The Shift: Voices of Prevention — A podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America

Reimagining Together: Seeding System Success

• Prevent Child Abuse America

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In this enlightening conversation, co-executive directors of the Haywood Burns Institute, Samantha Mellerson and Tshaka Barrows, delve into transformative strategies for reshaping systems to better serve communities. They discuss the importance of community-driven change and the power of collective action in creating lasting impact. Emphasizing the need for inclusive approaches, they highlight the necessity of centering the voices of those most affected by systemic issues.

Samantha Mellerson shares, "True transformation only happens when the communities most impacted are not just consulted but are the ones leading the change." Tshaka Barrows adds, "Systems are designed — and therefore, they can be redesigned. Our work is about seeding success by shifting power to those who have been historically marginalized."

Their insights offer valuable perspectives for anyone interested in understanding and participating in the process of systemic change.

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SPEAKER_02:

This is The Shift Voices of Prevention, a podcast from Prevent Child Abuse America, where we explore bold ideas, cultural change, and what it truly means to support children and families. Join us to change the narrative one conversation at a time. Today's show was brought to you by PCA America's 2025 National Conference. Hosted in Portland, Oregon, August 12th through August 14th, the transformative three-day conference features three keynote speakers and more than 70 workshops that dive into the key drivers of change. From innovative programs and practices to family-focused policies, cutting-edge research, and public awareness and engagement strategies, the conference is designed to push the field toward upstream prevention and creating a future where every child and family can thrive. To be in the room when change happens, visit preventchildabuse.org. Hello and welcome to the Shift Voices of Prevention, a podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America. I'm your co-host, Nathan Fink, and I'm Luke Waldo. And we are thrilled to be joined by Samantha Mellerson and Shaka Barrows, both of whom are part of the executive leadership team at the Haywood Burns Institute, a national nonprofit of intergenerational cross-cultural visionaries working to transform the administration of justice and other human service sectors. Samantha Shaka, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_03:

I would also like to thank you, Samantha and Shaka, for creating the space to spark real conversation at the 2025 Prevent Child Abuse America National Conference. The Haywood Burns Institute's mission is to dismantle structural racism and build community-centered structural well-being. So let's start at the beginning of your mission. Why is it so important to examine and understand the history of how our institutions and structures were designed and how that history has contributed to structural racism?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, for us, history is really important as we do this work. We've worked uh you know for over 20 years addressing issues all across the country of racial and ethnic disparities within the administration of justice, with partners both in the justice sector, but also community members, uh, folks providing direct services. And so it's always been fundamental for us to take a look at the history of these institutions that we are looking to reform and to work on to better understand both how that history still lives on today and really understanding how it may limit what we can and cannot do with a reform strategy. And so for years, we would work across the country with these different partnerships and really, you know, always brought in history as a you know clear way for folks to understand the infrastructure that was set up, all of the decisions and early functions and the structures of our laws and our society, you know, were set up to execute a reality that we're still grappling with today. But this issue still persists of the racial disparities. We can move a target population, we can successfully come up with a policy, a practice change, a new partnership, an innovative strategy, and we would measure these things over and over and show that you could actually make an impact. And as we did this, the outcomes would often get worse. The actual disparities would not just persist, but they would get worse. And so we had this develop this practice at the same time of kind of examining our own strategy and approach. You know, you know, you are not just in it to show success. We were actually trying to achieve, you know, a better outcome and then a real sense of equitable society with equitable sense of justice, right? So it wasn't just reforming the current justice system. We eventually started to name that. We had to very rethink what the very notion of justice even means in this country with the history that we all share and how that history has impacted the structures that limit opportunity access resources. And because we worked in the justice sector, which is oftentimes the dumping ground for other failed efforts in human services and local government, we began to see the need to look beyond justice at all the other aspects of human services and governance and see it as an opportunity. And by understanding the limits of history, you know, you can kind of really see that there's opportunity there. But it takes, you know, sometimes really convincing people. I like to give examples. I often ask people to think about, you know, our railroad tracks and the system that moves all of the cargo across this country. People every day are on these railroad tracks. The width of them. Was it based on study? Is it the most advanced width, you know, that we could come up with? Or is it based on the horse and buggy that they used to build that first set of tracks? And are we still limited by that? Absolutely. That's infrastructure. You know, that's what we're trying to think about in terms of human services and this opportunity to reimagine.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's really important to acknowledge when these systems and institutions were created, they were created for certain folks in mind. We had a lot of people in the population that were not considered human at that time, right? So children of color, communities of color simply just weren't even thought of in terms of service, how we were going to take care of, look after children, make sure families had what they need. When you look at the even the history, the root of these foundations, these institutions are rooted in systemic inequities, right? Very deliberate in a time of racial hierarchy, which Shaka said we're still grappling with today. But to understand the origin of that is so important so that people can look at all of the different indicators around well-being and understand why we see these disparities today. This isn't new. This is by design.

