Iraq and Syria and they had no child welfare background.
Dean asked why they tracked and the tracking mechanism of the menstrual cycles of the girls in custody.
This guy has no clue about the biology of girls, rape, pregnancy, health care and Dean is focused on the trauma.
Dean is asking about encouraging the girls to give birth by determining if the girls had the right to meet with attorney.
Escobar is calling out her district as the testing grounds for the new separation policies under the Trump administration asking how many children were separated during this "test" period.
Escobar asked who on the panel handled reunifications. There was a dramatic pause. Commander White has no clue and has failed to even mention they kids were under state private contracts. He goes on to say he is not going to take a kid out of a placement to give them back to the parents and there is a live legal action.
Escobar got DHS to explain that if a parent is an undocumented immigrant who has had their child snatched and has to show up for a state CPS case will be arrested and criminally convicted where they did not show up to the CPS court, there are termination of parental rights and the kids get adopted out.
Mucarsel-Powel is speaking about hundreds of kids being housed in bunk beds with numbers as a crime against humanity. Lloyd is clueless on the Homestead Detention Facility and HHS administration.
She is asking why a for profit company was picked to oversea the temporary influx shelter. White is saying that the process was competative through the contracting officer.
Temporary influx centers do not have to be licensed by the state. I learned something new!
White claims he is going to get back on the length of stay in child welfare temporary shelters. I will already tell you there are no pre-10 waivers.
McBeth is asking about the creation and retention of child welfare records.
The woman on the panel is saying there are 3 tracking systems, but could not name them. They are called SACWIS, email, and phone.
They do not need money to improve IT for communication. The communication systems need to be dismantled because they have never worked.
Here is a really great cost effective method to improve communication: stop stealin' tiny humans!
Just think, with the touch on your hand held device, you can beam up into the big cyberverse your entire story, with video, of how they snatched your kid, what your kid looks like, what the perpetrators look like, the trademarks on the facilities, so you can have whatever degree of consanguinity or familiarity to track down your kid and it does not cost a penny, well, perhaps in legal fees defending their practices of selling the chattel of the legally kidnapped.
Corea is asking as to whom came up with the separation of children from families policies.
Ted Lieu dropped a baby snatching video with a DHS asking for $4,000 to get the kid back!
YES!!!!! EPIC!!!!
DHS said the private contractor called it a "fee" because selling kids is illegal, you know.
And, on that note, Jolly Jerry adjourned the meeting without once mentioning Child Protective Services, Foster Care or Adoption, DACA, DAPA, or Children's Trust Funds, which I consider the second greatest feat of his career.
We should ask Hillary Clinton to tell us the tale of trafficking tiny humans.
Interesting point out ~ Judiciary made the witnesses sign Truth in Testimony statements.
In accordance with Rule XI, clause 2(g)(5)*, of the Rules of the House of Representatives, witnesses are asked
to disclose the following information. Please complete this form electronically by filling in the provided blanks. *Rule XI, clause 2(g)(5), of the U.S. House of Representatives provides:
(5)(A) Each committee shall, to the greatest extent practicable, require witnesses who appear before it to submit in advance written
statements of proposed testimony and to limit their initial presentations to the committee to brief summaries thereof.
(B) In the case of a witness appearing in a nongovernmental capacity, a written statement of proposed testimony shall include a
curriculum vitae and a disclosure of any Federal grants or contracts, or contracts or payments originating with a foreign government,
received during the current calendar year or either of the two previous calendar years by the witness or by an entity represented by the
witness and related to the subject matter of the hearing.
(C) The disclosure referred to in subdivision (B) shall include—
(i) the amount and source of each Federal grant (or subgrant thereof) or contract (or subcontract thereof) related to the subject
matter of the hearing; and
(ii) the amount and country of origin of any payment or contract related to the subject matter of the hearing originating with a
foreign government.
