Systemic Change
Focus group participants shared that many of the problems they face come from the larger systems they work in. They really want things to get better. But at the same time, many don’t trust the people in charge and feel like they aren’t valued. This creates a tension—people want change, but they aren’t sure if it will really happen.
“It's a painful, ugly system that is inverted from my values. The funding mechanisms of the field shouldn't be like this. This is wrong. This is immoral. It's the capitalistic structure, it's a patriarchal structure that doesn't value children and families, it's the white supremacy structures. All of those structures make this work necessary because of the harm those structures cause. It's hard, exhausting, draining, and complex. It's our culture. Our system is backward. We have it all wrong.” - From an administrator
“This work is not deemed as important by the people who have power. And so we are just gonna continue shuffling the tiny amount of money around and patching things together. There's not a solution that we in this room can come up with. Because the people who hold the power and the purse strings don't value the work that we do, the families we serve, the children that we support.” From a direct service provider
Call to Action & Connection to Other Topics
here is no simple solution to Systemic Change. Participants shared that the work is all connected together. The chart below shows how the topic of systemic change relates to other commonly mentioned topics. The numbers show how often the topics were discussed together. To make systemic change happen, all these topics must be addressed.
