Every Child Arkansas - SmartJustice S3E6

Interested in becoming a foster parent? Find info here Every Child Arkansas
Read the SmartJustice Season 3 magazine

Welcome to season 3 of SmartJustice we're calling 'A Chance At Life'. This season we focus on the well-being and future of children, youth and families in the child welfare system.

In this final episode we talk with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and DHS Secretary Kristi Putnam about Executive Order to Protect Children, Support Families, and Improve Foster Care. And Jerome Strickland and Phil Goad about the new Every Child Arkansas website and network of partners.

As you read, we encourage you to consider your
role in this narrative. Whether through fostering,
adopting, mentoring, or supporting, your contribution
can make Arkansas a beacon of opportunity
and promise for every child.
Together, we can shape destinies and improve
futures, weaving a tapestry of acts that make
Arkansas the best place to raise a family.

Restore Hope https://www.restorehopear.org

A Chance At Life was written and recorded by artist/producer Jason Truby and licensed for use through Wixen Music Publishing, Inc. Watch the music video that includes the artist and community members passionate about making Arkansas a great place to raise a family. 

Transcript

00;00;04;21 - 00;00;30;26
Governor Sanders
One thing that has definitely never been missing from the organizations that are part of this working group is the passion that they have for the kids in the state of Arkansas. What I think they were missing is the partnership between all of those different groups. Taking each of the strengths and advantages that these different groups have, putting them at one table is going to really help serve the kids in Arkansas in a way that we've never seen before.

00;00;30;28 - 00;00;36;06
Narrator
This is season three of the Smart Justice podcast, A Chance at Life.

00;00;36;08 - 00;00;42;23
Paul Chapman
Crime and Punishment are hot topics. Are there solutions different than what we're hearing about at a national level?

00;00;42;23 - 00;00;47;16
Judge Byrd-Manning
Kids find themselves just struggling to survive, doing the best they can.

00;00;47;18 - 00;00;53;08
Paul Chapman
There is a different way to approach justice that has a better return on investment.

00;00;53;11 - 00;00;59;03
Misha Martin
We don't want people to be dependent. We want to help them get to stability.

00;00;59;05 - 00;01;05;01
Paul Chapman
That seems to strengthen both law enforcement and courts.

00;01;05;03 - 00;01;08;05
Jerome Strickland
The number one goal in most cases, we want reunification.

00;01;08;06 - 00;01;16;05
Paul Chapman
And tie that together with community resources and then track the impact to communities and better outcomes.

00;01;16;07 - 00;01;20;09
Kristi Putnam
The best place for a child who's in our foster care system is with a family.

00;01;20;16 - 00;01;24;07
Paul Chapman
And we're calling this approach Smart Justice.

00;01;24;10 - 00;01;35;06
Narrator
Smart justice is a work of Restore Hope and partner organizations. Restore Hope as a software and services organization that helps communities achieve better outcomes for justice and child welfare efforts.

00;01;35;09 - 00;01;42;25
Music
Two broken pieces made a brand new design, and this.

00;01;42;27 - 00;01;46;01
Music
A chance at life.

00;01;46;03 - 00;02;16;08
Paul Chapman
Hey, welcome to this final episode of season three of Smart Justice, where we're talking about the child welfare system and how do we give children and families a chance at life. And so, Andrew, we've been talking about and have interviewed many different stakeholders that are surrounding kind of this child welfare system that provide both support and then have legal responsibilities for families and children once a case is opened.

00;02;16;11 - 00;02;29;24
Paul Chapman
And so really in this episode we wanted to talk about, so what do you do with all of that? Given just the sheer scope and issues and the number of people involved, what do we do?

00;02;29;26 - 00;02;50;21
Andrew Baker
These people who are doing so much in so many different ways, you're right, I mean, we've had a number of different people who have come and been a part of this and grateful and thankful for them doing that. But I think moving forward, it's... There's got to be even more people at the table. There's finding even there's still holes.

00;02;50;21 - 00;03;18;09
Andrew Baker
And we know that's true. It can't come down to one person. It can't come down to one organization. It can't come down to one entity. No, it's bigger than that. We need for those who have had a history to come back to the table, we need for there to be new folks at the table as collectively as a community, we're working to see things to be different.

