In short: This year, our small peer support team has stood with parents through the hardest moments of their lives — and witnessed children return home. Eight families are whole again, with more beginning the journey of restoration. In a system that too often silences and fragments, lived experience has lit the way forward. Peer support doesn’t just ease the struggle; it changes outcomes. Families heal. Communities strengthen. And step by step, hope grows into change.
This year, our tiny, underfunded peer support team has walked alongside many parents through the hardest fight of their lives.
Together, we’ve supported 8 families to bring their children back home where they belong.
And for a few more families, the restoration process has begun – the first steps in a long journey, but steps filled with hope.
In a system where families get lost in risk based deficits narratives, paperwork and processes, peer support makes the difference.
✨ We help parents navigate the maze.
✨ We stand with them through grief and loss.
✨ We help them find their voice.
✨ And we’re building a community where families support each other – because no one should walk this road alone.
This is what happens when lived experience is at the heart of change: children come home. Families heal. Communities grow stronger.
Yes, 12 children is a small number compared to the many across the state who should be home.
But every step matters and we can build what we learn here into bigger change for families everywhere.
We know there’s so much more work to do.
Every day, families are fighting against a system they are invisible in.
But we will keep showing up, keep pushing, and keep finding ways to make parents visible - so children don’t have to grow up without them!
And so parents know they matter.
