Shows
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #16: The Uber of Social IsolationEpisode # 16: CarePortal Founder & President Adrien Lewis Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.This week we’re continuing our exploration of a key constraint on child welfare policy. Social isolation is forcing a fundamental shift in how public systems think about state capacity in the context of partnerships with private organizations focused on care.A new class of mission-driven platforms is emerging that doesn’t fit traditional privatization models built around scopes of work and technical execution.Today’s guest embodies this shift.Adrien Lewis...
2026-02-2531 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #15: A Publicly Funded & Voluntary Alternative to Foster CareEpisode # 15: Safe Families Founder & Executive Director Dr. David AndersonWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.State capacity and the way it impacts last-mile policy delivery is a key constraint on child welfare policy.One strategy states use to surmount it is privatization. When people hear “privatization,” they usually think of government doing two things:* Delegating specific services to organizations to more efficiently execute; or* Contracting for specialized expertise it lacks capacity to build on its own.But there’s a different model...
2026-02-1833 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #14 Wendell Primus on Power & PolicymakingEpisode # 14: Wendell Primus on Child Welfare Financing & CongressWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.Child welfare financing is structurally stuck.Decades-old design choices have left dollars disconnected from outcomes — and fixing that will require more than better programs.It will require navigating power, process, and the small-p politics of how things actually move in Congress.Today’s guest sits squarely at this intersection.Wendell Primus served as Senior Policy Advisor on Health and Budget Issues to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi for nearly two deca...
2026-02-1135 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #13: Child Safety & Generative AIEpisode # 13: Teresa Huizar on Child Safety Policy & TechnologyWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.Technology is now moving faster than our ability to protect children from harm.Nowhere is that gap more visible than at the intersection of generative AI, social media, and child sexual abuse material.We don’t yet have answers to basic questions like: * Who owns your likeness?* What does consent mean in a digital world?* What responsibility should platforms bear when harm spreads at scale?Ou...
2026-02-0432 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #12: When Poverty Isn’t Just About MoneyEpisode # 12: Jedd Medefind on Complex PovertyWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.We’ve been exploring policy debates about poverty, cash assistance, prevention, and child welfare involvement to get beyond the oversimplifications.That debate often gets stuck because we rarely slow down to ask what we actually mean by a word like poverty, and what prevention can realistically address.This week we have a conversation that adds another layer.Jedd Medefind is the President of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, and held a leadership role in...
2026-01-2833 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #11: Rep. Danny Davis on Creating ChangeWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.Episode # 11: Ranking Member Danny Davis (D-IL) In an era of information overload and peak partisan polarization, why do the issues that policymakers talk about matter, and what does it mean to say that child welfare policy is bipartisan?Today’s guest sees policymaker attention and bipartisan conversation not as a communications strategy, but as core structural components of the long-term coalition building work necessary for legislative change.Congressman Danny Davis represents Illinois’ 7th congressional district, and currently serves as the Ranking Memb...
2026-01-2133 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #10: What's Missing in the Cash Assistance DebateWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.Episode # 10: Brightpoint President & CEO Mike ShaverWe’re now 30 years post passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the ‘96 welfare reform law that created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, reshaped child welfare financing, and fundamentally renegotiated the U.S. safety net.Thinkers across the ideological spectrum are increasingly elevating the ways that this policy from another era is now straining to meet the challenges of this one.A central question if we’re serious about moving beyond...
2026-01-1432 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #9: Testing TANF in TennesseeWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.Episode # 9: TN Human Services Commissioner Clarence CarterThis year marks the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF.After three decades, the debate remains lively—yet often largely misframed. It almost always centers on mechanics, design tweaks, or enforcement.Much rarer are the foundational questions: Why does TANF exist? What problem was it designed to solve? And by those standards, is it succeeding?Today’s guest is a leader who insists we s...
2026-01-0730 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #8: Solving Child Welfare Policy’s Last Mile ProblemWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.If this is your first listen, you can also check out Episode 0 here to learn more about our vision and focus, and subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Episode # 8: Author, Crisis Engineer, & Bureaucracy Hacker Marina NitzeChild welfare policy has a last mile delivery problem. We have no shortage of powerful ideas, and even get them codified in laws and regs. Where we come up short is the last mile delivery; taking a financing incentive or new program and...
2025-12-1735 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #7: Where Alex Adams is Leading ACFWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.If this is your first listen, you can also check out Episode 0 here to learn more about our vision and focus, and subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Episode # 7: ACF Assistant Secretary Alex AdamsThis week on WonkCast we’ve got Assistant Secretary Alex Adams, who now leads the Administration for Children and Families.Under his leadership, ACF is anchoring its child welfare agenda to a single accountability metric: the ratio of homes available to every child in foster care....