(D) Such statements, with appropriate redactions to protect the privacy or security of the witness, shall be made publicly available in
electronic form not later than one day after the witness appears
Witnesses
Ms. Nathalie R. Asher
Acting Executive Associate Director, Enforcement and Removal Operations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
For your historic pleasure, in the spirit of fuchsia, I have provided my "Colored" commentary, because I am quite sure there are going to be numerous media outlets, political scholars, and "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) out there who are going to claim they know everything about everything that has gone on in this hearing.
Why are some of the members so contentious and way outside the scope of the hearing?
Well, it is because the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is under the purview of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Yes, boys and girls, that is correct.
Judiciary was mean to my Sweetie.
That was not very nice because it gave me Saddy face, right Perry?
But, have no fear, there is always the original plan...by the original source.
It is just a shame that the Members of the Committee did not take the time to address the items of the national agenda that Trump outlined in his State of the Union 2019 speech.
child trafficking;
child sex trafficking;
human trafficking;
women trafficking;
drug trafficking;
slavery;
civil rights;
jobs;
justice;
peace.
But, then again, when you are facing prosecution of war crimes, you tend to forget about the children.
The following is my "Colored" Commentary of the Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice Hearing, where I have extracted my comments in conversation for a more pleasurable experience, via the castigation of the Celestial Goddess of the Woodshed.
Yes, this is about Detroit.
Perry put this hearing together because I smell the fear.
Collins just put forth a motion to dismiss the hearing.
10 - 12 motion to adjourn does not pass.
Nadler is trying to find out if he is part of the Special Investigation!
Matt just smashed Nadler when asked for the umpthenth time of what the special counsel investigation was about. He said "I believe your 5 minutes are up".
A bit of fun you can take with you. Look at the portraits in chambers on the wall. Who are they?
Lofgren asked if his views were based on conversations with the Trump Administration. Whitaker said his comments on the special investigations were made before, as a private citizen.
"In your capacity as Acting Attorney General, have you ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the special counsel?" House Judiciary Chair Nadler asks.
Chabot said "Conyers" and mentioned their work on the opioid crisis.
Whitaker is trolling Her Flatulent Boviness. CoS physically stood up behind her. They are terrified.
The Her Flatulent Boviness (Sheila Jackson Lee) tried to as Whitaker about his background in Voting Rights cases. Her time expired. She was trying to get into the Russian Interference. Instead, he said voting fraud, which is his investigation of Detroit.
Cohen is about to break down in tears trying to get Whitaker to say this is a russian investigation. This is so romantic.
If anyone runs across any articles or *youtubers/investigative jounalists* running their own analysis, please drop the links so I can put them on the list.
Deutch asked about the interview to become CoS. This is going to be relevant to other CoS.
Karen Bass asked about Whitaker's background with FACT. Collins challenged that it was outside the scope of the hearing. Nadler was forced to take a vote. They tabled the issue. Karen Bass is the head of the Foster Care Caucus. Need I say more? Bass is going after FACT because she is part of CREW. I told you, Melanie Sloane is coming back.
Nadler: "we taking a 5 minute recess for lunch". Whitaker: "only 5 minutes for lunch"? <=== I need a meme.
McClinton tried to compare the Stone raid and Medenez case arrest procedure. Whitaker said there are ongoing investigations. FBI will brief in closed session,
Cedric Richmond is throwing the Civil Rights Act creation of the DOJ. Yes, who was behind creating the DOJ. #sayhisname
Richmond is standing up for the "Colored" Revolution. He is throwing the race card. DUCK!
Lesko (cannot see her name she is new) is asking about coming together. She is asking about the new infantcide laws. DOJ is looking into it. She is talking about infant mortality.
Jefferies tried to rip Whitaker about responding to a statement and a question. Now Jefferies is throwing out numbers on indictments, pleas, sentencing. He is bringing up Wikileaks, Stone, Manafort, Flynn, Cohen.
Cicilline is asking about Presidential privilege. They keep harping on if Whitaker talked to Trump or his legal team about the Mueller investigation. If Cicilline was part of this group, or just read my cases, or signed up for my blog, he would know.
Reschenthaler raised good questions in the scope of the hearing, appropriate questions.
Swawell asked if Mueller was honest and conflicted because Trump said he was running a witchhunt. He wants Whitaker to repeat his "terms and words" to the president. That was a cute set up for a violation of law.
