Center-Hosted Events
February 25, 2019 – 18th Ward Candidate Forum
Co-Sponsored by Covenant Blu Neighborhood Association & Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being
Covenant Blu Neighborhood Association and Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being co-hosted a public 18th Ward Aldermanic Candidate Forum on February 25th, 2019. As Alderman Terry Kennedy’s long tenure as the 18th Ward Alderman and his leadership of the Aldermanic Black Caucus draws to a close, the Forum provided a timely opportunity for residents and the surrounding community to hear from candidates about issues that impact our community. Candidates highlighted their public policy proposals and responded to questions.
Covenant Blu Neighborhood Association (CBNA) is a resident-led association currently representing both the 18th and 19th wards of the City of St. Louis. CBNA aims to continue neighborhood development and increase the community's voice in decision-making. Local initiatives of CBNA include, neighborhood clean-up days and bi-monthly meetings to keep members updated about community issues and available local resources.
Just for Kids (J4K) Community Conversations are forums designed to introduce our community action tank, Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being, to the St. Louis region and amplify Deaconess Foundation’s commitment to Building A Community Just for Kids.
The J4K Community Conversations series is a set of public forums on topics that advance the work of child advocates through public policy and racial equity. The series is made possible with support from the estate of the late Mrs. Ruth and Rev. Carl C. Rasche, historian of The Deaconess Heritage and president emeritus of Deaconess Hospital, respectively.
April 19, 2018 – Building a Community Just for Kids
Marian Wright Edelman, Children’s Defense Fund
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families. The Children's Defense Fund’s Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. She has received over a hundred honorary degrees and many awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings which include: Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change; The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours, Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors, I'm Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children; I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children; and The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation. She is married to Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. They have three sons and four grandchildren.
August 3 & 4, 2018 – Fearless Dialogues
Dr. Gregory Ellison II, Emory University Candler School of Theology
FEARLESS DIALOGUES is a grassroots initiative that creates unique spaces for unlikely partners to engage in hard, heartfelt conversations that see gifts in others, hear value in stories, and work for change and positive transformation in self and other. Greg Ellison is the founder of Fearless Dialogues. Greg Ellison’s new book, Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice, uses interdisciplinary voices to provide school systems, local and regional initiatives, faith-based alliances, and partnership-minded organizations with a theoretical template for creating space, appropriating silence, fostering discussion, managing conflict, revealing strengths, nurturing strategic alliances and facilitating sustainable change.
The Rev. Dr. Gregory C. Ellison, II is associate professor of pastoral care and counseling at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Ellison’s research focuses on caring with marginalized populations, pastoral care as social activism, and 20th and 21st century mysticism. He is the author of Cut Dead But Still Alive: Caring for African American Young Men and Fearless Dialogues, and has another book in progress, Anchored in the Current: The Eternal Wisdom of Howard Thurman in a Changing World.
VIDEO: Dr. Gregory Ellison II | Just for Kids (J4K) Community Conversation: Fearless Dialogues
August 21, 2018 – Faith Communities and Child Welfare
Dr. William C. Bell, Casey Family Programs
WILLIAM C. BELL became president and chief executive officer of Casey Family Programs in January 2006. He chairs the Executive Team and is ultimately responsible for the vision, mission, strategies and objectives of the foundation. Prior to becoming president and CEO of Casey Family Programs, he served as the foundation’s executive vice president for Child and Family Services, providing strategic direction to nine field offices and leading a staff working directly with young people from the public child welfare system. Prior to joining Casey, he served as commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services.
Dr. Bell earned his Ph.D. in social welfare from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, his Master of Social Work degree from Hunter College School of Social Work, and his bachelor’s in biology and behavioral science degree from Delta State University. Dr. Bell is a member of the board of Philanthropy Northwest, Delta State University Foundation and the Campaign for Black Male Achievement. He serves on the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association board of trustees, and he is a member of the advisory board of the Racial Equity and Leadership Institute.
Casey Family Programs' Faith-Based Toolkit Executive Summary
September 20, 2018 – Equity, Growth and Community
Dr. Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California
MANUEL PASTOR is Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC). He currently directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and USC's Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). Pastor holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the inaugural holder of the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change at USC.
Dr. Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. His recent books include: Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas, Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civic Leadership for Immigrant Integration, Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions, Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Transforming Metropolitan America; Staircases or Treadmills: Labor Market Intermediaries and Economic Opportunity in a Changing Economy and Regions That Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together.
October 23, 2018 - How Change Happens
Leslie Crutchfield, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business
LESLIE CRUTCHFIELD is an author, the Executive Director of the Global Social Enterprise Initiative at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and a Senior Advisor at FSG Social Impact Consultants. Leslie is an author of three books, including Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits – recognized by The Economist on its Best Books of the Year list – and Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World, her third book releases soon, How Change Happens (forthcoming/Wiley 2018).
Leslie was previously a managing director at Ashoka, the global venture fund for social entrepreneurs, and she cofounded a national nonprofit social enterprise in her 20s. She has contributed to Fortune, Forbes, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Stanford Social Innovation Review, and has appeared on programs such as NPR and ABC News. Leslie has served as a trustee of SEED Foundation and Kiva, and volunteered with Crossroads Africa. She holds an MBA and BA from Harvard, and resides in the Washington, D.C. region.
VIDEO: Leslie Crutchfield Keynote | Just for Kids (J4K) Community Conversation: How Change Happens
VIDEO: Leslie Crutchfield Q&A | Just for Kids (J4K) Community Conversation: How Change Happens
Summer @ Deaconess Center
June 7 2019
Missouri Legislative Session De-brief on Child Well-Being hosted by Vision for Children at Risk
June 10 -July 26, 2019
Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School sponsored by Deaconess Foundation
July 17, 2019
CDF Freedom Schools Social Action Day