Equity Statement
Family Compass stands against racism, oppression, and injustice, all of which are embodied in the recent and historic murders of Black people in our communities across the country.
The conversations we've had at our agency around this are not new. We are an agency that "teaches" for our profession. Over the years and most recently we've heard from the families we work with how hard it is to have no choice but to teach their own child to behave differently than other children in order to be safe because of the color of their skin. We have witnessed the pain it causes a parent to know, whether their child learns it from them or not, that at some point they can expect to be treated differently. These are examples straight from our team, many of whom have faced similar experiences. These incidents are echoed, magnified, and repeated throughout the families we serve and the communities in which we live.
Our mission is to stop child abuse and neglect before they can happen. There are three factors that, especially when combined, can lead to child abuse and neglect: stress in the home, living conditions in communities, and the way parents were raised themselves. Our success in our mission rests on our ability to help decrease stress in the lives and homes of the families we work with and to help parents change the future trajectory of their children's lives. The stress of living under oppression is a barrier we must overcome. It is cumulative, significant, and destructive. However, it doesn't have to and shouldn't be this way.
We don't have all the answers. We are committed to continuing to ask the questions, to have the dialogue, and to work towards effective change. We are committed to continuing to create internal opportunities for our team to process, share, support, bear witness and listen. We are committed to ongoing learning and deep exploration of our own biases. We are committed to supporting the families and communities we serve as they deal with the trauma of their lived experiences. We are committed to working with our partners in our community who stand with us in the fight for equity and inclusion as we know this must be a collective effort.
This commitment rests not only at the core of our mission but at the very core of our humanity.