Armstrong is asking about the First Step Act. He asked commended the pretrial release program and asked to work with DOJ for a Second Step Act.
Armstrong asked about universal understanding of "gross negligence" even under the Espionage Act.
You do know, there is a strong possibility that when they take a break, walking into the back office, they are on the phone, calling #perkinscoiesucks . There is also a distinct possibility that, due to the investigation on Judiciary, that everything has been wired up.
Raskin is getting fiesty! Smells like fear. Israel?
Whitaker tries to run out the clock instead of answering @JacksonLeeTX18's extremely straightforward question about if he's testified during an oversight hearing before.
"Mr attorney general, we are not joking here and your humor is not acceptable," she admonishes him. pic.twitter.com/LP0aaikYre
Jayapal is lying. She keeps talking about the leaked draft immigration family separation policy memo. That is a lie. The States take over. Bethany Christian. Michigan. Where is Betsy DeVos. She is using a fake memo to attack Whitaker.
The States hand out the contracts to private corporations. Jayapal has said absolutely nothing about foster care and adoption. They do not even track in the U.S.
Demmings asked about private conversations with Trump about Cohen or, District of Virginia and SDNY personel.
She is getting on him about drugs coming in from the border or ports of entry.
Correa is on white supremist out numbering islamic extremist attacks.
Scanlon is getting hard on undocumented immigrants but he cannot comment due to ongoing litigation. She is clarifying.
Garcia is asking about Zero Tolerance policy. Whitaker said Sessions implemented it. These people refuse to say foster care and adoption. The states take those kids. Michigan has the national contract. No one is even mentioning termination of parental…See More
She asked about dropping the ACA litigation. Why? He cannot discuss that. That is the decision of the president.
Neguse is asking about medical cannibis research. Whitaker said there are international treaty challenges.
He asked about confidential communications with the president. He is asking about RR being next in line to be appointed. Sessions resigned. Sessions was not fired.
McBath is asking about the Voting Rights Act, voter suppression, and evidence. The 2016 election had a VRA complaint filed before the election. Grand Juries were called before the election, in Detroit, which threw the state, which threw the entire general election.
Stanton asked about the Religious Liberty Task Force. Sessions set it up. Whitaker has said he would follow up.
Stanton brought up foster care and discriminating against a jewish adopter by a contracted agency.
Dean is asking about his private life statements on the Mueller investigation.
The Committee is setting up for impeachment hearings, from both sides of the aisle.
Mucarsal-Powell must be new because she is not very versed on 501c3s. I am calling it out now. They are prohibiting 501c3s from engaging in political activities. They are going to file charges. This is #perkinscoiesucks set up because the "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) are behind the development of line of questioning.
They are going to throw Mucarsel-Powell under the bus. She is reading "their" questions under the guise that she is going to rise as a power star. I can spot grooming a thousand miles away.
Escobar is trying very nicely to tell Whitaker how to answer. She is not his legal counsel. She is new and was set up to get thrown under the bus. She dropped dead kids. Yes, she brought up the 2 kids who died at the border but refuses to speak upon the fact that congress makes law, not DOJ.
Only Congress makes law, not the Attorney General.
You would think the members of House Judiciary would know this by now.
Streamlining technology will greatly assist in the identification of questionable billing practices.
Analytics also allows for oversight in questionable billing practices.
My words of warning to this consortia: "Beware of those who wish to use data to build models to predict "abuse and neglect".
The Administration is focusing on public ~ private partnerships for external funding, or rather, social impact bonds.
There are counter groups that wish to capture and use data to predict the behavior of abuse and neglect, which includes predictions of poverty, mental illness, and other situations of need.
There was little mentioned on the civil rights component in foster care for the youth and the original parents but there were concerns to revisit legal protections for agencies and its contractual arms and access to information.
Technology increases quality and delivery of services. I will even go so far to say technology will prevent fraud, waste and abuse in child welfare services.
The intention is to use Open Source software instead of reinventing the wheel by developing software from scratch.
