A Way Forward Webinar Series

Together with Families: Cultivating Support, Stability, and Strength in Georgia

DATE CHANGE: August 6, 2025, at 1:00 pm EST

Join us for a webinar highlighting the transformative work of Together with Families, a Georgia-based, community-driven nonprofit dedicated to supporting families affected by poverty and those navigating—or at risk of—child welfare involvement. Rooted in their Relational Practice Model, Together with Families centers connection, trust, and shared power—working with families, not for them. Through its comprehensive Family Support Programs, the organization provides vital resources, fosters systemic advocacy, and creates spaces for community healing. Discover how this collaborative model equips parents and caregivers as leaders, building strong, resilient households and ensuring stability and self-advocacy without the need for agency intervention.

Visit the Together with Families webpage here. 

To learn more about their Relational Practice Model, sign up to view their playbook here.  

Building a Multidisciplinary Family Representation Office: Lessons from New Mexico and Oklahoma

March 11, 2025

Panelists from Oklahoma and New Mexico discussed the steps taken to establish family representation offices in their states, including the selection of organizational models, staffing priorities, implementation of the attributes of high-quality legal representation, and the legislative and funding processes involved. The panel of judicial and legislative experts also addressed challenges and potential pitfalls in developing new legal service models.

Additional Materials

• New Mexico's Office of Family Representation and Advocacy - PDF of Presentation Slides
• Oklahoma's Office of Family Representation - PDF of Presentation Slides

Debunking Child Welfare “Safety Concerns” by Offering Families Real Solutions with the Mother's Outreach Network

January 22, 2025

How do we change the narrative that mothers involved in this system are neglectful or unable to parent their children safely? Along with moms who drive Mother's Outreach Network's work, Executive Director, Melody Webb, discussed how guaranteed income, cash, and concrete supports directly lift up marginalized families and take on the false narrative or belief that parents surveilled by the system are dangerous to their children.

Additional Materials

• Mother’s Outreach Network Website
• Mother Up Pilot page    
• Standing with Moms Film and the Standing with Moms Guide
• Mother Up Pilot - October 2024 Event
• Building a Guaranteed Income to End the “Child Welfare” System by Melody Webb
• Income Movement
• Economic Security Project 
• A massive experiment is testing no-strings cash aid for Americans : NPR

African American Family Preservation Act: How History was made in Minnesota

October 16, 2024

The first in the Way Forward webinar series was on Minnesota’s African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act signed into legislation on July 10, 2024. Learn about the history and the enactment process and efforts behind this legislation. This webinar provided information about the terms of the legislation specifically on how caseworkers must deploy “active efforts” to prevent family separation for all children who end up in foster care at disproportionate rates, due to their race, culture, ethnicity, disability, or low-income status. Speakers included Representative Esther Agbaje, Kelis Houston, Commissioner Rena Moran, and Joanna Woolman.

Additional Materials

• Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act