Kenyon Lee Whitman

Kenyon Lee Whitman and Rachel Devera on the pursuit of educational equity in Nevada

In October, I attended the Blueprint for Success Conference hosted by John Burton Advocates for Youth, which brings together professionals who support foster youth in higher education. After a few years of the conference being on hiatus because of the pandemic, we were finally able to convene.

We use taxpayers dollars to fund a system that is morally bankrupt, where children and social workers suffer, writes Kenyon Lee Whitman.

Legal counsel should be guaranteed, especially when your rights as a parent are on the line, writes Kenyon Lee Whitman.

Kenyon Lee Whitman urges Black people to seek moments of joy In the aftermath of yet another racist tragedy in America.

We can’t keep celebrating “resilient” foster youth if we are not actively removing the systems in place that marginalize them, writes Kenyon Lee Whitman.

Many in the child welfare space are quick to say Black Lives Matter, but opinion writer Kenyon Lee Whitman asks: Where are the policies aimed at anti-racism, family unification and permanence for Black children?

We need policies that guarantee better fiscal commitments to youth who experience foster care, but we also must figure out how to better legislate around love and family connection, writes Kenyon Lee Whitman

We need policies that address equity in housing and education for those who have experienced foster care, writes Kenyon Lee Whitman.

Let' not create foster care 2.0 on a college campus by preemptively knighting ourselves as their guardians.

I was driving through my neighborhood recently, and saw someone hanging up Christmas lights. I said to myself, “It’s not even Halloween, yet.” It was barely October and I was already growing tired and in some ways beginning to resent the holiday season. 

Black foster youth are caught in a nexus of incarceration which is formed by their engagement with child welfare, education and policing. Our recent brief published by UCLA’s Black Male Institute on Los Angeles County public schools serves to elucidate these grim realities.

The incident that took place in Central Park, with Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper was appalling. Christian Cooper is a Black man, Harvard graduate and avid bird watcher who asked Amy Cooper, a white woman, to leash her dog in an area of the park where it was required, and she refused.

Every year I try to host a Friendsgiving, a tradition I started in undergrad. While not all of the same people show up, the purpose of the evening remains; it is meant to be a space to be with those I chose to call my family.

I was recently having a conversation with a friend who also grew up in foster care. Now that we are older, we feel our voices and stories are no longer “useful” to the foster care support community.