00;03;18;14 - 00;03;40;25
Andrew Baker
This isn't new, right? I mean, in a previous episode you talked about 2007. We go back to 1977, right? Then you go back to 1907 and we didn't all of a sudden find ourself here. And the reality is and we're not all of a sudden going to get out. It's not going to all be fixed and all the better tomorrow, but more of the community coming.

00;03;40;25 - 00;04;01;12
Andrew Baker
I think where we go is an even greater collaboration. Where we go is people figuring out they are a piece of that big puzzle that makes up the great state of Arkansas. And I think we're starting to see that. We're starting to see that with efforts like Every Child Arkansas. And it's important and it's not going to become less.

00;04;01;12 - 00;04;08;14
Andrew Baker
It's actually going to become more and there'll be more opportunities for people to participate and more opportunities for people to serve.

00;04;08;17 - 00;04;34;03
Paul Chapman
You know, it was probably about two years ago that I first met Phil Goad, who we've interviewed before. Phil was was seeing the need to be able to connect the organizations that we're currently a part of, you know, recruiting and supporting foster families and then any support that was going on for biological families and he started sharing this kind of vision with me and others.

00;04;34;05 - 00;05;03;14
Paul Chapman
And it was really through his vision and effort that many of these organizations, now, almost 30 organizations, have been coming together to try to figure out what would a deeper partnership look like, How could each one of these organizations do more in their own community. Just as Every Child Arkansas was ready to launch after a year and a half worth of meetings from many of these organizations,

00;05;03;15 - 00;05;48;18
Paul Chapman
Governor Sanders was elected and she took office, and in February of 2023, she issued an executive order that included DHS, that ordered DHS, Department of Public Safety, Department of Ed and this group, Every Child to Arkansas that has about 30 different organizational members in it to come together to create a new plan for Arkansas, for addressing preserving families, reuniting families and taking care of whatever permanency decision was made by the court after that so that the best could be made after hard situations and to execute that executive order.

00;05;48;21 - 00;06;01;28
Paul Chapman
She also brought in Secretary of DHS, Kristi Putnam. We had the opportunity to sit down with Secretary Putnam to talk with her about exactly what plan is going to come out of that.

00;06;02;00 - 00;06;09;06
Paul Chapman
Governor Sanders issued an executive order around foster care. Can you talk to us a little bit about what was in that order?

00;06;09;09 - 00;06;37;02
Kristi Putnam
There are three main purposes to it. One is to streamline the process for placement of children with relatives, to improve and streamline the process for children to be adopted from our foster care system. And the last one is to enhance services for children who are in foster care. But they're going to turn 18 and what's called age out of foster care to really create a better service array for those kids who are going to be on their own and were part of the foster care system.

00;06;37;05 - 00;06;56;21
Kristi Putnam
I think we're fortunate in that there's already been a lot of great partners doing a lot of very hard, very creative and innovative work in the space of foster care. I think one of the things that's hardest for us to wrap our brain around is we've got this number that's usually between 4100 and 4200 kids in out-of-home care.

00;06;56;24 - 00;07;16;19
Kristi Putnam
That's a big number when you think about it from a statewide perspective. What I really want to see us do is break that down, county by county. Get into the communities and have communities understand that they are the solution for helping families become stronger. For helping families reunify with those children. For supporting the caseworkers who are part of the foster care system.

00;07;16;24 - 00;07;29;20
Kristi Putnam
And really, when you break it down to a county number and it's 42 kids, it's much more manageable and people feel like there's something they can actually do about improving the services to our families and really making families stronger.

00;07;29;22 - 00;07;41;26
Paul Chapman
If you're one of the people in the communities that are... They come across this podcast and are wondering what they could do in their own community, what would that look like for them? What would you suggest?

00;07;41;29 - 00;08;03;15
Kristi Putnam
Anything, anything small, anything larger. The first thing I would say is sign up to be a foster family. We do need more foster families. The best place for a child who is in our foster care system is with a family and so you can sign up to be a foster family. It's not for everyone. So if you don't feel like you are led to foster, then you can support a foster family or encourage.

00;08;03;17 - 00;08;24;26
Kristi Putnam
You might have a next door neighbor who's been thinking about it. You can encourage them to connect. Reach out to the Every Child Arkansas website. Everyone who goes on that website and inquires can be connected to a live person who can tell them all about the process of becoming foster families. The other thing is you can support your family services workers, the caseworkers who are part of the Department of Human Services.

