In this special crossover episode with Center for Care Innovations’s Health Pilots podcast, members of the BLOOM Clinic team at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland share how reflective supervision is helping them show up stronger for themselves, for each other, and for the families they serve. Hear as they discuss the emotional weight of pediatric primary care, the healing potential of reflective spaces, and how this trauma-informed, team-based model is helping to restore trust in healthcare, especially for Black families. Their story is one of mutual care, vulnerability, and collective strength.

Featuring members of the BLOOM Clinic team (Black Love Opportunity and Outcomes Improvement in Medicine Clinic) at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland: 

• Dr. Dayna Long, Primary Care Pediatrician 
• Dr. Justin Williams, Primary Care Pediatrician 
• Toby Eastman, Licensed Clinical Social Worker
• Fran Merriwether, Clinical Social Worker 
• Lisette Mazon, Resource Navigator
• Ronda Alexander, Former Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources

• Learn more about CCI’s Resilient Beginnings Network 
• Learn more about the BLOOM Clinic at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital  
• Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to In the Arena with NOW and Health Pilots 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing & Center for Care Innovations

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Episode Edited By: Wayfare & Resonate Recordings 

In this special crossover episode with Center for Care Innovations’s Health Pilots podcast, we explore how the Petaluma Health Center team in Point Reyes and Bolinas is reshaping healthcare with a dignity-centered approach. We're joined by guests, Judith Bravo and Christina Gomez-Mira, as they share their journey of fostering equity, trust, and connection within their clinic and community through their work in CCI’s Resilient Beginnings Network and their collaboration with Vital Village Networks. Together, they reflect on what it takes to build a more equitable, trauma-informed healthcare space—not just for patients, but also for staff. From addressing power dynamics within the clinic to deepening engagement with their rural Latino community, they share key moments of growth, learning, and challenge.

Featured guest:

• Judith Bravo, Patient Navigator, Point Reyes and Bolinas, Petaluma Health Center
• Christina Gomez-Mira, MD: Medical Director at Point Reyes and Bolinas, Petaluma Health Center
• Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources

• Learn more about CCI’s Resilient Beginnings Network 
• Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen Health Pilots 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing & Center for Care Innovations

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Episode Edited By: Wayfare & Resonate Recordings 

In episode seven, we visit the community of Travis County, Texas and speak with Dr. Michelle Gallas, a pediatrician who has worked for the last decade caring for children and families facing complex medical and social challenges that impact their health and wellbeing. Dr. Gallas reflects on her own personal journey that transformed her care approach away from an “illness” model toward a “health promotion” model. Serving as the lead pediatrician for the Centering Parenting program, she evokes the power of convivencia - “coexistence” or “coliving”- outside the home, an important perspective learned from her patients. She shares more about how this innovative group-based model of care brings together children and families for group well child visits, peer learning, and meaningful connections across critical life stages in a child’s first three years. Dr. Gallas highlights the power that’s generated when you find people who share your passion, and reflects on how healthcare workers are uniquely positioned to honor the full spectrum of human connection - from pain to joy - through their work. 

Featured guest:

• Dr. Michelle Gallas, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In our sixth episode, we continue our conversation with Julie Garreau, Chief Executive Officer, Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP), and a 2022 Community Food Systems Fellow. We learn more about CRYP's intentional approach to developing expansive programs that are centered on interconnected healing, including the WInyan Toka Win Garden, which was started by community elders — including Julie’s mother — and has since become the heart of the youth project’s Native food sovereignty initiative and a precious source of sustenance, healing, safety, and trust. Julie reflects on the inherent wisdom and self-sufficiency of communities, recognizing that “we have the answers, we have the solutions,” and speaks to the importance of changing how organizations do business so they are able to center healing and indigenous practices and strengthen pathways for future leaders. 

Featured guest:

• Julie Garreau, Chief Executive Officer, Cheyenne River Youth Project 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources

• Cheyenne River Youth Project Website: www.lakotayouth.org 
• Lakota in America, a short documentary commissioned by Square
• Waniyetu Wowapi (Winter Count), an award-winning documentary produced by CRYP
• CRYP-produced documentary films on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/Lakotayouth 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

As we reflect on last year and look ahead to a new year, we draw inspiration from our powerful conversation with Julie Garreau, Chief Executive Officer, Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP), and a 2022 Community Food Systems Fellow. In our fifth episode, Julie reflects on her personal journey, family history and the community experiences deeply rooted in Lakota culture that have shaped her perspective of leadership as public service. She speaks to the importance of healing generational trauma through safe spaces and reclamation of culture and language with young people, and how these values have guided and strengthened CRYP's youth programming for more than 36 years. Julie affirms that “young people are community power” and that investing in future generations is critical for healing, sovereignty and a thriving future. 

Featured guest:

• Julie Garreau, Chief Executive Officer, Cheyenne River Youth Project 

Host: 

• Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources

• Cheyenne River Youth Project Website: www.lakotayouth.org 
• Lakota in America, a short documentary commissioned by Square
• Waniyetu Wowapi (Winter Count), an award-winning documentary produced by CRYP
• CRYP-produced documentary films on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/Lakotayouth 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In our fourth episode, we tune in from Vital Village Networks’ 2024 annual National Community Leadership Summit in Boston, joined by hundreds of grassroots community leaders from across the country dedicated to designing new systems grounded in the joy of children, families, and communities. As we collectively navigate a time of transition, we return to the wisdom shared from this powerful conversation with author and futurist, Mia Birdsong, and Ronda Alexander, Vital Village’s Director of Partnerships. Mia reflects on her own personal experiences with radical connection and the path it offers as we imagine a future towards collective liberation and imaginative care for one another. She shares her journey of unlearning and relearning what it means to be free and the conditions that are critical to moving towards interconnected freedom, calling on us all to dream expansively and work together to build towards a world 100 years in the future. 

