Women’s History Month: Honoring the Women Who Changed Foster Care
While the foster care systems still face real challenges today, significant strides have been made. That progress didn’t happen by chance. It happened because people dared to believe it could be better and committed themselves to making it so. This Women’s History Month, My Bag My Story honors two women whose courage and advocacy helped transform the system and change the lives of children in care.
Dorothy Roberts (pictured left)
A legal scholar and public policy researcher who has dedicated her career to exposing the racial inequities embedded within health and social service systems in the United States. As an activist for foster care reform, Roberts would shed light on systemic inequities and call on the government to transform the system.
Her 2001 book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare details the outsized role that race and class play in determining who is subject to state intervention. Through interviews with mothers who had interacted with child protective services, Roberts shows that institutions regularly punish the effects of poverty as neglect.
Her most recent book, Torn Apart, traces the historical, cultural, and political forces driving the racial and class imbalance in child welfare interventions and calls for a new approach focused on supporting families rather than punishing them.
Marian Wright Edelman (pictured right)
Best known for founding the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) in 1973, an organization that is dedicated to improving the welfare of children in the United States, particularly children of color, children with disabilities, and those living in poverty.
As the leader and principal spokesperson for the CDF, Edelman worked to persuade Congress to overhaul foster care, support adoption, improve childcare, and protect children who are disabled, homeless, abused, or neglected. Among her many advocacy wins, the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 improved the lives of foster youth by providing them with vital resources and support as they transitioned into adulthood.
Edelman is quoted, “If you don't like the way the world is, you have an obligation to change it. Just do it one step at a time.”
What This Means for My Bag My Story
Both women remind us that the children who move through the foster care system deserve dignity, stability, and love. At My Bag My Story, we believe that something as simple as a proper bag instead of a trash bag is one small act of kindness in a much bigger story.
We are grateful for the women who dared to write that story differently. And we are committed to doing our part to carry it forward one bag at a time.
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