Profiles Showcase Latest Class of Children and Family Fellows

A new series of pro­files reveals how the lat­est mem­bers of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Fel­low­ship^® came to their ben­e­fi­cial work and shares their hopes for improv­ing poli­cies and pro­grams affect­ing com­mu­ni­ties of color.

The nine men and six women hail from 11 states. These 15 select­ed for the inten­sive, 21-month exec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gram are shaped by a vari­ety of per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al experiences.

Edu­ca­tion experts Ange­lo Gon­za­les, Sha­ron­i­ca Hardin-Bart­ley and Sher­man Whites are all dri­ven by the oppor­tu­ni­ties they were giv­en to lead and learn as young peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ties where oppor­tu­ni­ty was uneven­ly distributed.

Malik Ben­jamin and Ali Knight share the roots of grow­ing up Black in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s — the begin­nings of an era of cost­ly crim­i­nal­iza­tion of Black boys that saw an end to oppor­tu­ni­ty for many. 

Across expe­ri­ences, the Fel­lows share a com­mon recog­ni­tion that child wel­fare and juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems have often done more harm than good and that K–12 edu­ca­tion is nec­es­sary but insuf­fi­cient to pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ties young peo­ple and their fam­i­lies need.

They also share a belief in a poten­tial solu­tion: ampli­fy­ing the voic­es of peo­ple of col­or and equip­ping them with the tools to share their sto­ries to shape policy.

Knight, the CEO of Fresh Life­lines for Youth in the Bay Area, is posi­tion­ing youth who have first-hand expe­ri­ence with juve­nile pro­ba­tion or oth­er court-ordered con­di­tions. He helps them become advi­sors to the jus­tice sys­tem and to fam­i­lies whose chil­dren are new­ly enter­ing the system.

Kas­si Lon­go­ria, vice pres­i­dent of MAYA Con­sult­ing, is posi­tion­ing fam­i­lies of young chil­dren as experts by engag­ing them as paid con­sul­tants to local programs.

In addi­tion to pri­or­i­tiz­ing the voic­es of chil­dren and fam­i­lies, Fel­lows are shift­ing major child- and youth-serv­ing sys­tems from reac­tion to pre­ven­tion and from one-size-fits-all ser­vices to grass­roots care.

“I want to see a shift of fund­ing to grass­roots, com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed agen­cies so they are able to build an infra­struc­ture to use the fund­ing local­ly to make changes in their com­mu­ni­ties,” said Jodi Hill-Lil­ly, deputy com­mis­sion­er of the Con­necti­cut Depart­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies. ​“If our work begins fur­ther upstream, we can pre­vent chil­dren and fam­i­lies from com­ing to the atten­tion of the depart­ment in the first place,” she said.

Beyond set­ting and advanc­ing indi­vid­ual objec­tives, the fel­lows’ work con­tributes to a shared result: ensur­ing that all youth ages 14–24 have the nec­es­sary and equi­table school, work and fam­i­ly con­nec­tions to achieve suc­cess. This work will involve learn­ing about and apply­ing the com­pe­ten­cies of Results Count^® — Casey’s sig­na­ture approach to lead­er­ship devel­op­ment — to lever­age data and dri­ve deci­sion-mak­ing around con­crete goals.

“It’s become more and more clear in my career that this isn’t a solo game,” said Lon­go­ria. ​“You have to cre­ate teams and work in the com­mu­ni­ty to shift pow­er. Through the Fel­low­ship, I’m look­ing for­ward to hon­ing my strate­gies and lead­ing through my identity.

Read the Profiles