SPEAKER_03:

The foundation that you've just set, I think is clearly critical to your mission and to the work that you're doing. How does the understanding of that history inform how we might reimagine these institutions and transform them to be just, fair, and equitable for all?

SPEAKER_00:

For us, it's really critical. Um, oftentimes we're in meetings with professionals, we're breaking down how these issues are really landing, you know, at the point of an intervention. So you think of justice, you think of child welfare, you think of all these different moments. And the professionals are set up to grapple with a larger structural issue with a whole set of limitations. And so for generations now, we've seen reform efforts, we've seen community-based efforts, movements come together, we've seen government-led initiatives, we've seen foundation-led initiatives. There has been no shortage of efforts to try to figure out how to gain more success out of our collective, you know, service provisions, human services intervention approach to dealing with these structural inequities that are much, to me, much larger than those individual efforts have the capacity to overcome. And so, you know, having studied that and kind of worked across the country in over 300 jurisdictions and seen from large cities to very small localities the limits of what people even feel they can do. So you're sitting in a meeting, you know that what you're seeing is wrong. It is no part of your being feels good about what's happening with these families, with these young people, with the elders, with whomever it is you're working with. And yet, more often than not, people have had to normalize separating their values and how they feel from what they can and cannot do as professionals, what we can't do as community members, and with the resources of a family. You know, all of us have had limits in our role and what we can't do. And a lot of that is due to the fact that we haven't addressed the fundamental structures that we're really adhering to. And we're trying to squeeze a better tomorrow out of those same trail railroad tracks. And it's a limit how fast you can move a train and how much you can do without rethinking the tracks themselves. And all you have to do is look at the maglev, those trains that can go as fast as an airplane. Those tracks have been reimagined. They planned for it, they built a new system, you know, and we can do that. We can, we believe we can identify what we actually need to do, use our creative imagination, science, informed by research, and all the kind of beautiful things that you can do to come together to advance a practice. Um, but we think it it takes a fundamental investment in time and a shift in how we show up and really leaning into those values that people hold sacred that were fundamental to their experience and that you know we can bring into the professional space.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I we understand this can be challenging for folks to let go of some of what you've been taught, which you have thought was right for a long time. And yet when we do examine the history and we see it was people just like us making decisions, trying to do things, right? And so we totally have the capability to like kind of own the failures of today, right? This is our watch now, this is our time. And so we can really push ourselves to go beyond what things have been tried and tested and these incremental changes and reforms to really say, like, yeah, every every way we have tweaked this has not worked. Let's just really tear it apart and start anew and really bring together folks who historically have not been a part of that conversation and typically are those um most impacted, right, by these institutions that we're talking about. So I mean I mean it's an exciting time, right? I think it can be daunting for folks, but truly, I think we we look at the reimagining of these things as really uh one of the greatest opportunities we have.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that you actually land on we have the opportunity to own this, because as I listen to all of this, the conversation, the history, the generations, I think about the fact that if we are actually gonna successfully dismantle structural racism within human services and our systems of government, we actually have to approach them. We've got to go into them. We have to have spaces where we create conversations within them. So, how do you go about creating those spaces in a way within these systems that provokes reflection and growth?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's such a great question. And and truly, like this is often what we call at the Burns Institute. Like this, this is truly like the nexus of our work is to really create that space for authentic conversation for people, right? To get to know people. And I'll say the first, probably the first caveat to this is where folks uh struggle with us a little bit in terms of nobody has time for relationship building, for trust building. Only you cannot have authentic conversation and truly innovate together if you have not built the trust and relationship for folks to feel they can take the risk of sharing an idea, right? Establishing a sense of shared values, things that really matter to folks. And so I know, you know, a lot of times we bring folks into partnership, and even when people are introducing themselves, something as simple as we don't want to hear your title. Just say your name. Who are you? Where are you from? Who are your people? Tell us, tell us about yourself, right? And tell us what you need from the rest of us in the room for you to actually just be comfortable being yourself. And it's been really amazing where you have folks who are in very different types of positioning, whether you're a community advocate, whether you're somebody who's been impacted by the system, whether you're somebody who's an elected official, when you're at the table in partnership and people can just be people, it just opens us up for a very different conversation and very real conversations around what do we as individual people need? What do we want for our children and families? And why shouldn't we want that for each other's children and families, right? And really just kind of center us in a sense of shared values. Because it's important to say, like incremental reform, we've seen is a data-driven process, right? And while we can acknowledge that yes, data is important, it helps kind of give us our vital signs of how we're doing. But what we're talking about, like transformative change, like where we really need to go, oh man, that that is a very different process. That is um that is people coming together and really changing hearts and minds, really leaning in and establishing a values-driven process. We've never seen a values-driven institution before. What does that look like? How effective could that be? What if every decision we made for everything that came across our desk was in complete alignment with the values that we govern our lives by? That would be a very different set of circumstances.