Featured guest:

• Mia Birdsong, Futurist, Author and Executive Director of Next River: An Institute For Practicing the Future

Host: 

• Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Resources: 

• Next River - https://www.nextriver.org/
• How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community - https://miabirdsong.com/how-we-show-up

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In our third episode, we join in a healing conversation with “woman of the community,” birth specialist, and Boston Breastfeeding Coalition (BBC) leader, Dominique Bellegarde. A true servant leader and long time Vital Village Networks champion for birthing people and families in Boston, Dominique shares how her personal experiences navigating motherhood and becoming a certified lactation counselor and educator shaped her journey of becoming an advocate. We learn more about the BBC’s efforts to create pathways for community scholars and design resources, such as their signature Breastfeeding Support Warmline, that responded to community needs and priorities.  She reflects on the unique role of coalitions, particularly in her field, to bring about collective action and demonstrating the power and ripple effects of helping others and inviting others into the “circle.”

Featured guest: Dominique Bellegarde, Community Advocate & Educator, Community Health Worker, Birth (full spectrum birth & postpartum attendant, doula) & Lactation Specialist (CLC & CLE), candidate for IBCLC, Enthusiast & Influencer, co- facilitate Baby Cafe & Mother Healing Nurturing Center and Founder of D. Legacy Pace Setters  

Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In episode two, we continue our conversation with Josette Williams, long-time Vital Village Networks leader and Director of Boston Public Schools’ Countdown to Kindergarten. We delve deeper into what shared power and agency looks like in practice through building parent partnerships at Boston Public Schools and the city’s Office of Early Childhood. We learn about critical strategies to engage parents in processes to develop city priorities and embed restorative justice practices within family-facing systems and institutions. Josette highlights the important roles that we all play in the movement to transform systems and build collective community care, reminding us of our shared “responsibility…to work together and support one another” to change the decision making tables that impact how communities grow and thrive. 

Featured guest:

• Josette Williams, Director, Countdown to Kindergarten, Boston Public Schools

Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings

Welcome back! We are excited to kick off our third season of In the Arena with NOW, where we explore two timely questions with community leaders across the country: What does it look like to harness, activate, and build community power? How can healing-centered advocacy transform systems and change policy? For the first episode of the season, long-time Vital Village Networks leader and founding circle member, Josette Williams, reminds us that for many, systems change advocacy is deeply rooted in our own personal journeys and early experiences that shape our understanding of who has access and opportunities to important community resources and spaces.  As Director of Boston Public Schools’ innovative Countdown to Kindergarten program, Josette asks us to rethink the oft- asked question, “Who has a seat at the table?” and consider, “How did we get to this table” and the historical and systemic processes that shape who has access and opportunity to decision making power within communities. Tune in to hear Josette explore what shared power looks like in practice between agencies and families in Boston and examples of strategies she has been leading to center parent and family leadership within community systems. 

Featured guest:

• Josette Williams, Director, Countdown to Kindergarten, Boston Public Schools

Host: 

• Ronda Alexander, Director of National Partnerships, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings

We’re excited to share with you a special bonus episode as we reflect on the year and look ahead to 2024. We return again to Vital Village Networks’ annual National Community Leadership Summit, and tune in this time to our 2022 keynote conversation with writer, storyteller, and educator, Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts. She is the award-winning author of Black Joy and shares with us a powerful reflection of what it means to make room for joy -- in all of its forms -- and what it looks like for joy to co-exist in the same vessel as pain, grief, and trauma. She draws upon deeply personal and painful experiences to deepen our understanding of Black joy and what it can offer all of us as a path forward to healing and restoration. We hope you enjoy this conversation and look forward to connecting in the new year. 

Featured guest:

• Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts, writer, storyteller, and educator; author of Black Joy 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts’ work: https://www.traceymlewis.com/ 

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing
Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0
Edited By: Resonate Recordings 

In our final episode of the season, we return to Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit and tune into the dynamic closing keynote conversation with Camille Bennett, Founder and Executive Director of Project Say Something. Connecting the personal and political, Camille speaks to her and her family’s multi-generational work advocating for racial justice in Alabama. She shares the efforts that she and coalitions are leading to dismantle white supremacist culture and fight against anti-Black policies, lifting up how grassroots efforts are seeking to promote education and reproductive justice. She explores what partnership with community looks like in policy and advocacy, and the need to affirm and elevate community power.

Featured guest:

• Camille Bennett, Founder and Executive Director, Project Say Something ​ 
• Host: Ronda Alexander, Director of Operations, NOW at Vital Village Networks

Additional Resources:

• Find out more about Project Say Something’s work here: https://www.projectsaysomething.org/ 
• Explore the featured resource from the NOW Resource Library, Working Principles for Health Justice and Racial Equity, from the Praxis Project here: https://www.thepraxisproject.org/our-principles  

Produced by: Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing

Recorded by: MediaBoss

Music: Want U W/ Me (Instrumental Mix), by Akira Sora, From the Free Music Archive, CC BY 4.0

Edited By: Resonate Recordings