2025-12-1037 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast #6: Reshaping Family Matches with Online Dating Data ScienceWelcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.If this is your first listen, you can also check out Episode 0 here to learn more about our vision and focus, and subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Episode # 6: AdoptionShare Founder & CEO Thea RamirezToday’s guest, Thea Ramirez, Founder and CEO of AdoptionShare, is using the same data science that transformed online dating to reshape how we match children and families at scale.Her work starts with a simple but disruptive question: what if our child welfare system isn’t suff...
2025-12-0333 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast Episode 5: Former ACYF Commissioner Rebecca Jones GastonWelcome to the Thanksgiving week edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.If this is your first listen, you can also check out Episode 0 here to learn more about our vision and focus, and subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.From the team here at the Wonk, we wish all of you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. Episode # 5: Former ACYF Commissioner Rebecca Jones GastonThis week’s conversation digs into how people shape policy systems, how those systems shape the people within them, and why it matters for effective leadership.Re...
2025-11-2632 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast Episode 4: Former ACF Assistant Secretary Lynn JohnsonWelcome, Wonks, to another edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy, where we spotlight the people, ideas, and tensions shaping child and family policy.If this is your first listen, you can also check out Episode 0 here to learn more about our vision and focus, and subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.I hope you enjoy listening, and look forward to hearing from you about who else you’d like to hear from on WonkCast.Episode # 4: Former ACF Assistant Secretary Lynn JohnsonThis week we’re bringing you a conversation I had with...
2025-11-1933 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast Episode 3: Dr. Melissa MerrickWelcome, Wonks, to another edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy, where we spotlight the people, ideas, and tensions shaping child and family policy.If this is your first listen, you can also check out Episode 0 here to learn more about our vision and focus, and subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.I hope you enjoy listening, and look forward to hearing from you about who else you’d like to hear from on WonkCast.Episode # 3: Dr. Melissa MerrickThis week we have a conversation with Dr. Melissa Merrick, a public health le...
2025-11-1231 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast Episode 2: Rita SoronenRita Soronen is the President & CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Under her leadership, they’ve tested, proved, and taken to scale Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, an evidence-based approach to child-focused recruitment for adoption from foster care.We talk about how the motivations that bring you into this work can eventually become a hindrance you need to shed, the role and limits of evidence in driving policy change, and the creative practice she uses to continually push beyond her comfort zone as a leader. Learn more about Wendy's Wonderful Kids.This...
2025-11-0535 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyWonkCast Episode 1: Mary BissellOur first episode is an interview with Mary Bissell, Cofounder and Partner at ChildFocus. She’s a lawyer, policy and advocacy strategist, and entrepreneur who is a leader in child and family policy advocacy. Mary has made an enormous mark on child and family policy, and her influence has been in rooms where policy decisions happen dating back decades. We talk about the art of effective coalition leadership, something she learned as a protege of the late great MaryLee Allen, who mentored so many of us in this field.We also talk about kin...
2025-10-2928 min
WonkCast: People Power PolicyIntroducing WonkCast: People Power Policy.Introducing WonkCast: People Power Policy, where we spotlight the people, ideas, and tensions shaping child and family policy. In each episode, host Zach Laris talks with leading policy experts and decision makers about the future they're creating.We lift up conversations with the people who power child and family policy, and we also dig into:People. Leaders' background/"why"/significant mentors who shaped them;Power. Their perceptions of the levers of decision-making that shape what's possible.Policy. Their vision for what's possible and what's next in child and family polic...
2025-10-2903 min
The Imprint WeeklyMedicaid’s Enormous Role in Child WelfareA budget bill is moving through Congress that includes significant cuts to the Medicaid program, one the largest federal programs and the provider of health insurance for one in five people in America. And it has an outsized impact on the child welfare system, both in the prevention of families becoming involved with it and for children in foster care.Zach Laris, founder of Bolder Horizon and author of the Child Welfare Wonk blog, joins us to review the nexus of Medicaid and child welfare, and what the impact of cuts to the system might mean for...
2025-05-1845 minThe Imprint WeeklyFoster Care Prevention & Group Care Limits: The Family First Act Takes EffectOn this week’s podcast we discuss the end of some pandemic protections for current and former foster youth, what Canada’s reckoning with history on Native American children portends for America; exits from big lawsuits, and office-seekers of note in Alaska and Los Angeles.Zach Laris, director of federal advocacy and child welfare policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics, joins us for a deep dive on the Family First Prevention Services Act, which fully took effect in all states last week. Reading RoomNext Week, Thousands of Foster Youth Will...
2021-10-0451 min