Chapin Hall

When Chapin Hall Policy Analyst Ashley Maldonado was required to take parenting classes as the result of a child protective services (CPS) case investigating her ex’s abuse of their eldest daughter, she was ultimately asked to co-lead the classes. Only in her early twenties, she’d already endured countless visits from CPS to her childhood home, a one-bedroom, Section 8 apartment where she and her four siblings lived with their volatile mother. Her grandmother would sometimes come and take all of them, but they’d always end up back with their mother after their mom promised to make changes. They’d always been told what to say when a social worker came around but, at 17, Ashley could no longer live with the lies or with her mother.

“I knew how I was expected to share information with social workers and what I wasn’t. My mom had me when she was very young—at 18—and I don’t know that she ever mentally progressed beyond that age, so I found myself at the whim of a quite immature parent who sometimes saw me as an opposing force. I had to learn to navigate it all and was threatened with what would happen if we told social workers what we were going through; there was never a safe way to share.”

Ashley finally decided to open up to social workers and school psychologists, who reported what was happening to CPS. A judge wouldn’t allow her to live with her beloved grandmother, so she went into foster care but, finally, her aunt, who is only four years her senior, was allowed to take custody of her. At only 17 and 21, she and her aunt took over Ashley’s grandmother’s mortgage. It wasn’t until a sibling ended up in a psychiatric unit that Ashley’s younger siblings were also removed from her mother. They were promptly moved into the home Ashley and her aunt had prepared for them.

A bright student, Ashley graduated from high school early to help support her family. After a lifetime of caring for her siblings, the long days without children around left a gap she was ready to fill. She moved in with her boyfriend (over her aunt’s objections), dropped out of college as his controlling behavior escalated, and gave birth to her oldest daughter when she was 19. “I was young, but I was a good mom, but I was also in an abusive relationship, which is hard.”

She attempted to continue her education many times (moving between all manner of majors, such as aeronautical engineering and creative writing to start, then early childhood education, and finally human services), but it always fell lower on the list of priorities than supporting her family and her partner’s own education. At one point, Ashley attempted to leave the abusive relationship, but a serious car accident that left her unable to care for her daughter alone forced her back. Although it wasn’t sustainable, Ashley is glad she returned as it gave her a second daughter.

When her ex left for a job in another county, she and her daughters thrived without him and Ashley proceeded with a separation. Having not met her own father until she was 20 years old, she did not want to keep her daughters from their father. Her older daughter, who was closely bonded with her dad, had been grieving that relationship. It was, at first, a relief to Ashley when the kids’ dad started taking them overnight so they could further bond with him and she could have a break. That arrangement ended abruptly when Ashley’s older daughter revealed to her that her dad had abused her. As a mother and a mandated reporter, she didn’t hesitate to call the police and an investigation began.

“I hadn’t expected that I would be under the magnifying glass as much as I was,” she said. She was advised that the state was trying to terminate her ex’s parental rights, but, much to her shock at her first related court date, “they also said they were going to charge me with failing to protect my daughter. According to them, I should have known that he was going to abuse her.”

She was ordered to attend parenting classes and, given her lifelong experience navigating the child welfare system and work with children with autism, was asked to colead them shortly after she started. Meanwhile, the investigation dragged on for years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her ex retained visitation with their younger daughter; her older daughter required therapy as a result of his abuse. Ashley was forced to quit her school job due to the stress of the ongoing investigation combined with her daughter’s trauma and her ex’s frequent restraining order violations that brought police to her door. However, she was soon hired by a nonprofit to work with parents in similar situations.

“Being able to work remotely as a parent-partner was such a blessing and to be able to help other parents who were going through what I was going through was so impactful,” Ashley said.

Through the nonprofit and California’s parent leadership network, she began working at the state level on California’s Title IV-E Prevention Services Plan in compliance with the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA). The FFPSA is a bipartisan law enabling states to use federal funds for evidence-based prevention initiatives designed to strengthen families before child welfare involvement becomes necessary. She led focus groups to elevate community voices rarely included in policy conversations.

Her diligence caught the eye of a colleague who encouraged her to apply to the Capacity Building Center for States, a federally funded technical assistance provider helping public child welfare agencies implement FFPSA. As a family consultant for the Center, Ashley moved from state-level work to supporting FFPSA efforts across the country. She helped agencies better engage the people in their communities, in some cases made the case for why that engagement mattered at all.

Unfortunately, in some jurisdictions where she worked, some people viewed lived experts as interchangeable and were happy to have “just her” as a lived expert to check the box for federal requirements to engage the communities they serve. She would always quickly clear this up by reminding them that she didn’t have specific experience in their jurisdiction and couldn’t tell them what was working well and what wasn’t. She went on to serve as an expert child welfare consultant at two well-known firms, aiding various jurisdictions with programs building wraparound services to assist families before child welfare intervention is necessary.

She’d connected with Chapin Hall employees when she was working in other jobs. “I never thought I could be on the same level as them; it was something to aspire to, not somewhere I thought I was currently,” she said. “I didn’t expect much when I applied but, somehow, I ended up here.” She’s elated to now work with jurisdictions in her home state of California, something she’d not had the chance to do at other jobs.

“I’m making a difference in the system that I grew up in and I’m doing what I’m passionate about: helping bring more folks with lived experience to the table; helping them guide decision-making for things that are going to impact them and their peers and their neighbors. It’s exciting and it’s inspiring,” she said.

