Alia is a systems change leader, coalition builder, and public health professional with deep experience advancing equity and improving outcomes for children, families, and communities. Throughout her career, she has worked across public health, policy advocacy, organizational development, philanthropy, and community-driven systems transformation.
Most recently, Alia served as Deputy Director at Kids Forward, a Wisconsin-based organization where she helped lead a statewide policy and systems-change agenda focused on family wellbeing, youth justice, health, immigration, and early childhood policy. She is also Co-Founder of nINA Collective, an equity and strategy consulting practice, and served as an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health.
Alia is passionate about helping organizations and communities translate bold ideas into meaningful action. Her work has centered partnership-building, community co-design, policy change, leadership development, and creating the conditions for children and families to thrive. She also co-hosts Another Way is Possible, a community-powered podcast from the nINA Collective that explores what it means to co-create a racially equitable future rooted in belonging, justice, and co-liberation through collective wisdom, storytelling, and transformational conversations.
Outside of work, Alia is a proud mother of five and “Ouma” to three grandchildren. She enjoys boxing, hiking, reading, traveling, writing, and developing new ideas and frameworks—including her recent work, The Joy Doctrine. She is also an enthusiastic Chicago Bears and Wisconsin Badgers fan and loves following women’s college basketball (especially the Gamecocks coached by Dawn Staley).
In 2026, Foster America marks a decade of building an alternative to a child welfare system rooted in crisis—and proving that families thrive when support comes early, with dignity, and led by community.