00;08;24;28 - 00;08;47;10
Kristi Putnam
They have a hard job to do and they deal with the most difficult of circumstances. And they go back in every day and they're constantly working with families who, you know, sometimes there are no good options for some of the children. And so take them cookies, write them a note, support, encourage them, pray for them. These are all ways that we can help with our frontline staff.

00;08;47;13 - 00;08;53;06
Paul Chapman
What about the biological families? I've heard you before say that prevention is real important.

00;08;53;09 - 00;09;27;21
Kristi Putnam
I would really like to see us focus on prevention in all circumstances. A lot of times intense, intensive in-home supports are what's needed. And so really identifying those families who may be at risk for their children leaving their home. Working with them soon, or providing substance use counseling, substance recovery counseling, providing... Sometimes it's as simple as some additional resources that are needed, whether those are monetary resources or social resources, connections to supports in the community. So that prevention can look a lot of different ways.

00;09;27;24 - 00;09;54;25
Kristi Putnam
The biggest thing that we can do, in my opinion, is really connect all of our resources across not just DHS, but across all of our agencies and across all of our community partners. Our children and families don't come to us in pieces, but we budget and plan for them as if they do. And that's my biggest thing, is to just really be interconnected as much as we possibly can so that we are one team serving these families and children.

00;09;54;28 - 00;10;01;22
Paul Chapman
Have you had any ideas around how to connect agencies kind of in that operational way?

00;10;01;24 - 00;10;30;10
Kristi Putnam
So we have and we were actively working on some of them. The the executive order on improving foster care pulls in the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Education as well. We have a great partnership with the Department of Education. And I think that that's, you know, since most kids are in school or they're going to be in school at some point, it's a natural place for us to really make sure that parents know of the resources that are available to them in their communities.

00;10;30;12 - 00;11;01;15
Kristi Putnam
And we'd like to partner more strongly in a in a more vigorous way with the individual school districts and schools themselves on how do we provide not just information, but how do we actively connect and get into the schools and have our folks there to be that that warm connection. The governor has encouraged all of the cabinets to think holistically about the services we provide and the answer of just because we've done it that way, you know, that's that's how we've always done it doesn't doesn't fly anymore.

00;11;01;15 - 00;11;27;20
Kristi Putnam
So we're figuring out new and creative ways that public safety and DHS can work together to perhaps make the the investigation and removal process if it has to happen a more kind and gentle process for the family to really make sure that they understand that we're there to support them and that this is not intended to be punitive, although it's going to feel that way when children do have to leave their homes.

00;11;27;22 - 00;11;34;01
Paul Chapman
So if I wanted to get involved in trying to help families in my community, what's that look like?

00;11;34;04 - 00;11;57;04
Kristi Putnam
Well, we're excited about Every Child Arkansas, one of the biggest reasons there are a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is we've never had one place, one website that anyone can go to and submit an inquiry, just a question even, and get information, get connected to information on fostering or how to help support foster families, how to help support families, birth families and caseworkers.

00;11;57;10 - 00;12;11;03
Kristi Putnam
And now we've got this one place people can go to it. People can go to their Facebook page, the Instagram, like and share. And, you know, there are all kinds of ways to connect people, but it's through that one stop shop the Every Child Arkansas.org website.

00;12;11;05 - 00;12;34;02
Paul Chapman
The way forward in Arkansas is through collaborative efforts of both agencies and community based organizations. And as we talked earlier and we've heard from Dr. Phil Goad, who was really the catalytic figure who started this Every Child Arkansas effort.

00;12;34;05 - 00;12;51;16
Paul Chapman
I can remember Phil, the first time that we met was on on telephone, I believe. And you were talking about the this collective impact action that needed to happen amongst all the different child welfare agencies out there.

00;12;51;16 - 00;13;00;24
Paul Chapman
And now it's become something called Every... a network called Every Child Arkansas. But what led you to start thinking that that we needed to do this collaborative effort?

00;13;00;26 - 00;13;28;08
Phil Goad
I've had the opportunity, the blessing of being on the board for the Christian Alliance for Orphans, and it's an organization actually that was formed here in Arkansas over 15 years ago. Dennis Rainey with Family Life called together about three dozen leaders from around the country and said, we need to leave our logos and our egos at the door and start working on behalf of children and families.

