Devon Gilchrist Log 3

Before completing the fellowship, I had the opportunity to participate in several leadership development opportunities within my agency, within my field, and in my community. Those experiences allowed me to shape and define my leadership style, build leadership skills and capacity, and identify areas of needed growth. As part of my leadership development through the Bush fellowship, I sought to become a more dynamic, influential, and impactful child welfare leader. I believed that I needed more training and a deeper understanding of organizational management, systems change, and continuous quality improvement. I believe that through my personal and professional experiences as well as my completion of an organizational leadership master’s program and a public policy master’s program, I have gained deeper insight, understanding, and technical knowledge of organizational management, project management, and leadership which has significantly increased my leadership capacity. Through my attendance at national conferences, participation in virtual spaces with other child welfare leaders across the county, and completion of a national leadership development program for child welfare leaders, I have made ongoing connections with child welfare leaders and experts in many other states who have provided mentorship, guidance, and opportunities to learn and study their efforts. This has allowed me to be a better leader, motivator, thinker, and problem solver and reaffirmed many of my skills. I have expanded my capacities and knowledge of state and federal child welfare law, legislation, policy, and governance strategies. This has allowed me to develop stronger relationships with many elected officials and engage in deep strategic conversations around legislative and policy change efforts. I also have become a more powerful and purposeful leader to effectively transfer knowledge within public and community organizations to drive change to develop other leaders.

These skills, experiences, and connections have helped me grow into a more influential, impactful, and effective change agent/public leader with a greater capacity to think even bigger, broader, and deeper about social issues affecting child welfare. I have a wider systemic lens to analyze challenges within the current system and am better equipped to lead efforts to develop policy, collaborative strategies, and initiatives to create systemic change. I can think much more strategically, in both the short term and long term about how we as a community can advance legislative change and make responsive recommendations for policy and practice implementation in public systems that are stakeholder-led and promote the well-being of families and communities of color. I have had increased involvement in agency governance, organizational administration, and policy development to address sociological constructs and related issues that continue to impact families and communities at a systemic level. Furthermore, I have a more advanced understanding and leadership capability for addressing structural diversity and equity needs in child welfare and involvement in the processes through which critical decisions are made to ensure they equitably address the needs of children, families, and communities.

Throughout the fellowship, I’ve continued to think deeply about how communities and government agencies partner to solve complex social issues and have been more empowered to pursue initiatives to support this dynamic. I’ve reflected on my personal and professional experiences and the ongoing barriers to government agencies authentically and effectively connecting to and engaging communities. I have a greater capacity to develop strategies to bridge these gaps community-government partnerships and engagement gaps through my increased leadership skills related to leading collaborative governance strategies through which the community and government can partner to learn from each other and identify and target problems and develop solutions. Lastly, I’ve gained deeper and more meaningful insight and understanding of how to use my influence and position to reimagine and redesign an equitable child welfare system and how to lead other leaders through transformative system change