Dr. Timothy Smeeding, Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics, LaFollette School of Public Affairs , UW Madison
Poverty matters, especially for people of color. For the first time the Wisconsin Poverty Report tackles the issue of race, ethnicity and poverty in Milwaukee and across the entire state, with a special focus on children “

Dr. Stephen Pimpare, University of New Hampshire, Senior Lecturer, Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership, Director, Center for Community Engagement & Experiential Learning, University of New Hampshire
“Lessons from American Movies about Poverty, Race and Place.”: What can we learn about American attitudes toward our most marginalized populations by examining the ways in which movies treat poor people and the places they live? Join us for a whirlwind tour of a century’s worth of American cinema as we try to makes sense of how culture might matter for the making and unmaking of social policy.

Dan Smith, President and CEO, The Cooperative
Evan Goyke, Wisconsin State Representative

Over the past several decades, Wisconsin’s rural communities have been impacted by economic, social and cultural changes. These trends have resulted in rapidly changing conditions for our small towns, businesses and farms. Advances in technology,  new methods of purchasing products and consumer goods, an aging population and infrastructure, and a perceived lack of opportunities combine to create rural communities vastly different from a generation ago. These challenges are multi-faceted and complex, as are the opportunities that exist to help overcome them. It is obvious to anyone revisiting the small community or farm of their youth that profound change is underway across rural Wisconsin. How we identify, manage and adapt to such change is a primary challenge for Wisconsin today.

Cities have long been the face of poverty in America.  A recent “return to cities movement” has seen Wisconsin cities grow, yet concentrated poverty remains.  Cities in Wisconsin must find ways to disrupt the unacceptable status quo of segregation and poverty, while accommodating a growing population.  Aging systems that distribute resources must be examined and reformed to ensure greater equity.  These systems, largely based on property taxation and property valuation, leave both urban and rural communities behind.  Working to find solutions to state-based distribution of resources to better serve both urban and rural communities is a coming political need and one that should invite both political parties to the table.  Urban and rural communities must unite to ensure their fair share is received. 

Allison Yanasak, Betty Brinn Children’s Museum

Betty Brinn Children’s Museum will present Early Childhood Education, Vroom and how parents and caregivers can build resiliency in their children. Vroom is free app for primary caregivers and is a new initiative that the Museum is charged with bring to the City of Milwaukee. We will discuss Activation of Vroom, the importance of early brain development and the resources the Museum has for parents and families.

Monique Liston PhD.,Unbuntu Research & Evaluation, LLc. 

Participants will discuss the human dignity of Black citizens as it intersects with the experience of poverty.

Lola Awoyinka & David Lee, State of Wisconsin Division of Public Health/ Wisconsin Minority Health & Feeding America  

A conversation on the social determinants of health and helping to connect the dots between poverty work and health outcomes.

Bridget Mouchon-Humphrey MS, Program Director Behavioral Partnership, SWCAP

Working with systems and policies to make changes that can enhance people’s and communities’ well-being is not easy. Taking a grounded approach and building relationships, telling stories, and building change in meaningful ways takes time and togetherness. The Asset-based community development strategy used in SW Wisconsin is building people’s sense of their existing resources, and their ability to take ownership and make change. Right now, we are focusing on mental health and addiction, reducing the stigma and enhancing community resources we need working together to improve outcomes. This approach can work toward many community goals; whether you’re interested in behavioral health or in this grounded community approach, lots to learn and discuss here!

Anna Bierer & Joanna Vandestreek,Wisconsin Literacy & Milwaukee Public Library 

Your community library is more than a resource for books—it also provides workforce development resources and events for residents young and old, from teens to senior citizens. This workshop will cover how the Milwaukee Public Library system helps empower citizens to be prepared for the workforce, including computer classes, drop in job help, tutoring sessions, and test and career training resources. In addition, Wisconsin Literacy will provide a statewide perspective with information from adult and family literacy programs located in and in partnership with libraries across the state.