00;13;28;11 - 00;13;57;13
Phil Goad
During that season of time, one of the leaders in CAFO, Jason Weber, started a movement called More Than Enough, and their vision was more than enough for children and families before, during and beyond foster care in every county in the United States. I realized that we could do that here. We began to see that there's a number of organizations who could catch that vision and would come together and say, Yeah, let's work together.

00;13;57;14 - 00;14;04;21
Phil Goad
We're better together if we would come together. So that launched this network. Every Child Arkansas.

00;14;04;23 - 00;14;07;09
Paul Chapman
What are the goals of of Every Child Arkansas?

00;14;07;12 - 00;14;23;15
Phil Goad
We have a shortage of foster families in this state. We also have a challenge in our state, and that is the foster families drop out at a pretty high rate. We have almost 60% of families close every year in the state of Arkansas.

00;14;23;19 - 00;14;49;12
Phil Goad
So just to stay even, we have to recruit and train and license over 900 families every year just to stay even. That's not even including getting the more that we need to do what we're trying to accomplish. And we also have a challenge with that. In this state, there's a pretty high percentage of children who don't get to go back with their mom and dad when they're removed.

00;14;49;17 - 00;14;59;23
Phil Goad
Only a little over 40% of children that are removed get to go back with their actual biological mom and dad. So those are some of the things we're targeting here initially.

00;14;59;25 - 00;15;03;29
Paul Chapman
How is Every Child Arkansas, going to address those issues?

00;15;04;06 - 00;15;19;20
Phil Goad
We're doing a collective impact movement, and that's a way that communities around the country for a number of years have come together, decided to work together to make a change in the system and in their community for a wide variety of causes.

00;15;19;20 - 00;15;48;10
Phil Goad
And we're using that same process, which starts with a shared vision. So we have a county by county approach where we have a team of people that is taking each county, trying to understand who's already working there, and then we're in the process of convening them and saying, how can we work together? What are the things that we're doing to find families, to train them, to support them?

00;15;48;13 - 00;16;32;14
Phil Goad
And I think one key part of our strategy is going to be engaging churches around the state, because this support for families, we refer to it as wraparound support, is something that will help them know that they're not alone when they take children into their homes, that there's other people that are there to do some simple things, like bring them meals to to go through the process, which is pretty minimal of of a driver's record test, the background check so that you could go pick up children and bring them home from school, that you could keep them over a weekend and give a break for the families and we find that when that happens, when

00;16;32;14 - 00;16;53;14
Phil Goad
there's wraparound support from within the faith communities, the percent of families that feel that they can stay in it longer, that increases. And then what you have is you have more experienced foster families who are able to to do a better job in taking care of the kids that come into their home and they're stronger and more equipped to do that.

00;16;53;17 - 00;16;57;19
Paul Chapman
What can we expect from this collaborative approach now?

00;16;57;21 - 00;17;25;05
Phil Goad
Well, what I'm hoping for, what we're hoping for is that really, for the first time, we're going to have an organizations from around the state who have come together, agreed to a plan and all of them agreeing that they're going to do their part in the plan. And what what we hope to see, what we expect to see is to move to an increased number of foster families and correct some of the imbalances that we have in the state.

00;17;25;07 - 00;17;52;22
Paul Chapman
So, Andrew, one of the one of the interesting and I think a real strategic partnership that occurred in this Every Child Arkansas early discussion was how is it that we could really collaborate with DCFS on recruiting more foster families? And even this idea of using technology to find ideal placements in each community. So there are layers to all of that.

00;17;52;22 - 00;18;25;04
Paul Chapman
But but we were able to partner with an organization that had developed some recruitment technology, basically just using this very sophisticated kind of marketing software for us to be able to go through and push ads and content to folks who could be foster parents for the children that are in their community. So we had opportunity to sit down with Jerome Strickland, who's the director for the Contingent Arkansas, who runs that technology.

00;18;25;06 - 00;18;52;18
Jerome Strickland
The contingent model is an approach that was tested in Oregon and over five years they were successful to the extent where over 8000 families and 32,000 volunteers raised their hand and said, Hey, I want to join this effort and help serve and cater to and show hospitality to these children and their families. The state hadn't seen that before until they outsourced it to this group.

