Key Issues and Theory of Change

  • Our team invests time internally and with Fosters to identify key root causes and areas of need in the Minnesota child welfare landscape:

  • Disparities in family separation

    Not only does Minnesota have some of the worst racial disparities in the county, but our systems are still embedded in a culture that defaults to family separation versus truly investing in family preservation. 

  • Public misunderstanding of foster care:

    There is a great need to challenge misinformation and to break open the ‘single story’ myth of foster care. Fosters need regular spaces to share their truth, and the larger Minnesota community needs to regularly listen to Foster voices.

  • Challenge with accountability

    Minnesota is one of nine states with a state-funded, county-administered child welfare system. This agency setup makes it possible for both the Department of Human Services (DHS) and counties to deny responsibility for the failures of the system. There is an urgent need for outside oversight as well as cultivating state champions for foster-related issues.

  • Threshold cliffs and carceral state

    Current practices don’t provide onramps for Fosters to transition out of foster care to sustainable self-sufficiency, and often perpetuate a foster-care-to-prison pipeline. A true investment in Fosters would cost less than current de facto pathways into carceral or shelter systems.

  • Systemic isolation and lack of agency

    Fosters deserve opportunities to be experts and not just subjects when it comes to leadership, sharing personal narratives, reclaiming the Foster identity, building peer networks, and developing their leadership and advocacy skills.

So, how do we address these deep and problematic roots? To achieve a shift in imagination and narrative, we must listen to Fosters.

At Foster Advocates, we know there are leaders with lived experience ready to step up—and we work every day to honor their voices, power, and purpose. We’ve shown the impact of one small organization noticing tipping points and asking critical questions related to Fosters. Our movement building and infrastructure wins over the past three years illuminates the great potential for change in the child welfare system.

We are committed to the long-term work of advocacy and movement building, and we’ve also shown that immediate changes—with big impacts on the experiences of and opportunities for Minnesota Fosters—are very possible.

Focusing on Fosters, serving those at the most challenging center of system impacts, can have cascading benefits that lift up others in the community. If solutions do right by Fosters—they can do right by other vulnerable populations.