Betsy Van Heesch, My Choice Family Care

This presentation would include both an educational and a group discussion component with the outcome of audience participants identifying an action step(s) they can take to use a trauma informed approach to affecting the issue of poverty in their community. Participants will gain an understanding of the affect these experiences have on the individual’s ability to secure and maintain housing; have access to reliable transportation; maintain their health and well-being; obtain the needed training and education to secure employment. Gain knowledge on how to respond when an individual has experienced trauma and Identify action steps for increasing trauma-informed practices within the community

Maggie Yarbrough, Hunger Task Force

Maria Elena Perez, PhD,Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers

This workshop will examine the many faces of Trauma. It will explore the impact on relationships , growth and development and societal effects. Attendees will learn what is currently being done to address trauma and will review the advent of trauma inform

Wendy Collins, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield 

“Out of work? Limited income? It’s scary. What happens if you or someone you love needs a doctor and you have no health insurance? This important workshop will show you how to get BadgerCare insurance, find a medical provider, advocate for yourself, your family or people in your community. Insurance can be confusing. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what gets covered and what doesn’t. We’ll help you answer common questions like: What is BadgerCare? What is the Forward Card? What benefits are available? Should I join an HMO? This workshop is too important to miss.”

Jim Winship MSW, Ph.D., Beechwood True LLC

Organizations and advocacy groups often use stories in their communication with key audiences because people respond more fully to stories than they do to facts and figures, engaging more emotionally and with more parts of our brain. However, the stories that are told often do not have the desired effects, and there are important ethical considerations when the stories of clients/participants are used. In the first part of this workshop, two approaches for utilizing stories will be presented, a public narrative model in which advocates/staff members can craft their own stories for public presentation. The second approach involves the development of digital stories from clients/participants. For this approach, techniques for ensuring client privacy and ownership of their own stories will be shared. In the second part of the workshop, workshop attendees will work in small groups on the application of these approaches and techniques to their own organization or cause.

Frank Martinelli,The Center for Public Skills Training

Nonprofits need to direct more efforts at actually changing the underlying systems. Good is not good enough: While we continue to provide services to individuals in desperate need, we must now reposition the community based nonprofit sector as a powerful force for social change at the underlying systems level. For nonprofits that want to move in this direction, there are four key strategies that can help them move more of their impact to the root cause level:

Jamaal Smith, Racial Justice Community Engagement Manager, YWCA of South East Wisconsin

The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the 2016 Community Readiness Assessment released by YWCA Southeast Wisconsin discussing the prevalent disconnect between job seekers and employers in Milwaukee. Reports have shown that there are multiple job openings that exists, but a shortage of workers to fill those roles; however, within marginalized communities in Milwaukee, residents are constantly looking for opportunities to gain family sustaining employment. This workshop will explore the barriers leading to the disconnect between job seekers and employers

Kisha Shanks, President, Infinite Family Solutions

This workshop gives a comprehensive overview of inter-generational poverty and the impact on public health, from a psychological and social perspective. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the psychology of poverty and its long-term implications on social behaviors, such as raising children. Also, attendees will be given tools that will assist them, and their respective organizations with improving service delivery outcomes to impacted families

Lola Awoyinka & David Lee, State of Wisconsin Division of Public Health/ Wisconsin Minority Health & Feeding America  

A conversation on the social determinants of health and helping to connect the dots between poverty work and health outcomes.

Raphael Ramos & Sofia Ascorbe, Legal Action’s Eviction Defense Project

This presentation will provide attendees with information about Legal Action of Wisconsin’s Eviction Defense Project and discuss the services provided by the EDP. We will also discuss the Project’s history, the various community partners that have helped make the Project possible and successful, and how interested communities could create similar projects. From a practical perspective, we will also discuss common strategies to help tenants avoid eviction and how to defend against eviction. We will also address laws, and recent changes in law, that advocates and social services providers should be aware of when advising tenants in order to avoid issues that could lead to eviction.

Maggie Yarbrough, Hunger Task Force

Learn how a trauma-informed approach can help more children in Wisconsin graduate from high school, have fewer disciplinary problems and fewer visits to the school nurse. Learn more about preventing ACEs in your community primarily focusing on childhood poverty, food insecurity and hunger. The need to offer school breakfast is based the substantial number of children in Wisconsin who lack access to nutritious food. Access to school meals is an equity issue. Childhood hunger is severe in Wisconsin. One in five children live in a food-insecure household. Child hunger is both a rural and urban problem. Of the 17 counties in which more than 55% of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches, 14 are located in rural areas without a city of more than 20,000 residents. Hunger students have poorer academic and health outcomes. We will examine the Wisconsin School Breakfast Report Card, Lunch Shaming (the practice of denying students meals because of school lunch debt) and equity in after school meals in Wisconsin. Session attendees will leave with a clear understanding of the issues, and ways to address childhood hunger in their communities through access and participation in federal nutrition programs.