00;18;52;20 - 00;19;21;24
Jerome Strickland
Those aspects of the strategy were welcomed into our amazing state, and now we're deploying it in a new way. So what are those strategies? The strategies are the components in the internet, such as websites, social media, etc. the same sort of influence marketing, the same sort of effort is that really influenced us to buy more goods from an Amazon or Walmart.com.

00;19;21;27 - 00;19;52;11
Jerome Strickland
We take those pieces and the algorithms to find people that look like great advocates for this type of work. Help them understand as far as grow awareness, help influence them to think deep and long about what would my life look like if I were to just raise my hand and do something small and would lead them on a journey to say, well, at some point you may be at the point where you raise your hand and say, I want to apply to welcome a child into my home.

00;19;52;13 - 00;20;18;02
Jerome Strickland
We first look at of the overall audience and how do people consume information here? And once you understand that, you step on each of these platforms and target audiences and Facebook, on YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, what have you, and you you follow them to the point where they are eventually led to a website Every Child Arkansas.org.

00;20;18;04 - 00;20;41;19
Jerome Strickland
Right? And it helps guide the individual via their zip code to say within your area. Here are options in which you can volunteer or by which you can actually apply to become a foster family. And if that isn't enough and someone doesn't want to make a decision and based on a website, there are numbers and opportunities for our team.

00;20;41;26 - 00;21;08;08
Jerome Strickland
We have a customer experience team that is very highly trained in empathy and how to walk someone through the journey of considering how might I be involved in child welfare. The people that are on their website are current foster parents and they have a deep understanding of the system to say, You don't have to fear this journey. We're here to walk you through.

00;21;08;08 - 00;21;24;11
Jerome Strickland
I'm an individual here in this state that has done it before. You know, I can tell you the impact it has on the child, but even more so the impact it has on you and your family for the good. So how do we know who might be a great family just in looking at over 3 million people within our state?

00;21;24;13 - 00;21;53;19
Jerome Strickland
Well, we have a few hunches, and those hunches are gained by using the same algorithms. Any other tool again, online does work. How Netflix recommends the next video or movie we like to watch. In studying the individuals that have achieved permanency for a child within two years, we... And permanency means they actually adopted their child or they helped them reunify with their home, which is the number one goal in most cases.

00;21;53;19 - 00;22;20;13
Jerome Strickland
We want reunification. If they're able to achieve either of those, we look at what are the nuances or things about you that we can see from afar? And let's build profiles of similar families. Let's find those families that look like you across the state and speak to them, speak to them digitally, speak to them over the phones, with them via mail, at events, at the county fair, at at their place of worship, if that makes sense.

00;22;20;15 - 00;22;44;06
Jerome Strickland
We engage. And what we found is there is a pattern that we can pick up on great individuals all across our state and make them aware of the great need in front of us. Ideal placement is the idea that you reduce the amount of trauma that happens with a child when they're removed from their home temporarily by keeping them close to familiar entities around them.

00;22;44;09 - 00;23;08;23
Jerome Strickland
So the first ideal placement is to find a family member or a family member that's capable, willing and able to take the child in and care for him or her during a period of time. The second most ideal placement is a fictive kin. And just for those who don't understand what that term means, it could be someone in the community, their church, their school or someplace else.

00;23;08;23 - 00;23;38;08
Jerome Strickland
Even a best friend's parent that knows that child and can show that connection with that child. They can be a fictive kin, and also take the child in. The third best case scenario or ideal placement is staying within that child's county. Why? Because if you imagine if something were to happen in your or my family overnight, of course I am removed and I need to be cared for for a period of time, then I wouldn't also want to lose, for me,

00;23;38;08 - 00;24;06;27
Jerome Strickland
I went to church here. I had my school and my friends. My neighborhood had some great people, parents and families and friends of mine. I wouldn't want to leave all those individuals at one time while I'm dealing with the trauma of being removed temporarily. So this idea to keep that individual close, I keep them with certified individuals until we could, may, one, either reunify or to place them in a permanent home

00;24;06;29 - 00;24;15;05
Jerome Strickland
that adoptions them.

00;24;15;07 - 00;24;29;19
Paul Chapman
So, Andrew, you've been involved in child welfare in many different ways for a long time. And so I'd just like to get your opinion on all that's happening now and the potential that we have to actually make things better.

