Fiscal experts tackle child welfare funding challenges

DENVER — Some of the most innovative minds in finance convened in Denver last week for Foster America’s first Fiscal Leadership Circle.

The Fiscal Leadership Circle, a new 12-month fellowship, brings together finance professionals from across the country who are committed to finding innovative ways to serve families involved in the child welfare system – with the aim of bolstering prevention programming.

“The Fiscal Leadership Circle is a peer group for people to share ideas,” said Don Winstead, owner of Don Winstead Consulting and a renowned child welfare fiscal expert. “It builds that infrastructure of support and knowledge in an area that is very specialized.”

Winstead, a member of this year’s FLC faculty, offered his expertise to the group as they discussed ways to overcome a fundamental challenge of keeping children out of foster care – that the system directs more funding toward out-of-home placement than any other intervention. 

The approach is costly – and a significant systemic barrier to creative and inclusive solutions to connect families with resources, said Deszeree Thomas, Foster America Director of Capacity Building and Learning Experiences.

“Fiscal leaders are not often positioned as innovators — they are implementers,” Thomas said. “The Fiscal Leadership Circle is an opportunity to empower them to make change and to give them the knowledge and resources that they need to do things differently.”

Throughout this unique professional development opportunity, fellows learn to use child welfare funding strategically, including by accessing diverse funding streams to maximize investment in prevention services. Each participant comes to the fellowship with a project to further over the course of the program.

“We want to help families, children and youth have the resources that they need – before crisis or system involvement,” said Foster America Fiscal Innovation Specialist D.L. Moffitt, who offers technical assistance to the fellows as they utilize these strategies to develop their projects.

The 2024 Fiscal Leadership Circle Fellows are:

• Director Ryan Adams, Iowa Family Resource Collaborative
• Federal Review Program Manager Jennifer Anderson, District of Columbia Child and Family Services
• Senior Director Kevin Clark, Good River Partners
• Strategic Initiatives Supervisor Dustin Koury, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families
• Assistant Professor and Safe Systems Practitioner Tiffany Lindsey, University of Kentucky, National Partnership for Child Safety
• Budget and Policy Analyst Samuel Matteson, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families
• Principal Planning Analyst Kara Kuo, Allegheny County Department of Human Services
• Chief Financial and Administrative Officer June Miller, Brighton Center KY
• Deputy Commissioner and Chief Financial Officer Margaret Pletkinoff, Division of Financial Services, NYC Administration for Children’s Services
• Chief Financial Officer Susan Roben, South Carolina Department of Social Services
• Child Fatality Review Program Manager Tami Kane-Suleiman, Oregon Department of Human Services
• Procurement Team Lead LaShunda Williams, Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services
• Division Manager Thad Paul, Larimer County Department of Human Services
• Executive Director Chris Stoner-Mertz, California Alliance for Child and Family Services