A shelter worker noticed inequality in the child welfare system. She's using a Bush Fellowship to push back

NINA MOINI: Well, today, the Bush Foundation announced its 2025 cohort of Bush Fellows. This year, the leadership program is recognizing 29 people who are making a difference in their communities. They hail from Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Native nations in their region. Many of the fellows focus on racial justice. One of them is Kelis Houston. When she started working in child welfare, Kelis noticed that an alarmingly disproportionate number of African-American children were being separated from their families. And they were being kept away for longer and more frequently than other children. Kelis Houston is right here with us now to explain her work. And congratulations to you on the fellowship. Thank you for being here.

KELIS HOUSTON: Yes, thank you so much for having me.

NINA MOINI: Well, I said there in the introduction that this is something you noticed early on in your career. Can you take us back to when you were starting your career and what you were seeing that sparked your concerns?

KELIS HOUSTON: Sure, sure. So my journey into child welfare reform started 15 years ago. I began this work while employed at an emergency youth shelter, St. Joseph's Home for Children. And this shelter, at that time, was the first stop for kids who had just been removed from home. So it was there that I was able to witness firsthand the trauma that children experience when separated from their families, depression, anxiety, aggression, regression, PTSD. I saw it all.

We had children that would refuse to get out of bed, some that would stop engaging in programming, others that would stop eating. Some became angry and violent. And some of our most extreme cases, the children would start to struggle with incontinence. And I'll never forget the older youth who fell victim to trafficking while on run to return home. So I was able to see the real consequences of family separation and the price that the children pay.

I always say that-- oh, go ahead, Nina. I'm sorry.

NINA MOINI: No, no, you go ahead, please. You always say what?

KELIS HOUSTON: I always say, god placed me on this path and led me into this work for the reasons that I just shared. I remember going through the cabinets in the office at the shelter one day. And a stack of papers and folders fell on my head, literally fell on my head.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS]

KELIS HOUSTON: And inside that stack were years' worth of demographic data from the shelter. It showed what I had already started to observe, that Black children were greatly overrepresented in out-of-home placement. Although this shelter served all of Hennepin County, almost every single day, 100% of the children on the unit would be African-American. When they were with us, they were there for longer periods of time. And a lot of them came back to us three and four times a year before just aging out of the system, meaning they were never adopted or reunified. And that was the spark that led me to want to have a voice in the courtroom.

I began volunteering as a guardian ad litem before taking a full-time cultural specialist guardian position. And from that vantage point, I saw how the counties and courts worked together to perpetuate disparities. And that's when I stepped into community organizing.

NINA MOINI: Talk about a sign, when those folders fell on your head.

[LAUGHTER]

KELIS HOUSTON: Exactly, exactly.

NINA MOINI: Well, so you're in this work. It is difficult work because it's so multifaceted, I would imagine. But what are some of the factors that you have found that are driving this inequality?

KELIS HOUSTON: Yeah, first, the systemic bias, the lack of services available to families, the financial incentives to states by our federal government. The reimbursements, I believe, are a major driver as to why we see so many families involved in the system that are at or below the poverty guideline.

I, like a lot of people that work outside of the system, kind of assume that if a family was involved with child protection, they must have done something horrible and deserved to be. And working in shelter, working in court, I was able to get to know the families and saw that, more often than not, a lot of these families were facing issues more closely related to poverty than any actual neglect or abuse against their children.

Our laws are very vague and broad. 80% of cases-- and this is across demographics, across races. 80% of the cases are for neglect. And by law, neglect can mean inadequate food, clothing, or shelter. It can mean anything. And I always say that when they can't call it abuse, they label it neglect and get the case screened in, unfortunately.

NINA MOINI: You've seen a lot of things. And I'm assuming that's what led you to found the nonprofit Village Arms. Tell me a little bit about what you're doing there.

KELIS HOUSTON: Yeah, Village Arms was actually born from this fight. I started it because I wanted to serve our families better, but also address a lot of the inequities that I saw within the system. It's a Christ-centered organization. We support Black families that are impacted by child protection through family advocacy, prevention services. We offer mandated reporter training. So our mandated reporters really understand how they lend to disproportionality. And we also offer supervised visitation in a culturally affirming environment.

In addition to that, our direct services to families, we work alongside community and policy-makers to create solutions that reflect the needs of our community. So we're really working to reshape systems that have historically harmed us.

NINA MOINI: And some of that work is also going on at the lawmaker level and at the policy level. At the start of this year, a new law went into effect statewide to prevent the inequitable separation of African-American children from their families. I understand you helped to write that law. Can you tell me a little more about the law? And then how is it going?

KELIS HOUSTON: Yeah, absolutely. So I started in my advocacy work. I started the first-ever child protection committee under the NAACP. And I leveraged that position and platform to meet with county and state officials, really pressing them to do better by our families. I got tired of begging them to address this longstanding and well-documented issue. And so in 2017, I wrote the African-American Family Preservation Act.

It took seven long years of testifying, advocating, and organizing. But in 2024, it was signed into law by Governor Tim Walz. And it's a lengthy law, but I could share briefly some of the tenets that I believe will be most impactful.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, if you have a couple. And then I also just want to know how that's going.

KELIS HOUSTON: Yeah, absolutely. So the bill, or the law, is being implemented in Hennepin and Ramsey County first. Hennepin and Ramsey are our largest and most diverse counties and where the bulk of our disparities and disproportionality lives. I have to say, I don't agree with the way that it's being implemented.

NINA MOINI: OK.

KELIS HOUSTON: So they're only applying the law to 30% of new intakes. And they're including assessments in those intakes. So in my opinion, the families that should be protected under this law are not because of the way that they're choosing to phase in. The bright side is that they've created a statewide work group to help with implementation. And I am on that work group. So I'm really hopeful that our recommendations will help with the phase-in process, so that more families are protected, as the law dictates.

NINA MOINI: And you're saying, changes and amendments can always be made as people learn more. And you're going to be a part of that effort. And you're a part of a lot of efforts. And of course, now being a Bush Fellow, you're going to get this chunk of funding to just be able to do this work and spread it even out further into the community. How much do you get? And then what are you planning to do with it?

KELIS HOUSTON: Well, I did receive the full amount, so I did receive the $150,000.

NINA MOINI: Amazing.

KELIS HOUSTON: Thank you, thank you. I'm really looking at this as an opportunity for me to invest more deeply in transforming this system. The work that I've done has been as a volunteer. So I'm really going to use this to sharpen my leadership and expand my reach, so I can fight for policy change at every level, local, state, and national. I mentioned the financial incentives through the reimbursements from our federal government. So I intend to attack that as well.

I'm really focused on building community-led solutions that keep children safely with their families and rooted in their culture. We piloted the bill in Hennepin County over a three-year period. We served over 200 families. And we closed more than 90% of our cases without ever removing a child. And of those cases where removal was necessary, 100% were placed with kin. So we've shown that this bill works in practice. And I'm hoping that we can replicate that across the country.

NINA MOINI: Well, I just thank you so much for stopping by, Kelis, and sharing your work with us. It's been a real delight. Thank you.

KELIS HOUSTON: Thank you so much.

NINA MOINI: That was new Bush Fellow Kelis Houston. You can find the entire list of the 2025 Bush Fellows and their projects at mprnews.org.