00;24;29;21 - 00;24;52;09
Andrew Baker
Well, I mean, one, the more the conversation is in front of people, the better. The more people who are invited to the table, the better. The more people see that it's the community's responsibility, the more the church. I would say in the state of Arkansas, the church has a long history when it comes to being a part of child welfare in this state.

00;24;52;11 - 00;25;13;08
Andrew Baker
I'm excited because of the number of folks and one of the early meetings of Every Child Arkansas and I had come to that meeting and I went home and my wife was asking me, well, you know, hey, what do you think? And and my answer was, the conversation is good and it's moving in a right direction. But any move in the right direction is a move in the right direction.

00;25;13;08 - 00;25;39;01
Andrew Baker
There's been this awareness that is made. There's been a bigger story told, been more people invited to the table. But those who have been doing it will keep doing it. Don't go, don't give up, because that one matters. Little dude in my house tonight, he matters. Dude at your house, he matters. Right. But we're going to have to keep moving.

00;25;39;03 - 00;26;01;22
Andrew Baker
And there's a lot of attention and this episode has shown a lot of that attention and attention coming with an executive order and attention coming with Every Child Arkansas and that's awesome and I am excited. But I also think we need to be realizing, let's keep going. Let's go make mercy triumph over judgment. Let's keep seeing more families reunited.

00;26;01;25 - 00;26;26;06
Andrew Baker
Let's continue to partner with organizations like 100 Families who are truly changing outcomes in communities and give the support necessary for that to happen. My hope, my prayer is that when we're looking back ten years from now, we'll look back and say that became a moment of substantial, measurable change in the state of Arkansas. Will there still be work to be done?

00;26;26;06 - 00;26;51;03
Andrew Baker
I don't think there's going to be a day that I can just say, yeah, we don't need any of that anymore because we will, and that's part of it. But I have a real excitement in knowing there's more people in the conversation. We need to invite and even invited more to be. And it's not just to be in the conversation, but to be a participant for the greater good of mercy, to be known.

00;26;51;06 - 00;27;16;22
Paul Chapman
You know what excites me, Andrew, having been in this for a bit too, one, the governor issued this executive order and brought Secretary Kristi Putnam in to create a plan to support and strengthen families. Two is we've now got technology entering the state that we didn't have before. And technology allows things to become easier and also to scale.

00;27;16;24 - 00;27;21;29
Narrator
To hear more of the heart behind this executive order, Paul spoke with Governor Sanders.

00;27;22;02 - 00;27;33;03
Paul Chapman
Governor, thanks so much for sitting down with us to talk about families and children. And you've just... one of the first acts being governor was to issue an executive order. Why?

00;27;33;05 - 00;28;09;10
Governor Sanders
Doing a much better job of taking care of the kids across the state of Arkansas is vitally important. We have about 4100 kids that are in the foster care system here in the state of Arkansas, and we don't have nearly enough families to take care of them. So we created and started this, through the executive order, a working group that will help us recruit more families, train and prepare those families, keep more kids out of the foster care system in the first place, and really streamline the process so we can do a better job as a state,

00;28;09;16 - 00;28;12;00
Governor Sanders
taking care of kids in Arkansas.

00;28;12;03 - 00;28;25;24
Paul Chapman
Governor, you personally? Well, I know because my wife was at an event that you were volunteering at one time, the Project Zero event. So where does kind of your personal passion around this, where's that driven from?

00;28;25;26 - 00;28;52;06
Governor Sanders
You know, I don't think there's anything harder to see than a kid who doesn't have a safe place that doesn't have a family, that doesn't have someone that loves them and is advocating for them. As a parent, I can't imagine my kids being in an environment where they don't feel like they are loved and cared for. And that, unfortunately, is what happens all too often here in the state of Arkansas with these kids.

00;28;52;06 - 00;29;12;23
Governor Sanders
And so any opportunity we have to help these kids feel loved and taken care of, we want to do that. And I want my kids to see that. And so when we have volunteered, we try to take them with us as much as possible so that they can see the difference and hopefully be encouraged to help other people, too.

00;29;12;25 - 00;29;15;16
Paul Chapman
What would success look like to you?

00;29;15;16 - 00;29;30;12
Governor Sanders
I mean, I think success is those 4100 kids that are in the system, either never ending up there in the first place or having a family that takes them in, loves them, cares for them and advocates them for the long term.