She knows working as a lived expert consultant can be intimidating to some, especially when they are confronted with unfamiliar acronyms and or complex bureaucracy within the child welfare sphere, but she emphasizes that the most important part of that job is knowing how to reach people who have recently experienced systems. In fact, she points out, her own lived experience with Los Angeles County when she was a child is “outdated” now since many things have changed over the years. “If we’re doing Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)—consistently reviewing & upgrading systems—correctly, it isn’t the same system as it was back then.”

She is especially passionate about removing barriers that prevent lived experts from participating—and ensuring that participation itself doesn’t cause further harm. Often, changing systems for the better means working with the people those systems have hurt and truly learning from their experiences.

“You’ve got to be able to engage the folks who didn’t have the best experience with your system. And I know that that’s hard because they don’t necessarily like you, and they don’t trust you and that’s fair,” she said. “So, let’s talk about how we can rebuild trust and repair relationships. And let’s reset our expectations that they don’t have to like you or trust you initially and that they’re going to tell you things that might be hard to hear, but that’s what you need them for.”

In her own experience during the hiring process for lived experts at a nonprofit, she was compelled to give feedback on how difficult the process would be for lived experts who were unable to complete high school due to the very circumstances that qualified them to be a lived expert.

Ashley said, “So, what are we doing to be sure that the people that we’re inviting to the table to help impact decisions aren’t just the people that successfully navigated a system, aren’t just the people that can understand our jargon? What are we doing to make sure that we’re broadening the folks that we’re talking to?”

She also warned about the damage that can occur if people with lived experience are asked for input but never hear back from those who asked and never see what came of their participation. They are not likely to return to share their experience and not likely to recommend their peers engage.

“It’s complex and it’s hard. And we’re working with systems that are overtaxed. Folks who work in child welfare are beyond their capacity already, so to add another thing for them to do, that’s hard and it takes reflection, and it takes intent, and it takes thoughtfulness. Sometimes it’s asking too much and sometimes they’re not going to do it, but they have to be the ones building and maintaining those relationships. They have to be the ones shifting their organizational culture to care more about the communities that they serve in a way that doesn’t just see them as folks who will receive their services but sees them as folks who should help design their services.”

Ashley is currently developing an evidence-based, equity-grounded guide to help California’s counties and two tribes hire lived expert, community expert, and tribal expert consultants. Ideally, each county will hire one of each. Importantly, the state is paying for these positions, so those hired will be well compensated for their expertise. This has been part of a wider discussion in the child welfare field about power-sharing. However, Ashley prefers to refer to it as “neutralizing the power,” a phrase a peer of hers introduced her to. “Because when you’re sharing power, it implies that you’re still controlling the power and who gets it. But if you can neutralize it, that creates a more level playing field.”

Often Ashley feels the weight of all lived experts on her shoulders. It’s critical to her that lived experts continue to have a rightful place in conversations about systematic improvement, and that can feel burdensome.

“I feel like there’s additional pressure on me as a professional, as an individual—like I won’t be afforded the same mistakes that a person who has the educational and professional background may be because I am not just representing Chapin Hall, I’m representing lived experts,” she said. “If for some reason I don’t live up to the expectations, why would they hire more folks with lived experience? So, in every role I’ve ever been in, I’ve had to think of not just me, but the folks who I want to come with me, alongside me, and after me.”

Helping her on her path are her supervisor, Chapin Hall Senior Policy Analyst Regina Crider, and her mentor, Chapin Hall Policy Analyst Shontay Olson. Ashley felt like getting to Chapin Hall was the pinnacle of her career, but Regina and Shontay continue to assure her that she can and will go further, and they’re helping her map out her future.

“They allow me to keep reaching higher, and they see me going higher than I’ve ever seen myself going,” she said. “They just lift me up and I’m so grateful for them! With the two of them, I feel like I can do anything!”

The relationship Ashley and Shontay have built as mentor and mentee has been particularly valuable for Ashley as she turns her work into briefs and tools that can help others in the field.

“Before this mentorship, I hadn’t even considered that creating a policy brief was something I could do. Shontay changed that. She helped me understand what policy briefs are, what purpose they serve, and shared resources to deepen my understanding of the different types,” Ashley said. “I’m still developing several briefs, but Shontay helped me build something more important first—the belief that I could write them at all.”

There are three other people in her life who also uplift her daily: her daughters and her husband. She now has a tween and an 8-year-old, and both are “wildly creative” with many interests, hobbies and abilities. Her tween is a digital artist and plays the flute. She also excels on the debate team at school. Her younger sister attends the competitions and has learned to build very solid arguments for things she wants. Often those things are books. This year she’s already read the entire Harry Potter series (over 4,000 pages) and it’s only May. The four share a love of music and often go to shows together. Ashley met her husband while working for the nonprofit where she was asked to colead parenting courses and he served as a data analyst. They’ve been happily married for 3 years, and he loves being a stay-at-home dad, often volunteering in the girls’ classrooms and chaperoning field trips.

“He keeps us all fed and cared for. I don’t know what I’d do without him, and I tell him all the time,” Ashley said. “We have a life I never dreamed was possible—part of it was all the nonsense I had to go through, but I never would’ve met him if I hadn’t had to take the parenting classes. I’d never be here at Chapin Hall without everything I went through. It’s a real lesson in taking the lemons life gives you and turning them into lemonade. . . and now we’re sipping!”