WonkCast: People Power Policy

Zach Laris, Founder & President, Child Welfare Wonk
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Politics
  • Updated Weekly

Conversations with Child Welfare Wonk Founder & President Zach Laris, spotlighting the people, ideas, and tensions shaping child and family policy. www.childwelfarewonk.com

  1. Jun 24

    WonkCast #32: Why Custody for Care Continues

    Episode # 32: Oklahoma Child Welfare Director Michael Williams Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Five percent of children entering foster care nationally do so not from abuse or neglect, but because it’s the only way to unlock Medicaid financing for behavioral health care. Custody for care is not a quirk or conspiracy. Instead, that datapoint reflects the distortions of tacitly designing child welfare policy as a backstop system of last resort. It also captures key tensions constraining child welfare leaders: * What’s the appropriate role of data in decision-making, especially when it inherently collapses complexity? * Where’s the boundary line between insufficient accountability controls and ineffective process theater? * How can states upgrade their partnerships with the federal government amid simultaneously declining investment and rising expectations? Today’s guest makes decisions shaped by these constraints every day. Michael Williams currently serves as Oklahoma’s Child Welfare Director, and previously was Deputy Commissioner of Operations for Connecticut’s child welfare agency. We talked about why Oklahoma was the first state to join the Administration for Children and Families’ A Home for Every Child initiative, and why he takes the approach of data informing and influencing decisions, rather than driving them. If you wonder why a policy like custody for care persists when everyone involved decries its poor outcomes and clear cost inefficiency, this is a look behind the curtain. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    25 min

  2. Jun 17

    WonkCast #31: What Keeps Popular Ideas from Becoming Policy?

    Episode # 31: Michelle Feit Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. There is often a significant gap between the way issues poll with the general public and how they move through policy-making institutions. That often gets vaguely characterized as “political will”, obscuring its origins. Child and family policy has many high-salience issues that are popular in general and encounter friction in moving through the legislative process. The finite resource that matters is political capacity; the coalition power required to simultaneously align on a workable policy design and assemble the votes to move it. Paid leave is emblematic of this dynamic, and we’re going to be exploring perspectives from an array of thinkers grappling with those questions of coalition and policy strategy. Today’s guest has led advocacy campaigns on paid leave at every level of government, from a successful initiative in DC to a federal proposal that came quite close in 2021. Michelle Feit is the Director of Congressional Relations for Economic Justice at the National Partnership for Women and Families, where she leads paid leave campaigns. She previously worked on the Hill for Representative Jackie Speier and Senator Barbara Mikulski. We talked about how unified government constrains coalitions, the tension between state and national policy development, and how family policy moves through Congress. Amid cross-partisan deliberation over what comes next in child and family policy, this is a window into why popular ideas often struggle to become durable national policies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    26 min

  3. Jun 10

    WonkCast #30: The Wrong Pockets Problem

    Episode # 30: Erinn Kelley-Siel Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Our laws and funding task the same agency with removing children from families when there’s a safety risk, and helping those same families avoid crisis and heal. Today’s guest says that asking one agency to hold both is a fundamental problem. Erinn Kelley-Siel Spent over thirteen years in public service leadership in the state of Oregon, including four as Director of the Oregon Department of Human Services. In 2016 she joined Friends of the Children, serving as Chief Officer of Strategy & Innovation to scale a long-term professional mentorship model for children who have experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences before kindergarten. She reframes that safety and support tension into shared partnership, with government leading on safety and community supporting families through durable relationships. We talked about how this tension shapes the way leaders make decisions, and how the wrong pockets problem complicates sustainable financing. These fundamental questions of accountability, governance, and funding are essential for anyone interested in shaping what comes next. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    26 min

  4. Jun 3

    WonkCast #29: What if it Worked?

    Episode # 29: Rebecca Robuck Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Child welfare policy often swings between two possible answers to the system’s purpose: protecting children or supporting families. Even efforts to move beyond that debate can end up recreating it as an argument over whether to reform the system or replace it altogether. Today’s guest is someone who refuses to collapse that complexity. Rebecca Robuck is a Partner at ChildFocus Partners, and the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child and Family Well-Being. As a leading national policy expert, she leads coalition advocacy and advises national organizations on what’s happening and what’s possible in child welfare policy. We talk about why innovation happening on the ground doesn’t always reach national conversations, the role of coalitions in reshaping federal policy, and what’s next in child and family policy. At its core, our conversation is about what we lose when policy debates don’t surface foundational questions like what a system like child welfare is actually for. For anyone feeling overwhelmed by current policy volatility, this captures why an era of disruption and uncertainty also offers opportunities for re-imagining what’s possible. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    29 min

  5. May 27

    WonkCast #28: Innovating Amid Aversion to Risk

    Episode # 28: Kristi Putnam Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. It’s often the case that our policy patchwork asks families to fit programs, rather than fitting programs to families. That fragmentation extends to how we hold public sector systems and leaders accountable, optimizing for avoidance of visible failure even at the cost of coherence. Today’s guest spends a lot of time thinking about and teaching principles for public sector leadership to promote policy innovation. Kristi Putnam has over 25 years of experience working on child and family policy across human Services, early childhood, health policy, and workforce development. Most recently, she was Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Human Services under Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders from January 2023 to July 2025. She also held leadership roles in the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and the Florida Department of Children and Families. Today, she’s the Dean of the Human Flourishing Academy, which recruits, trains, and deploys professionals passionate about policy into public sector leadership. We talked about what blocks or unlocks policy innovation, how family policy systems consider and balance risk, and the tension between state responsibility and family autonomy. We also talked about how her thinking about policy innovation evolved after overseeing the first significant rollout of Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas. I walked away with a deeper understanding of how agency leaders reason under constraint, and I am sure you will too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    29 min

