2024 Lunch & Learn

Alignment on Family: System Change, Racial Justice, Consent Decree Exit, and a Culture of Safely Preserving Families

Presenters

Commissioner Jodi Hill-Lilly, MSW – Connecticut Department of Children and Families
Ira Lustbader, JD – Children’s Rights

This NACC staff-moderated discussion will explore system changes over the past six years at the Connecticut Department of Children and Families that drove measurable results in family preservation and support, a shrinking foster system, a durable commitment to racial justice and the exit of a decades-long federal consent decree. Panelists include the current Commissioner of DCF, the Lead Attorney for Plaintiffs in the now closed Juan F. litigation, and a Parent Attorney whose clients are seeing the impact of these changes. Topics include practice and cultural changes that shrank the foster system, reduced congregate care, and increased reunification and kinship support; how DCF built a unique agency-wide racial justice program; lessons learned in impact litigation to change child and family serving systems; and the road ahead.