00;29;30;14 - 00;29;38;29
Paul Chapman
So Arkansans that may want to do something but not know exactly what to do. What message would you have for them?

00;29;39;05 - 00;30;04;25
Governor Sanders
I think one of the biggest things is to be willing and step up and volunteer or participate, even if you're not somebody who can take a kid in as a foster parent, there are still a lot of things you can do and organizations you can volunteer your time or give financially to those organizations to really help out other families who are able to take those kids in.

00;30;04;27 - 00;30;22;06
Paul Chapman
And Governor, you named four organizations, three agencies, and then Every Child Arkansas. That was unusual, at least in my experience. Why did you put Every Child Arkansas in as one of the organizations to come up with the plan?

00;30;22;08 - 00;30;51;06
Governor Sanders
Well, I think you have to have somebody to really lead the effort. One of the things I think that has kept us from doing a better job is not coordinating with all of the different organizations out there. And so bringing everybody to the table, having that collaboration and coordination through Every Child Arkansas will make such a huge difference to have one organization kind of leading and bringing all the players to the table, I think is going to give us the type of success that we're looking for.

00;30;51;08 - 00;31;20;05
Governor Sanders
One thing that is definitely never been missing from the organizations that are part of this working group is the passion that they have for the kids in the state of Arkansas. What I think they were missing is the partnership between all of those different groups. So taking a passion that is so evident and matching that with a partnership of all of the different organizations that are kind of working in a similar space, I think gives us a lot more power to be successful.

00;31;20;11 - 00;31;41;04
Governor Sanders
Taking each of the strengths and advantages that these different groups have. Putting them at one table is going to really help serve the kids of Arkansas in a way that we've never seen before.

00;31;41;06 - 00;31;50;00
Paul Chapman
Andrew, thank you so much for joining me on this season. As we're talking about how do we give children and families a chance at life? Any parting shots?

00;31;50;02 - 00;32;04;13
Andrew Baker
Thank you and thanks for all that 100 Families is doing and Restore Hope is doing in the state of Arkansas. It's through efforts like that that I think we're going to see mercy triumph at the end of the day and at the end of the day we'll be grateful for that. So thanks again for just the opportunity.

00;32;04;14 - 00;32;33;01
Paul Chapman
I am very, very excited to be able to resource more so we can build these organizational capacities for the alignment that that executive order and the plan that's going to come out of it is going to come where these agencies are aligning plans and working with communities. And so in that alignment, I know that we're going to be able to help make our communities better.

00;32;33;03 - 00;33;04;02
Andrew Baker
Well, and I would say towards that end, and I think is really important, is that alignment will allow for children to succeed, for families to succeed, and for communities to succeed. Without the alignment, all it becomes is an obstacle. And so when an alignment can happen and a true partnership in belief of children and a true partnership and belief of the family and the true partnership and belief of the community, well, we've got a different state.

00;33;04;04 - 00;33;18;14
Andrew Baker
And what I will hope to be true is ten years from now, we have other states asking what's different about Arkansas, What happened there, what happened in Arkansas? And we can point back and say community happened in Arkansas because families were strengthened and kids were safe.

00;33;18;14 - 00;33;50;24
Paul Chapman
We aligned our agencies assets and actions. The courts and and then the folks that help biological families that are foster families, help foster families and serve children. And in that, I think we're going to see a significant change.

00;33;50;26 - 00;34;17;20
Narrator
Thank you for being a part of the Smart Justice Podcast - Season Three. Join us for Season Four in the spring of 2024 as we discuss issues of juvenile justice. Thanks to our guests Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Dr. Phil Goad, Jerome Strickland and Secretary Kristi Putnam. Season three podcast hosts were Paul Chapman and Dr. Andrew Baker. Our Season Three theme song, “A Chance at Life,” was written and produced by Arkansas artist Jason Truby.

00;34;17;23 - 00;34;35;17
Narrator
Other musical credits include “Lonely Company” by Anthony Catacoli and “Standing on the Edge” by Stephen Keach. Smart justice is a work of Restore Hope. To dig deeper into this season's topic, check out the Smart Justice Magazine at SmartJustice.org.

00;34;35;17 - 00;34;44;29
Music
Two broken pieces made a brand new design, and it gave this soul

00;34;45;01 - 00;34;46;15
Music
a chance at life.