Privacy issues of data are still on the table.
#HackFosterCare and #WHFosterYouth are the hashtags of the summit.
Here is Day 2 of the #HackFosterCare and #WHFosterYouth Hackathon.
If you use the hashtags, the White House and its stakeholders will be able to pick up your input on social media.
I
The second session addressed risks, going all the way back to the original design of child welfare, from targeting poor and minorities, to the Indian child removals and assimilation.
I wonder if there will be a formal apology issued like was done in Australia and Canada on Native child removals.
What is also interesting is that pre-emptive preparation is commencing in the administration to transition to the next Commander-in-Chief by setting the national agenda for child welfare reform.
The only problem I have with this gathering is that I did not hear my name, but then again, the movement is young and I am still on a mission...
For those of you who do not have the time, nor curiosity to sit through these two White House videos, here is a snapshot of the Hackathon.
Last week, during a reception at a sleek house off of Washington D.C.’s Embassy Row, I found myself in the kitchen talking with Winnie Wechsler.
Wechsler, who runs the Pritzker Foster Care Initiative, which funds a slew of child welfare related non-profits including the one I run, was amped up. For months she has been working with other charitable foundations, technologists, folks from the Obama Administration’s child welfare agency and a young man named Sixto Cancel to get the ensuing two-day White House Foster Care Hackathon off the ground.
“It’s going to blow your mind,” she told me.
Afflicted with a journalist’s skepticism, and having seen waves of foster care initiatives flame and fizzle over the years, I reserved my judgement.
I will not yet disclose whether my mind was indeed “blown,” but I think it is important to share – for those who were not there – what I took away as some of the most significant moments.
Big Data
About fifty people crammed into a panel session on “Big Data.” As we have reported in this publication on numerous occasions, the field of child welfare is grappling with the huge moral question of whether or not to use data analytics to help predict the likelihood that certain children will becomes victims of abuse.
About 45 minutes into the panel, moderator DJ Patil, who is the chief data scientist for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, asked Gladys Carrión, the commissioner of New York City’s vast child welfare administration, what she thought of using predictive analytics in her agency.
“It scares the hell out of me,” Carrión said, inciting half nervous chuckles in the room.
“What specifically scares you?” Patil asked.
“I think about how we are impacting and infringing on people’s civil liberties,” Carrión said. She added that she runs a system “that exclusively serves black and brown children and families… I am concerned about widening the net under the guise that we are going to help them. How can we use these tools to keep children and families in communities together?”
“I am concerned about stigmatizing families,” she went on. “I don’t think this is the Holy Grail, but I do think it is an effective tool. So how do I mitigate that?”
Towards the end of the session, Patil said that President Obama is “extremely focused” on the expansion of predictive analytics into human services.
“How do we have a richer dialogue about these things?” Patil asked. “What is that dialogue about the pros and cons? If you are building [these tools], how to create fairness by design?”
While these questions remained unanswered, the moment was important for two reasons.
First was the level at which the dialogue was happening. You had a relatively high level Obama official talking to the chief of one of the nation’s largest child welfare systems alongside a panel of leading researchers in the space, all witnessed by a crowd including Rafael López, the head of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), which oversees the nation’s tapestry of public child welfare agencies.
The second was the candor of Carrión’s remarks, and the way she matched fear and ambivalence with an ability to remain open-minded. I will get back to this, but in this particular arena, there is a willingness at the highest levels to experiment with technologies that are both wildly promising and scary as hell.
Big Data Panel during day 2 of the Foster Care Hackathon.
A New Kind of Foster Care Leader
I mentioned him higher up, we profiled him last week, and as the senior editor of this publication is quick to point out: The Chronicle of Social Change has dedicated a ribbon of digital ink to the guy already. But that is not likely to change. Sixto Cancel, the founder of Think Of Us, and one of the chief organizers of the May 27 and 28 hackathon, is having a moment.
Throughout the two-day event Cancel was ceaselessly managing his team of young and dedicated employees, chatting into the ear of Molly Dillon, his collaborator on the White House Domestic Policy Council, and working the room in a way that belied a potential for homegrown leadership that this field has yet to see.
