262. How Centering Lived Experience is Transforming the Child Welfare System - Sixto Cancel

Think of Us, Sixto Cancel, We Are For Good Podcast

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Overview

Meet Sixto. He's been advocating for change at the intersection of child welfare and advanced technology since the age of 16. His lived experience in foster care fuels his passion for shifting system policy and practice through the use of technology, data & unyielding compassion. This Founder and CEO of Think of Us is directing this progressive nonprofit to end institutional placements and reform our foster care system by listening, gathering & activating.

💡Learn:

Shifting power dynamics + rearchitecting the child welfare system
Why children should not be placed in foster care due to poverty
How Think of Us is a laboratory for systemic change
Mission and programs of Think of Us

Today’s Guest

Sixto Cancel, Founder and CEO, Think of Us

“I knew that this wasn’t about pointing to the problem, but figuring out how to recreate the system and re-architect the child welfare system.”

— Sixto Cancel, Founder and CEO, Think of Us

Episode Transcript

Download Full Episode Transcript Here

Episode highlights

Sixto’s story and journey to where he is today (3:00)
Prioritizing kinship care in the system (10:00)
Overview of Think of Us (14:00)
Leveraging research and amassing a huge database to make the change happen (18:00)
Shifting the power dynamics in the child welfare system (24:00)
Check for Us Initiative (28:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Sixto’s life (36:00)
Sixto’s One Good Thing: Stay in joy. (40:00)

powerful quotes

“How is it that you enable opportunities for young people to be able to build skills that made themselves sufficient? And then I hit this point where I felt like, I just wasn't doing enough.” -Sixto

“I knew that this wasn’t about pointing to the problem, but figuring out how to recreate the system and re-architect the child welfare system.” -Sixto

“You know, all your life, you hear, there's no placement for you. There's no family for you. As a teenager, you’re hard to place. Behave so that you don't end up in a group home. And here were people who, literally less than 60 miles away, were not just biologically related, but that they took pride in actually caring for sibling sets in adopted sibling sets out of foster care.” -Sixto

“How might we place that young person with a family member or a foster parent who the system ends up training and supporting and putting paid professionals that are coming to that house and maybe that those paid professionals are coming every day, but that family is still possible? And that those are the better outcomes for young people?” -Sixto

“When I think about shifting power, one of the things that becomes clear to me is that those who have the power to make decisions, whether they're a commissioner, a social worker, a judge or a lawyer, these are all individuals that affect the life of a young person in foster care, that they want to do a good job that they want to do the right thing.” -Sixto

“I'm crazy enough to believe that, with a lot of work, that we actually can have a system that when you engage with it, it's not an indication of bad things happening in the future. But it's an indicator that things are now back on track, that you have gotten the support, you need to heal from the trauma that you experience, that you're not experiencing new traumas within the system.” -Sixto

“During the pandemic, one of the things that we realized is that youth were being so kicked out of the system, they're aging out while everyone was expected to shelter in place.” -Sixto

“We were able to build up teams, we were able to literally respond to this and leverage millions of dollars that went straight into the pockets of young people that prevented them from being homeless.” -Sixto

“When we're depleted, it's just very difficult to be able to show up for others. And so what I would offer to folks is being centered and not doing aftercare is what I call it, like you hit the wall. And, and now you have to go ahead and do some self care. But on the journey of being in service, how is it that you're replenishing yourself that you are able to go ahead and center yourself enjoy so that you show up as your best self as you're in service to others?” -Sixto

connect with sixto

Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram / NY Times Op Ed

connect with think of us

Website / Facebook / YouTube / Instagram / LinkedIn / Twitter

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