SCO’s Jennifer Outlaw Participates in Leaders of Color National Summit

SCO Chief Program Officer Jennifer Outlaw participated in a 2-day summit hosted by Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) in partnership with Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) of the BBI Leaders of Color workgroup recently in Baltimore, MD. This group is comprised of 22 executive leaders from service providers and jurisdictional oversight agencies from across the United States.

The summit was a culmination of effort and flowed from two previous virtual summits conducted in 2021.

The Summit focused on three overarching themes:

• Cultural and Linguistic Competence (CLC) and Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) policies, procedures, standards, and practices that are intended to improve outcomes for youth and families
• AECF’s national effort to “End the Need for Group Care” Article
• The Center for the Study of Social Policy’s (CSSP) UpEND initiative – which works to undo the carceral nature of the Child Welfare system; visit https://upendmovement.org to learn more.

As a result of a highly interactive summit, the group emerged with a 2022 work plan as well as individual action steps that each leader will be taking back to their respective agencies for implementation.

SCO Family of Services has made a strategic commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Under the leadership of President and CEO Keith Little, SCO launched its DEI initiative in 2017 to engage leaders and staff at all levels of the agency’s workforce, instituting a mandatory two-day anti-racism training program for the entire leadership team, offering anti-racism training and ongoing implicit bias courses to all staff, and encouraging employees to participate in agency-sponsored workshops and forums.