For years now, foster youth have been organizing to advocate for their rights through state-sponsored “youth advocacy boards” and non-profits like California Youth Connection, which can be giantly effective in changing laws for kids in the system.
It was through one of these types of organizations that I first met Cancel in Bridgeport, Conn., back in 2010. He was wearing a suit while his peers were in sweats. He spent his time talking to the adults, me included. I was impressed, and a year later invited him to join a panel on foster care and education at Harvard Law School. He killed.
Over the years, foster youth led advocacy efforts have helped launch great leaders. The most prominent among them is Jennifer Rodriguez who now leads the Youth Law Center out of San Francisco and recently served on the White House Commission to End Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.
Not to diminish Rodriguez’s due shine whatsoever, but Cancel is a different kind of former foster youth leader. He is building his vision of a new child welfare system outside of the support systems that have hitherto carried the voice of so many foster youth. This is a critical point of embarkation. The foster youth led advocacy world has largely been built on a cast of founders, executive directors and administrators who never experienced foster care. Cancel is doing it – with help – on his own.
In the packed auditorium of the Eisenhower Building where the most ceremonial moments of the hackathon took place, the 24-year-old took the stage.
In unambiguous language, he called out the elephant in the foster youth advocacy room. He said that young people should not focus on the agenda of the agencies that give them a platform, but rather on taking advantage of those platforms to deliver messages that best serve other foster youth.
“Be unapologetic,” Cancel said. “Your primary mission is to serve our own brothers and sisters who have been in foster care.”
He ended his remarks by evoking an old adage: “Lead, follow or get out of the way.”
The young man is leading.
CREDIT: Think of Us, Sixto Cancel, Molly Dillon and hackathon participants mid-hack.
Commitments
Towards the end of the hackathon, things started to get a little crazy when Commissioner López of ACYF asked people to stand and share “commitments.”
Folks from the Silicon Valley Children’s Fund promised to produce a foster care hackathon in October with some of the biggest leaders in the valley – to which a former foster youth turned CEO named Marquis Cabrerra said he would chip in $10,000 of his own money.
Jon Bradford, the founder of a start-up incubation firm called CoLab, promised to build out the application his team had made the night before and host it into eternity.
Kevin “Scooter” Ward of the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency said that he would work with Cancel to launch his Unify platform in D.C. Unify helps transition-age youth set goals and interface with important adults in their lives.
Jenny Wood, who used to work for Congressmember Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and now works at ACYF, said the agency would strengthen language ensuring foster youth had access to Medicaid after aging out, and that it would clear up guidance so that information sharing is easier among the systems that foster youth touch.
And so it went, a bonanza of promises to continue the work.
Back to that Question of Blown Minds
CREDIT: Think of Us, Commissioner Lopez during the Hackathon
It was Friday, just before the long Memorial Day weekend, yet Commissioner López was hustling to another meeting just after the hackathon ended. I tagged along.
I asked him how he thought it all went.
“Totally energized,” he replied. “I think that the vibe in the room both yesterday and all night was extraordinary.”
Then, as we moved briskly through the black-and-white-tiled corridors of the massive Eisenhower Building, I came back to a question that I think is at the heart of child welfare’s future. I asked him to react to Commissioner Carrión’s “scared as hell,” comment.
“I think that to ignore a world that now includes conversations around data analytics and predictive analytics and big data is to ignore progress in the world, but we need to be really careful and thoughtful about that. So that is ultimately what should drive this work because we are dealing with human beings. You know, no tool, no technological tool, no system, can replace the human head, heart and mind.”
“And I think what we often do in this space is bifurcate it from ‘do you want big data and predictive analytics or not?’ And I think that that is a false choice. We have to be much more thoughtful in this space about being creative and innovative and having hard conversations about things like privacy and data sharing et cetera. But it is all possible if we are willing to engage in the conversation.”
And with that, we passed through a door, and I found myself under the hot sun looking straight over to the White House. Commissioner López said goodbye and walked off.
I stood there for a second, and whom should I see behind me?
