Kojo Institute offers, “Daring to Do” tackling Anti-Black Racism in the Child Welfare System

BY PAUL JUNOR

For many years, Kike Ojo-Thompson has been at the forefront of providing organization leadership to address systemic issues within institutions and organizations in the public and private sectors.

She has served in several leadership capacities over the years. She was the senior manager of Diversity and Anti-Oppression in Peel Children’s Aid from 2006 to 2014, Strategic Advisor with the Ontario Street Checks Review from August 2017 to January 2019 and Senior Manager for the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies from January 2015 to March 2019.

She was the project lead for “One Vision One Voice,” a ground-breaking report that examined anti-Black racism in the child welfare system. She has received widespread mainstream media coverage from CityNews, CBC News, The Globe and Mail CP24, and has appeared on TVO Ontario and G98.7FM.

In January 1998, she started the Kojo Institute, where she serves as principal consultant. She utilizes her skills as an equity consultant; anti-racist, anti-oppression facilitator and practitioner to support organizations worldwide achieve equitable outcomes. In order to address on a much deeper and systemic level, Kojo Institute will be offering, “Daring to Do” to “Professionals who work with children. Its is an anti-racist, action-oriented framework for disrupting anti-Black racism in child welfare and child protection.”

It will be offered as three online workshop modules over three days on November 10^th, 17^th, and 24^th. Details can be seen at kojoinstitute.com.

Those who registered for these workshops at https:// bit.ly/3alHYmu will be equipped to:

• Recognize the ways anti-Black racism manifests in child welfare policies and practices.
• Identify the detrimental impacts of anti-Black racism on Black children and families.
• Understand your responsibility for becoming an active agent against anti-Black racism.
• Build your capacity to apply anti-racist, anti-oppression, and anti-colonial practices.
• Transform and improve outcomes for Black children and families in child welfare.

The first module on November 10^th, 2021, will focus on showing participants how anti-Black racism can be traced back to Canada’s colonial past, and how it is manifested in the child welfare systems.

In addition, they will learn how it is embedded in the legislation, constructs and policies that are currently in place. The second module on November 17^th, 2021, will focus on understanding the magnitude of anti-Black racism in the child welfare sectors by recognizing and naming it.

The third module on November 24^th, 2021, will focus on developing a practical framework that will directly tackle anti-Black racism at three levels: personal, institutional and community. Each session will be 1.5 hours long from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and recorded replays will be made available.

There will be a Certificate of Participation given after each learning series.