Episode 21: Defending Justice Against Family Policing

Episode 21: Defending Justice Against Family Policing

Defending Justice Against Family Policing

EPISODE 21

tehra coles

Welcome good listeners to Audio Nuggets, right here in the Mining For Gold cypher. We are joined with Tehra Coles for Episode 21: Defending Justice Against Family Policing.  

Tehra Coles is the Executive Director of the Center for Family Representation, a public defender office in New York City that represents parents in family policing cases in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx. 

In this episode, we glimpse Tehra’s journey of discovery. With all the zeal at her command while advocating for families, she realizes that alone, she wouldn’t be able to bring justice to families. 

Using a legal and racial analysis, Tehra explains the necessity in using accurate language to describe what we are doing to families, why using the terminology “the family policing system” is justice doing, and how by using this language, families that are impacted by this vicious and violent institution can be affirmed by knowing that people are listening. 

Tehra shares the commitment of CFR to building a culture that is saturated with the leadership and voices of impacted families. The audience also hears why abolition is the only option, and how CFR and organizations like it are supporting the movement.

Sit back, embrace, and reflect. Tehra leaves us with a call to GET ON BOARD!

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Episode 20: Humanity is Amazing!

Episode 20: Humanity is Amazing!

Humanity is Amazing!

EPISODE 20

judge aurora martinez jones

Welcome good listeners to another edition of Audio Nuggets, right here in the Mining For Gold cypher!  Get ready…you are about to experience an explosion of nuggets from the Honorable Judge Aurora Martinez Jones in Episode 20: Humanity is Amazing!

Judge Aurora Martinez Jones presides over the historical 126th District Court in Travis County, Texas, where she co-founded the Child Welfare Race Equity Collaborative (CWREC). Currently, Judge Martinez Jones is leading a community effort in a local pilot to Re-Imagine the Child Welfare system. 

Through this episode, listeners experience Your Honor’s embodiment of full humanity, justice and liberation, as she shares with us the ways in which she has supported parents through the most daunting times of their lives with justice-centered representation as an attorney and now as the presiding District Judge.

The conversation showcases how her “empathy faucet” is purpose driven for our children and families, and how she has devoted herself, given of herself, and has received and answered the call to caring for entire communities.

Your Honor leaves the audience with the most heartwarming story that embodies her soul, the story of an experience that changed her in ways that are still being written.  It is the story of literally walking in another’s shoes!  We are grateful to be in community and right relationship with Your Honor. Sit back and listen and absorb every morsel of gold!

Until next time…

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Rising to the Challenge of our Declaration of Independence and Centering Families over Systems

Rising to the Challenge of our Declaration of Independence and Centering Families over Systems

Rising to the Challenge of our Declaration of Independence and Centering Families over Systems

by Corey Best

corey best

The PMI 3-2-1 newsletter shares three ideas, two quotes, and one question to ponder. This issue focuses on the disproportionate harm caused to families of color by the child protection system and challenges all of
us to recognize and reduce trauma and build new versions of community conditions and institutions. We thank Corey Best, Founder and Community Curator of Mining for Gold, for editing this summer 2023 issue. FRIENDS and our PMI partners rotate editing each edition. The format, 3-2-1, is based on James Clear’s newsletter that shares ideas related to developing effective habits, drawing from his book, Atomic Habits. Freedom and independence are celebrated on the 4th of July. While many recognize this tradition
collectively, we have not held the truths of the Declaration to be self evident. ALL bodies may have been created equally, however, the treatment of the most minoritized and marginalized remains eerily familiar
to the days of yore. For countless Black families, the severity of exposure to child protective services (CPS) means a life filled with prolonged and exacerbated racialized trauma. This destruction has been researched, challenged, debated far too long. No one is “sleep.” The greatest fear is that we, in “prevention,” may be timid about building anew. We have hope for those…

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Episode 19: Escaping Replacement Culture

Episode 19: Escaping Replacement Culture

A Look Within- Escaping Replacement Culture

EPISODE 19

cordelia cranshaw

Welcome back good listeners to another edition of Audio Nuggets.  We are excited to be joined in the rhythm of the cypher by Cordelia Cranshaw Skeete for Episode 19: A Look Within—Escaping Replacement Culture.

Cordelia Cranshaw Skeete is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, representing the District of Columbia. Despite the odds stacked against Cordelia as an adolescent, she guides others on their healing journey and believes that the journey is just as important as the destination.

Cordelia graces the audience with her liberated voice for abolition of the family policing system.  Cordelia shares her journey of how she came to find the ways she could use her experiences, knowledge, gifts and talents to make an impact for families who are harmed by the family policing system.

The conversation is a truth-telling experience; illuminating the lack of understanding by the family policing system’s workforce of the true depths of trauma and harm that is caused to families by the institution.  Fixing doesn’t work. Families aren’t broken. It’s time to look within and understand the need and desire to replace children’s families.

Cordelia shares her sense of belonging and liberation, her commitment to support others in finding their own belonging through a healing journey, and her deep love, respect, and admiration for her community of Black women. Coradelia leaves parents with the call to never give up. Hold onto hope. And she asks all others to take a good, long look in the mirror…it’s time for a look within.

Until next time…

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Nurturing Freedom Dreams Through A Principled Struggle

Nurturing Freedom Dreams Through A Principled Struggle

Nurturing Freedom Dreams Through A Principled Struggle

by MFG team

It’s been said that freedom arrives “when we are no longer afraid.” What if we struggled without fear? What if we heeded lessons from historical truths? What if we believed that the way we damage people impairs and destroys the collective us? What if the invention of race didn’t dictate who we deem deserving and capable? Dammit, this brings more questions, right? For depth and texture, let us try this frame: We believe that you know the immense harm caused by our interconnected human services institutions (because you are, or have been complicit in causing them). And that you are ready with all the earnestness at our command to be fearless and thorough. Ready to mount new ideas, solutions, resources and thinking that equal the magnitude of the harm. This belief connotes that we have grown a mutual understanding of our duty and have collectively embodied compassion and empathy for the “other.” Ready to be bravely
on our way to becoming a society that measures its worth based on a sense of justice, liberation, and belonging. Rather than reducing people to widgets and thrusting them into programmatic categories associated with a prejudiced degree of risk. Frederick Douglass taught us; “Power conceded nothing without a demand.”

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