Jovonna Frieson
Parent Advocate |
Child Welfare Organizing Project
Jovonna Frieson has been directly affected by the child welfare system and currently supports and advocates or families who are navigating through their own Family Court cases. Jovonna politically organizes for community-centered reform within the child welfare system through her work with East Harlem's 16-year old Child Welfare Organizing Project.
Presentations from Facing Race 2012
Shattered Families: Racial Justice and Prospects for Systemic Change
The child welfare system is tasked with protecting children from harm. Yet the system targets families of color in unfair ways. Hundreds of thousands of children in foster care are there because the child welfare system feeds off of the effects of poverty and of structural racism embedded in other systems like criminal justice and immigration and inequity embedded in tribal relationships to U.S. institutions. This panel will explore child welfare practices in communities of color, solutions for more equitable policy and strategies for protecting families.
Speakers: Jovonna Frieson, Yvonne Gilchrist, Seth Wessler