SPEAKER_02:

When you say coming in, you know, name, no title, in my head, I saw people being like, you know, on the tracks, on the ground, those tracks are laid over, on the wheels. You have this structure of system where we get in this, you know, title masks essentially what the system feels like, does, operates in your life in and of itself.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love that. I mean, and the relationships that Sam describes is fundamental. So it's it's almost like a giant contradiction that the that where it begins often is like we don't really have why are we doing this? Why are we spending so much time getting to know each other? That seems crazy to people. But literally, in the moment that it's happening, people turn and it's like, I've known you for 20 years, I didn't know any of this about you. That matters fundamentally that we could be dealing with things that are so important and impact you because they hit you in your soul, your heart. This is this is not small work or simple things. These work people bring home with them. It's very personal for a lot of people. Yet we don't know each other when we're supposed to deal with all of these highly intense conversations in a country that hasn't taught itself how to talk about the histories of what's happened here in a way that is, you know, helps people move forward. All of this is thrown into the mix at once, and it's usually under timelines that have not accounted for any of what Sam laid out. And so that is a big challenge, you know, that we feel that's a structural challenge to it. And it's also no one's job. I'll just, you know, add that. It's really no one's job to reimagine the structures that we are all working within. These are all things that we can play around with. You can get your hands in the mud and think like, what if we all saw it as part of our jobs for the next 10 years to really assess the structures that we're in and make strong proposals about new structures that we think absolutely would be much better use of resources and investment of our time. And I don't know that we have 10 years because it seems that those who are in power are deconstructing so many structures right now without a clear sense of what the plan might be, or if it is, you know, it's not always a plan that seems to be open to the access of the moment that is needed for today. And so to pick up strategies that we know haven't worked is something that we're trying to avoid. And we think it's much more intelligent to make the time right now. It's with the sense of urgency is around actually slowing down enough and creating enough space to do that level of thinking so that we have a clear sense of where we're going and we can plan accordingly and begin to build, you know, those new set of tracks. Uh, maybe it's all electric, so now we have to do build charging stations here. You put solar panels in there, you're trying to make it sustainable, and we see that it's just a need to weave all these things together and create space for us to all just reimagine ourselves winning. And, you know, last shout out is if you can find videos or movies of humans winning, please send them our way. Um, we think there's a real shortage of examples of us figuring ourselves out. And there's way too many examples of us failing. We need examples of humans figuring it out. What does that look like? Why is our creative juices not pouring in that direction?

