7 Jun, 2012

What Makes Your Family a Strong Family?

By |2021-08-19T17:48:43-04:00June 7th, 2012|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: , |0 Comments

This week, I’ve been in Oakland, California. This is my second trip out to California in less than 3 months, and I love having any excuse to make it over to the West Coast (or the Left Coast, as some of my friends like to call it.)

Along with having a mini-vacation, I traveled to Oakland to participate in the 2012 Strong Families Summit, hosted by Forward TogetherStrong Families is a 10-year national initiative to change how people feel and think about families, and how lawmakers can develop more policy that is reflective of the fact that many families do not fit the stereotypical image of the nuclear family. Attending the Summit gave me an even better understanding of what Strong Families represents.

The Summit brought in over 130 individuals (representing themselves, their families, communities, and organizations) to collaborate, engage, and build more around the core principles of Strong Families: building alignment and synergy based on the work organizations and communities are already doing and leveraging the unique strengths of this work, cultivating valued-based relationships that build foundation and capacity building, and expanding opportunities and resources to move beyond their community and organizational needs in order to work collaboratively.

There was so much rich information, tools, and conversations I received at the Strong Families Summit. Here are some of the highlights:

Policy Priorities and Analysis

Strong Families is expanding the definition of “family” by generating a cultural shift towards broad public support for policies on the local, state, and national level that support more families that have the least amount of resources and are the most under attack, including low-income families, immigrant families, LGBTQI families, single parent families, young parents, and families of color. There were several strategy sessions, including “Building Momentum for Strong Families Policies”. We were given two awesome tools: Policy Priorities and Policy Analysis. We were able to choose which area we wanted to focused on–LGBTQI, reproductive justice, Indigenous, immigrant rights, environmental justice, criminalization of families, safety nets/budgets, youth–and discuss what we feel should be priorities for policy makers.

Policy Priorities

The following questions gave us the opportunity to generate conversation:

1) The policy, administrative rule or budget line item we are trying to pass or stop is:_________________________________

2) The decision-maker(s) for this policy, administrative rule or budget line item is/are:_____________________________

I intentionally came to the Summit to focus more on youth, so here’s an example:

The policy, administrative rule or budget line item we are trying to pass or stop is: We are trying to pass federal and state comprehensive sex education for young people.

The decision-maker(s) for this policy, administrative rule or budget line item is/are: United States Congress. Congress continues to allocate million in federal funds for abstinence-only-until marriage programs.  (more…)

31 Oct, 2011

Guest Post: B is for Baby…C is for Crazy

By |2021-08-19T17:32:02-04:00October 31st, 2011|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: , |0 Comments

 

This week, I am bringing to you a wonderful piece by my friend and awesome mommy, Candace Salim, founder and expert connector for MNGR Consulting . I’m really excited that Candace expressed interest in sharing her voice and birthing experience. Be sure to follow Candace on Twitter . 

It’s the beginning of the end…of that long, seemingly 2-year pregnancy you’ve been dealing with. The Braxton-Hicks contractions, the rolly-polly move you have to do to get out of bed to pee again, and most importantly the mood swings! Yes, the way our moods swing, jump, and pounce during pregnancy can really change our perceptions of life and the ways that people perceive us. But, despite all of the hormone-driven feelings that we endure, we are still ourselves. Before being a Mommy-to-be, we were career-driven and successful. We were intelligent and assured…people actually listened to us! However, towards the end of our third trimester, most people see us as bumbling idiots who are obviously dealing with some imaginary mental condition called pregnancy. And, in that, many people take that to mean that we are incompetent and enraged (especially after a 24-hour labor process) so they have to make our decisions for us towards the end. But wait *record scratch* when did our partners, our Mothers, and the hospital staff become experts on OUR bodies? Despite the fact that during my 36-hour labor, I was practically blowing great balls of fire while in the birthing center, I was desperately trying to let those around me know that I was actually still coherent enough to make my own decisions. But, in a show of “expertise”, the nurses took my well drawn out birthing plan that I’d neatly written in my school teacher hand writing on a large note pad and threw it out of the room. Apparently, they didn’t need any help or advice from me. In our day and age, if you’ve yanked one baby out of a womb, you’ve yanked ‘em all and the Mother should just sit there and enjoy her happy drug aka “The Epidural” aka “The Big Needle Thingy In Your Back”.

So, what’s a first-time Mother to do when one of the most intensely beautiful days of her life is suddenly swarmed with bright lights, drone machine sounds, and IVs?

(more…)

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