  6. May 20

    WonkCast #27: Where You Sit is Where You Stand

    Episode # 27: JooYeun Chang Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Child and family policy is full of “everybody knows” problems. Individually rational decisions can create policy outcomes nobody argues for, because knowing what to fix doesn’t mean knowing how to fix it. Even the most senior decision makers depend upon and work to shape other leaders’ decisions; laws, regulations, investments, service provision, advocacy, and more. Often the decisions we want other leaders to make can seem obvious to us. Not because they’re simple, but because we’re missing the constraints they’re under and the tensions they’re balancing. Where you sit is where you stand. Moving beyond that changes what we see, making a deeper kind of impact possible. JooYeun Chang has a uniquely cross-cutting perspective on what shapes leadership roles across the child and family policy sector because she’s held so many of them. She led at the federal level, running the Children’s Bureau and the Administration for Children and Families in the Obama and Biden Administrations, respectively. As a state leader she ran Michigan’s child welfare agency. She’s led across philanthropy, at Casey Family Programs, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and now as Managing Director at the Aviv Foundation. And her formation came out of advocacy at the Children’s Defense Fund, with the career shaping mentorship that comes from the inimitable MaryLee Allen. We sat down to talk about why financing is central to policy, how to understand what shapes decisions you care about influencing, and the future of child welfare policy. If you’ve wondered what it will take for our field to do something at the scale of the Family First Prevention Services Act again, this is for you. Bolder Horizon Fellowship Shoutout In addition to running Child Welfare Wonk, I also founded a child and family policy nonprofit called Bolder Horizon, focused on incubating what comes next. We just launched the engine of that work, a new Emerging Policy Leaders Fellowship. Child and family policy frameworks built for another era are failing to meet the crises of ours. Do you or someone you know have bold ideas about how to replace them? We’re accepting applications from now through May 25 to form our first cohort. Learn more at bolderhorizon.org/fellowships. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    32 min

  7. May 13

    WonkCast #26: Family Policy's Power Problem

    Episode # 26: Elliot Haspel Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Child and family policy has a power problem. Why is it that issues that reach into the lives of all Americans are so often an afterthought? Families routinely say these issues really matter, without that translating into sustained political power and impact. When every family faces caregiving needs that can strain their finances and stability, you’d think policymakers would be relentlessly focused on refining solutions. It’s not that issues like child care and paid leave are simple. Far from it. They face significant, legitimate policy differences that require resolving. But that doesn’t happen. Counter-intuitively, issues that affect everyone can face the biggest obstacles to harnessing and leveraging power to shape policy decisions and outcomes. Today’s guest focuses his work on that paradox to prioritize policy for families. Elliot Haspel is a nationally recognized child and family policy expert specializing in child care, and a Senior Fellow at Capita, where he works in their Family Policy Lab. He’s written multiple books on child care policy, including Raising a Nation: 10 Reasons Every American Has a Stake in Child Care for All and Crawling Behind: America’s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It. He writes the excellent Family Frontier newsletter, and contributes to the Wonk, including on child care and maltreatment prevention, and domestic violence policy. We talked about what prevents prioritization of family policy issues, how to build and sustain momentum to create change over time, and the deeper power of coalitions. Rather than easy answers or policy prescriptions, Elliot lays out what it looks like to build the power to make an issue un-ignorable, and what it takes to get there. Bolder Horizon Fellowship Shoutout In addition to running Child Welfare Wonk, I also founded a child and family policy nonprofit called Bolder Horizon, focused on incubating what comes next. We just launched the engine of that work, a new Emerging Policy Leaders Fellowship. Child and family policy frameworks built for another era are failing to meet the crises of ours. Do you or someone you know have bold ideas about how to replace them? We’re accepting applications from now through May 25 to form our first cohort. Learn more at bolderhorizon.org/fellowships. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    36 min

  8. May 6

    WonkCast #25 NE Child Welfare Commissioner Alyssa Bish

    Episode # 25: Dr. Alyssa Bish Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy. Child welfare agency leaders naturally have to think in constraints and tradeoffs. Since 2023, Dr. Alyssa Bish has served as Director of the Division of Children and Family Services in the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. In that role she leads an agency at the intersection of big-picture vision on prevention and kinship care, and operational reality on financing and accountability. We talked about how state capacity is the critical factor determining whether federal policy changes like the Family First Prevention Services Act work as designed. We discussed the way well-intentioned efforts to encode process into policy can lead to bad outcomes with unclear accountability, like undermining kinship care. She also unpacked why Nebraska was a “quick yes” on ACF’s A Home For Every Child initiative, and how they shifted their approach on Social Security survivor benefits. Her insights offer actionable takeaways for anyone who cares about shaping current and future child and family policy. Bolder Horizon Fellowship Shoutout In addition to running Child Welfare Wonk, I also founded a child and family policy nonprofit called Bolder Horizon, focused on incubating what comes next. We just launched the engine of that work, a new Emerging Policy Leaders Fellowship. Child and family policy frameworks built for another era are failing to meet the crises of ours. Do you or someone you know have bold ideas about how to replace them? We’re accepting applications from now through May 25 to form our first cohort. Learn more at bolderhorizon.org/fellowships. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com

    33 min
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About

Conversations with Child Welfare Wonk Founder & President Zach Laris, spotlighting the people, ideas, and tensions shaping child and family policy. www.childwelfarewonk.com

Information

  • Creator
    Zach Laris, Founder & President, Child Welfare Wonk
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Child Welfare Wonk
  • Show Website
    WonkCast: People Power Policy

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