It is going to take a long time and a lot of work, investment, and care to help our communities heal and rebuild. Each of you will play a key part - but you need healing and care too. To help our communities rebuild - we need to make sure we're taking care of ourselves and each other and building resilience

The blatant injustice and violence of the past year has opened a lot of eyes. Human service orgs will continue to play a key role in fighting for justice and addressing the impact of the systemic racism oppressing our communities, but we also have to look at our own role in perpetuating, and supporting racist systems. What does it take to build anti-racist organizations and dismantle white supremacy in human services?

This past year has made absolutely clear how critical our community well-being is, but also how little understood and valued our sector’s role in maintaining it is. Human service orgs are instrumental in building a community’s strong foundation and a strong human service infrastructure is critical for what lies ahead. We need a better framework to make sure our role, and our expertise is fully understood and appreciated by funders, by our government partners, and by the public.