Molly Gena & Susan Lund, Legal Action of Wisconsin 

This workshop addresses the relationship between poverty and driver’s license suspensions, and the importance of driver’s licenses for employability. It will address the legal issues in Wisconsin, and how Legal Action of Wisconsin works to help low-income people restore or obtain valid driver’s licenses.

Maria Elena Perez, PhD, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers

This workshop will examine the many faces of Trauma. It will explore the impact on relationships , growth and development and societal effects. Attendees will learn what is currently being done to address trauma and will review the advent of trauma informed care. Plus a review of recommendations for systemic change.

Mariah Hennen, Legal Action of Wisconsin, Farmworker Project

In this workshop, presenter will provide background on farmworkers and dairy workers in Wisconsin. Challenges faced by farmworkers and dairy workers are highly prevalent and widespread, but are not well known to non-farmworker communities. Farmworkers and dairy workers face numerous barriers to accessing legal justice due to the impacts of racism, sexism, and classism, which are seen through tangible issues such as language access issues, immigration concerns, isolation of farmworker communities, and shortage of culturally relevant public services. Issues such as wage theft, worker’s compensation, recruitment fraud, discrimination, and access to public benefits impact farmworkers and their families. By highlighting challenges specific to farmworkers and dairy workers, attendees will learn about ways that advocacy and service provider organizations can better serve farmworkers, dairy workers, and their families.

Marques Hogans, Public Health Educator & Curtis Marshall , Public Health & Tiffany Cobb – Milwaukee Health Department

This workshop aims to provide attendees with an alternative approach to issues that have been identified at a population level and often leaves the burden on the individual or individuals that are affected. The Public Health Approach can be applied across sectors including trauma, violence, health and other societal burdens. The presenters will provide you with key definitions and other components that can be adopted/adapted for intentional work.

Tim Wise

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States. He has spent the past 25 years speaking to audiences in all 50 states, on over 1000 college and high school campuses, at hundreds of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the country. He is also the host of the new podcast, Speak Out with Tim Wise.

He has also lectured internationally, in Canada and Bermuda, and has trained corporate, government, entertainment, media, law enforcement, military, and medical industry professionals on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions. Wise has provided anti-racism training to educators and administrators nationwide.

Wise is the author of seven books, including his latest, Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America (City Lights Books). Other books include Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority (City Lights Books); his highly acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (recently updated and re-released by Soft Skull Press); Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama; and Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity.

Named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World,” by Utne Reader, Wise has contributed chapters or essays to over 25 additional books and his writings are taught in colleges and universities across the nation. His essays have appeared on Alternet, Salon, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, The Root, Black Commentator, BK Nation and Z Magazine among other popular, professional and scholarly journals.

From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke.

Wise has been featured in several documentaries, including the 2013 Media Education Foundation release, “White Like Me: Race, Racism and White Privilege in America.” The film, which he co-wrote and co-produced, has been called “A phenomenal educational tool in the struggle against racism,” and “One of the best films made on the unfinished quest for racial justice,” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University, and Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, respectively. He also appeared alongside legendary scholar and activist, Angela Davis, in the 2011 documentary, “Vocabulary of Change.” In this public dialogue between the two activists, Davis and Wise discussed the connections between issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and militarism, as well as inter-generational movement building and the prospects for social change.

Wise appears regularly on CNN and MSNBC to discuss race issues and was featured in a 2007 segment on 20/20. He graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and received antiracism training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans.

Visit the website of Tim Wise for more information… www.speakoutnow.org/speaker/wise-tim.

C. Nicole Mason

C. Nicole Mason, PhD is the author of Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey from Nothing to Something in America (St. Martin’s Press). She is also Director of the Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest at the New York Women’s Foundation. Prior to her position at the Foundation, Mason was the most recent Executive Director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. There, she held the distinction of being one of the youngest scholar-practitioners to lead a major U.S. research center or think tank.

She is also an Ascend Fellow at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC. She has written hundreds of articles on women, leadership development and economic security. Her writing and commentary have been featured in MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, Real Clear Politics, the Nation, the Washington Post, Marie Claire Magazine, The New York Times, the Progressive, ESSENCE Magazine, the Root, the Miami Herald, Democracy Now, and numerous NPR affiliates, among others. She also delivered at TEDTalk at TEDWomen on the courage to disrupt and the gift of being difficult.