SPEAKER_01:

He actually just touched on something we have really talked about a lot. And this is that um, you know, I have a lot of family from Toronto, Canada. It's where I'm from, and they, you know, passed legislation that all cars will be electric cars by 2026, right? Well, that's tomorrow. And you could imagine there's a uh somewhat of an excitement about that and a huge nervousness. And what has to happen is a decision was made, right? This was a decision made that folks believed would be better for the quality of the country, right? And now there's a mad dash to build infrastructure. So you see folks tearing up roads, ensuring that there are charging mechanisms placed within the parking lots where people live to make sure they have access to that. There's a whole infrastructure that goes with the decisions that we're making, right? And I think, like Shaka said, things are being deconstructed in rapid speed right now. And we've got to come together and really start reimagining, okay, where are we going? What's the North Star? What are we recreating? Because then the path to actually implementing that becomes very clear and it's very doable. And I think we have this like idea that something that we can't imagine it or we can't see it, we don't know how to get there. But once we know what we're looking at, absolutely, step by step, this is what we do, that we are people, we build together, we we create the map.

SPEAKER_03:

So you both have spoken powerfully about these tensions that have arisen or that arise within our society, within our communities, even within our workforces that that surface when we're confronting change and really transformational change, especially when we consider Shaka's metaphor about our antiquity trading system and moving into and reimagining a future system that requires new knowledge, it requires new technologies, and it requires an understanding of the real needs in our communities, right? So if you could help us understand, first and foremost, the difference between, say, reforming systems, right, tinkering, incrementally changing our systems as they've existed historically, versus really reimagining and transforming systems and how the Burns Institute puts it in practice. And what I'm particularly interested within that is how you at the Burns Institute are challenging those kind of mental models that keep people stuck in that historical approach and that in that tinkering with systems that we've seen have quite frankly not worked for too many individuals, families, communities.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is I I love this question. Um, so thank you. I mean, fundamentally for us, there's a few things that you named in that, right? And and certainly getting from the reform to transformational change. But the first part is like the tensions, right? Naming those tensions. And I think part of what we do in even establishing like the trust building and having the required authentic conversations is to actually normalize the tension. Things are uncomfortable for people. Conversations aren't difficult. We choose to say they're difficult or they make us uncomfortable so they're difficult. But we're just, they're words, we're having conversations. And so I think for us, we do definitely try to normalize the tension because there was a time where we would all do great and we could debate each other, and there was these great American intellectual debates that would then lead to different types of creations and innovations. And yet somehow we've become so conflict diverse that we dare not present an idea that's different or that may be perceived as against the norm of what's happening, right? And so totally just normalizing the fact that conflict exists in conversations where innovation happens, right? So I think it's just, you know, immediately normalizing that we have exercises where we're asking folks to discuss how they want to address tension. How do you want to address the group if something that some someone said is um particularly offensive to you, right? How do you want to name that? Let's just establish some group norms and normalize dealing with this conflict or something that could be misunderstood or land in a difficult way. So I think that that's like number one.

SPEAKER_00:

To do reform, you have to know the limits. You have to understand the limits. You can't just be out there thinking you're gonna just do whatever you want. So anybody who's ever done reform has usually run up into the limits of what the structure will allow. Unless maybe you have you've been doing something very different than our experience, but in our experience, often would be informed by what structural limitations we had to account for, the structural limitations of the agencies that we were partnering with. Everybody had a uniquely intimate understanding of these limitations that were due to these larger structural issues. And again, it was who no one's job to then turn around and propose a structural change because that was so much larger than the one jurisdiction. And those people felt like they had no ability to control for that. So that's where when I started off saying it's no one's job, that's a really a structural issue. Because the what does end up happening, or at least our experience has manifested in a in more elected officials who do have that level of power, they can say, hey, I want you all to try this. But usually they have to give you a time parameter, and then it's handed over. So there's a lot of structural components that need to be accounted for in what we're talking about, right? And all of it is the is the potential opportunity, but it's it's it's born out of that experience of seeing intimately the limits of what the current structure offers. And watching professionals over and over get frustrated with being like, well, why can't we just what if we just change this larger structural thing in a meeting, but then there's nowhere to go with that? So we've kind of didn't let that go as an organization and said, no, there's actual that we should be doing, creating space to really dig into that.

