Welcome and Opening Remarks

The Texas Story

For more than a decade Texas has been making great strides in bringing about sustainable institutional change to reduce disproportionality within the child welfare system. This change has occurred through diligent efforts to educate and provide opportunities for discussions about race, culture, history, and racism. This presentation will describe this work and will include the voices of those whose lives have been changed by these efforts.

What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America

This session will explore the legal history of racial identity, showing how the relationships of race have affected claims of citizenship over the past 150 years. Through an examination of trials involving racial identity, Professor Gross will show that legal definitions of race have been less dependent on percentages of blood or ancestry than on the way an individual presented his/her whiteness to society through civic and moral character and that this imaginary connection between racial identity and fitness for citizenship remains potent today.

Analyzing Power

As a society, we often believe that individuals and/or their communities are solely responsible for their conditions. Through the analysis of institutional power, participants will learn to identify and unpack the systems external to the community that create the internal realities that many people experience on a daily basis.

Racial Wealth Gap

African Americans face higher risks of poverty, joblessness, and incarceration. But in the past decades, civil rights legislation and landmark court decisions have advanced the cause of racial equality. African Americans have made great strides in educational advancement and have seen a steady rise in annual income. Racial prejudice has declined. Why do disadvantages in the African American community persist after most laws, minds and practices have changed? Dr. Shapiro will discuss how the significant impact of disparities in family assets along with continuing discrimination in critical areas such as home ownership dramatically impacts the lives of black families, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Uneven Justice

More than 60% of the people in prison are racial and ethnic minorities. For black males in their twenties, 1 in 8 is in prison or jail on any given day. According to research findings from the Department of Justice, if current trends continue, 1 of every 3 African American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can 1 in every 6 Latino males, compared to 1 in 17 White males. While differential involvement in crime explains a portion of African American male imprisonment, so, too, do policy and practice decisions contribute to these outcomes. Mr. Mauer will discuss the collateral effects of high incarceration in communities of color, including family stress and dissolution.

Intersection of Criminal Justice and Child Welfare

The unparalleled levels of incarceration in the U.S. over the past twenty years have led to concerns about the possible unintended consequences that the expansion of the criminal justice system might have for families’ involvement in the child welfare system. Approximately 1 in every 8 children who are subjects of reports of maltreatment has a parent who was recently arrested. 11% of mothers in prison report having a child in foster care and a substantial proportion of parents in prison have children being cared for by relatives. The issue of parental involvement in the criminal justice system is a much higher risk factor for children of color. Roughly one out of every fourteen African American children has at least one parent in prison versus one in 42 Latino to one in 111 White children.

Neuroscience and the Psychology of Decision-Making

Despite our conscious intentions, research has shown that unconscious preferences can affect reactions and judgment. This session will explore the relationship between your brain, your preferences and decision-making. Additionally, Ms. Papillon will teach participants methods and tools that can alter automatic mental processes to improve fairness and identify techniques for overriding unconscious bias.

Debriefing Session

Participants will have the opportunity to discuss the conference, their thoughts and reactions as well as next steps.