Kentucky Youth Use the Arts to Spotlight Child Welfare Inequities

In Ken­tucky, young peo­ple who have spent time in fos­ter care are using art, spo­ken word and music to high­light racial inequities in the state’s child wel­fare sys­tem. The pro­gram, called Truth Telling Cir­cles, advo­cates for sys­temic changes to improve the expe­ri­ences of Black youth, who rep­re­sent 8.6% of the state’s pop­u­la­tion yet make up 10% of chil­dren in the state’s fos­ter care sys­tem. On aver­age, 15% of Black chil­dren age out of care and spend a longer time in care than white children.

Through TTC, youth who’ve been in fos­ter care share their expe­ri­ences with those who can influ­ence change — child wel­fare lead­ers, case­work­ers and direct care staff. Each cir­cle includes a Q&A ses­sion where par­tic­i­pants can engage direct­ly with the young peo­ple on the issues they’ve faced. This helps Black, Lati­no and Native fam­i­lies avoid unnec­es­sary sys­tem involve­ment, lead­ing to improved well-being and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment as well as increased oppor­tu­ni­ties for youth.

TTC, part of the Thriv­ing Fam­i­lies, Safer Chil­dren ini­tia­tive, start­ed as a two-year pilot led by the Kempe Cen­ter, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Louisville and Ken­tucky Youth Advo­cates (KYA), which guid­ed imple­men­ta­tion of the project. With renewed fund­ing from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, TTC will con­tin­ue into 2025.

“Shar­ing my tes­ti­mo­ny through art elicit­ed a response I had nev­er expe­ri­enced [while] pre­sent­ing,” said Tia Humphrey, a young adult co-lead­ing truth telling work with KYA. ​“I could feel a stronger con­nec­tion, under­stand­ing and pur­pose, not just with myself, but with all the art cre­at­ed through the project.”

From Lis­ten­ing to Action

Inspired by Togeth­er in Truth, an orga­ni­za­tion advo­cat­ing for young peo­ple and par­ents who’ve been sep­a­rat­ed, the first year of the pilot saw the KYA plan­ning team work­ing with young peo­ple to devel­op a hand­book to guide imple­men­ta­tion. A top pri­or­i­ty that emerged from ear­ly dis­cus­sions was the need for pre­ven­tion-focused efforts, par­tic­u­lar­ly those involv­ing finan­cial resources and case man­age­ment for birth par­ents to pre­vent child removal and place­ment in fos­ter care. Acknowl­edg­ing the harm sep­a­ra­tion does to young peo­ple and par­ents, the team worked to cre­ate a frame­work for mean­ing­ful, effec­tive sto­ry­telling that encour­ages sys­tem lead­ers to improve child welfare.

“The Truth Telling Cir­cle allowed a deep­er insight into the sto­ries of youth and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the impact of sys­tems on their lives,” said Lor­raine Wilbur, a Chafee pro­gram admin­is­tra­tor for Kentucky’s Depart­ment for Com­mu­ni­ty Based Ser­vices who attend­ed. ​“The cir­cles real­ly made it clear how changes in child wel­fare must start with our com­mu­ni­ty and society.”

Prepar­ing young peo­ple to share their sto­ries in such a pow­er­ful way required exten­sive plan­ning and sup­port, including:

• requir­ing train­ing on decid­ing what they were com­fort­able shar­ing, how to adapt their sto­ries in real-time and an under­stand­ing of the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of circles;
• cre­at­ing team bond­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, so that they feel com­fort­able shar­ing their expe­ri­ences in front of others;
• build­ing an agen­da to ensure clear roles and expec­ta­tions are estab­lished;
• host­ing debriefs where they can reflect on their expe­ri­ence shar­ing; and
• fund­ing group out­ings or indi­vid­ual self-care activ­i­ties for them to decom­press after each cir­cle session.

“This project proved to me that incor­po­rat­ing lived exper­tise at the front of the table is not only empow­er­ing for the experts but is a con­tin­u­ous reminder of the part­ner­ship that is essen­tial to make the nec­es­sary changes we want with­in the sys­tem,” said Humphrey. ​“Because of this expe­ri­ence, I have been fea­tured in arti­cles and inter­na­tion­al jour­nals and facil­i­tat­ed train­ings to help orga­ni­za­tions work with oth­er lived experts.”

What’s Next for Truth Telling Circles?

Through the next year, KYA plans to host addi­tion­al cir­cles and train more young adults as cir­cle lead­ers, with pre­vi­ous par­tic­i­pants serv­ing as peer men­tors to new cohorts. Addi­tion­al­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion aims to engage a broad­er range of stake­hold­ers, includ­ing judges, as cir­cle atten­dees and con­duct deep­er research on how dis­par­i­ties in Kentucky’s child wel­fare sys­tem affect Black families.

“We hope the Truth Telling Cir­cles project can serve as a mod­el for includ­ing the per­spec­tives of young peo­ple and oth­ers who have expe­ri­enced sys­tems,” said Feli­cia Kel­lum, a senior asso­ciate with the Casey Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group. ​“Ensur­ing their voic­es are not just heard but are instru­men­tal in address­ing issues of race equi­ty and inclu­sion and pre­vent­ing fam­i­lies from enter­ing the sys­tem in the first place are core guid­ing prin­ci­ples of the Thriv­ing Fam­i­lies, Safer Chil­dren [ini­tia­tive].”

Read a Q&A on build­ing trust and col­lab­o­ra­tion for equi­table deci­sion making

Lis­ten to a Com­mu­ni­ty In-Site episode fea­tur­ing Ken­tucky Youth Advocates