Visit the website of C. Nicole Mason for more information… cnicolemason.com

Michelle Allison & Ryan Hurley, United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County

An overview of the Community Schools concept. Presenters will share information about how each of the schools is implementing the model and it is working to reduce poverty in Milwaukee. . The Milwaukee Community School Partnership is a member the Wisconsin and National Community Schools coalition.

Allison Yanasak, Betty Brinn Children’s Museum 

Betty Brinn Children’s Museum will present Early Childhood Education, Vroom and how parents and caregivers can build resiliency in their children. Vroom is free app for primary caregivers and is a new initiative that the Museum is charged with bring to the City of Milwaukee. We will discuss Activation of Vroom, the importance of early brain development and the resources the Museum has for parents and families.

Monique Liston PhD., Unbuntu Research & Evaluation, LLc. 

Participants will discuss the human dignity of Black citizens as it intersects with the experience of poverty.

Bridget Mouchon-Humphrey MS, Program Director Behavioral Partnership, SWCAP

Working with systems and policies to make changes that can enhance people’s and communities’ well-being is not easy. Taking a grounded approach and building relationships, telling stories, and building change in meaningful ways takes time and togetherness. The Asset-based community development strategy used in SW Wisconsin is building people’s sense of their existing resources, and their ability to take ownership and make change. Right now, we are focusing on mental health and addiction, reducing the stigma and enhancing community resources we need working together to improve outcomes. This approach can work toward many community goals; whether you’re interested in behavioral health or in this grounded community approach, lots to learn and discuss here!

Anna Bierer & Joanna Vandestreek,Wisconsin Literacy & Milwaukee Public Library 

Your community library is more than a resource for books—it also provides workforce development resources and events for residents young and old, from teens to senior citizens. This workshop will cover how the Milwaukee Public Library system helps empower citizens to be prepared for the workforce, including computer classes, drop in job help, tutoring sessions, and test and career training resources. In addition, Wisconsin Literacy will provide a statewide perspective with information from adult and family literacy programs located in and in partnership with libraries across the state.

Betsy Van Heesch, My Choice Family Care

This presentation would include both an educational and a group discussion component with the outcome of audience participants identifying an action step(s) they can take to use a trauma informed approach to affecting the issue of poverty in their community. Participants will gain an understanding of the affect these experiences have on the individual’s ability to secure and maintain housing; have access to reliable transportation; maintain their health and well-being; obtain the needed training and education to secure employment. Gain knowledge on how to respond when an individual has experienced trauma and Identify action steps for increasing trauma-informed practices within the community

Maggie Yarbrough, Hunger Task Force 

Learn how a trauma-informed approach can help more children in Wisconsin graduate from high school, have fewer disciplinary problems and fewer visits to the school nurse. Learn more about preventing ACEs in your community primarily focusing on childhood poverty, food insecurity and hunger. The need to offer school breakfast is based the substantial number of children in Wisconsin who lack access to nutritious food. Access to school meals is an equity issue. Childhood hunger is severe in Wisconsin. One in five children live in a food-insecure household. Child hunger is both a rural and urban problem. Of the 17 counties in which more than 55% of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches, 14 are located in rural areas without a city of more than 20,000 residents. Hunger students have poorer academic and health outcomes. We will examine the Wisconsin School Breakfast Report Card, Lunch Shaming (the practice of denying students meals because of school lunch debt) and equity in after school meals in Wisconsin. Session attendees will leave with a clear understanding of the issues, and ways to address childhood hunger in their communities through access and participation in federal nutrition programs.

Maria Elena Perez, PhD, Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers

This workshop will examine the many faces of Trauma. It will explore the impact on relationships , growth and development and societal effects. Attendees will learn what is currently being done to address trauma and will review the advent of trauma inform.

Wendy Collins, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield 

“Out of work? Limited income? It’s scary. What happens if you or someone you love needs a doctor and you have no health insurance? This important workshop will show you how to get BadgerCare insurance, find a medical provider, advocate for yourself, your family or people in your community. Insurance can be confusing. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what gets covered and what doesn’t. We’ll help you answer common questions like: What is BadgerCare? What is the Forward Card? What benefits are available? Should I join an HMO? This workshop is too important to miss.

”

Congresswoman Moore

Lt. Governor Rebecca Klefisch