SPEAKER_01:

I just wanted to add the second part of your question was around uh getting folks to really change their mental models. And I think even acknowledging and getting folks to truly examine the mental models that they hold is incredible. I mean, you would think this is something that is commonly practiced in human services, only it's not. But if you look at, you know, corporate Fortune 500, they're all dissecting their mental models and how this functions to create and innovate in the areas that they work. And so we also need to engage in that. I think for us it's also just being very clear in naming. There is something that we are all doing right now that is protecting the status quo. Why are we doing that? What is it that we believe? What is at the root of our value system that is actually making our behaviors contribute to this, right? Let's examine that, let's pull it apart. I think one of the you know important things for us to do is first just really acknowledge and and wrestle with our own mental models and what we, you know, what we've been taught, what we've been conditioned to believe, and and really trying to create some space to be okay with the possibility that some of what we have been taught may be incorrect. Just the possibility of that, right? And then if we can dance in that space, oh man, let's now let's now really think about what we want to see, what we want to believe, what what do we want to really govern our actions? How do we really want to think about this? I think all of us have been in places and jobs, and this goes beyond human services, where maybe you're asked to do something or there are tasks that a task that you're fulfilling, and you're actually like quite uncomfortable with it, right? Like, um, I don't really like this, I just gotta do it. And and so let's just eliminate that. Like, what if we truly believed in 100% every action that we take, every move that we make, every thought that we have, right? It it is an alignment with who we are as people, alignment with our values, and just these types of um internal conflict shouldn't exist, and particularly not in the sector of human services.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, the idea in our human services and our systems of government, when we run into the realities of capacity, we have this trick of the mind where we rationalize away how we can't do something. And when we do that, we return to those mental models. So everything you're saying is getting kind of the juices flowing about keeping that on the forefront of our mind so we don't lose it in return.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, thank you again for providing that context of how the Burns Institute is doing this work and aspiring to really set transformative change across our country and particularly in our human services. And so when we think about this sort of transformational change that we're we're seeking here, the question becomes how we make it scalable. So, how do you at the Burns Institute work to scale this to meet the needs of our communities across the country?

SPEAKER_01:

So this is kind of making me laugh a little bit because Burns Institute's approach to scale runs counter, I think, to every philanthropic investor who has supported our work like ever. And we say that humbly, right? Uh because uh lot of you know great partnerships in the field really just get bigger and bigger and bigger and spread out into all these places. And I think our approach to this is very quite different. Um, we at the Burns and Seoul, a relatively small, you know, national organization, we can come to different places and be a part of community change. And in doing that, we actually always partner with folks in community. So every place that we work, there is a partnership immediately established with community members who live in these neighborhoods, who will be a part of this discussion, who will start having these authentic conversations, who will build trust across these sectors, that will bring non-traditional partners together, that will begin to implement like a real appetite for change. Um, and that is how we scale, right? In every so we're there, we're helpful, we're partners, we're in it. But whether somebody from the Burns Institute is there or not, this work will continue to grow. Once you spark change, it is hard to tame the flame. And so we definitely do that at a community level with folks who are there, who will be there, and continue to just take this on and let it run without us. We we don't need to be part of the final blossoming, but boy, when we see seeds grow, it is a just a phenomenal feeling.

SPEAKER_02:

Sam and Shaka, it has been an absolute pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for the conversation, and thank you for being in the room at the 2025 PCA America National Conference.

SPEAKER_00:

It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

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