This panel was moderated by Erin Miles Cloud and featured Keri Hope Richmond, Michael Pinard, Valeria Gomez and Jennifer Mezey. Panelists described how they built community in their own lives and professional roles and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. They also explained how they define community – mostly broadly, as everyone is a…
CFCC’s keynote speakers, Sonia Cohen and Shereen White, left the audience speechless. Cohen shared her brother’s wish that one day, they would all be together again after being separated and put into the foster system due to her mother’s mental health struggles, substance use disorder, trauma and poverty. Cohen described painful experiences of the foster…
After welcoming remarks from University of Baltimore School of Law Dean LaVonda Reed and an overview of CFCC’s strategic plan from CFCC Executive Director Aubrey Edwards-Luce, the first panel of the CFCC 2025 Symposium gave a truthful accounting of the many systemic barriers that work against family well-being. Experts in law, public defense, mental health…
We celebrated CFCC’s 25th Anniversary on September 10, 2025 and hosted the CFCC 2025 Symposium on What Families Need in the Next 25 years on September 11, 2025, at the University of Baltimore School of Law. We are grateful to our amazing speakers and our thoughtful attendees for truth, inspiration, and healing they brought into…
By: Michele Hong CFCC has been operating the Tackling Chronic Absenteeism Project (TCAP) (originally the Truancy Court Program) since 2005. In recent years, the TCAP Team has observed higher rates of engagement from our middle school students. After reviewing the data and undergoing a comprehensive strategic planning process, CFCC decided to embark on a new…
Hello! My name is BI am a second-year law student (2L) at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Before law school, I earned my undergraduate degree in Marketing from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. During my undergraduate studies, I volunteered with the Court Appointed Special…
The CFCC’s 2024 Symposium, “Keeping Youth in Community: Policies, Practices, and Programs to Promote Youth Justice,” aimed to center the conversation about youth justice around data, humanity and community. The courts have consistently affirmed that the goal of the youth justice system is rehabilitation. Reforms that advanced the rehabilitative goal have led to a long…
By Arion Alston Working with middle school students and young adults for the Art and Poetry Showcase was a considerably rewarding and educational experience for me. The five middle school students I had the privilege of coaching were diligent, self-directed, enthusiastic, and above all they exhibited one of the most important aspects of performance studies:…
On Tuesday, October 1, 2024, CFCC hosted its annual symposium Keeping Youth in Community: Policies, Practices, and Programs to Promote Youth Justice at the University of Baltimore School of Law. This blog is one in a series of four posts about the CFCC’s 2024 symposium. The third panel of the symposium was titled “Bolstering Connection…