In this episode of The Proximity Process, Matt Anderson has a conversation with Keith Howard, the CEO of a non-profit foster care provider in Oklahoma. As a career macro-level social worker, Keith arrived at a major shift in his perspective. The change is more about people than policy. This episode addresses how he came to the idea that systems don’t change until people change. He believes that changing system strategies are important, but they are insufficient in advancing justice for families. He shares how the strategies he worked on ran up against very real limitations in their ability to improve the well-being of children or parents and keep families together. He asks the question, “When we change the structures of the system are we solving the right problem”? He wraps up with some practices for how he is changing so that his work is serving people rather than systems.
Sally Shank