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Celebrating Alumni Successes.
Centering Holistic Health and Financial Well-being.

Through our newly launched Alumni Powerhouse Wellness Retreats and the re-launching of the Alumni Powerhouse Networking Conferences, the FCN Foundation will bring Alumni together to center self-care and personal growth, while connecting us to the resources and information we need to unite and amplify our voices in ways that will allow us to build the lives and communities we’ve always wanted.

What is an Alumni?

Anyone that has lived with people other than their biological parents at any point in their childhood. This means formal foster care, kinship care (formal and informal), adoption and first and second-generation immigrants that lived with people other than their biological parents as children.

Over 20 years ago, the term was coined by Misty Stenslie, founder of Foster Care Alumni of America, whom we affectionately call the Mother of the Alumni Movement. It was her vision that we would see our transition from foster care (although involuntary and not always positive) as a major accomplishment and believed that we should embrace and support each other similar to ways collegiate fraternity and sorority members do.

Many of us have embraced this term, although we embrace others as well.

ABOUT US

We are delighted to announce the re-emergence of the Fostering Change Network Foundation (FCN Foundation) after a four-year hiatus. Our organization has always been dedicated to amplifying the voices of those with lived experiences in foster care and we are excited to resume our mission with renewed vigor and purpose and with a slight shift in focus: the holistic health and well-being of people with lived foster care experience.

Over the past few years, we have observed a growing need to gather individuals together who, like many of us, have personal histories of living with people other than their biological parents (AKA “Alumni”). These experiences shape us in profound ways, and there is immense value in uniting to share our stories, wisdom, and strategies for fostering change in multiple areas of our life, not limited to Child Welfare.

Our goal is to create a community centered around holistic health and well-being. By coming together, we can support each other in meaningful ways and take collective action to improve our communities in whatever ways call to us.


 
 
 

The FCN Foundation Family

GET TO KNOW Our Team

 
 

Darryl “DMC” McDaniels

Board Member

Darryl McDaniels grew up in New York and attended Rice High School in Manhattan where he later enrolled in St. John's University in Queens, New York.  McDaniel’s initially became interested in hip hop music after listening to recordings of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.  In 1978, He taught himself to DJ in the basement of his adopted parents' home, using turntables and a mixer given to him by his older brother, Alford.  This was the beginning of a passionate career as a Hip Hop artist excelling with  top record sales and prestigious awards in his career as a member of the acclaimed Hip Group “Run DMC” and was inducted into the Hall of Fame on behalf of the group in 2009.

At the age of 35, Darryl learned that he was adopted at just a month old.  In search of his biological parents, he experienced hassle of not having adequate rights and access to his adoption records.  This created a larger barrier in finding the answers that would holistically set him free in reaching and developing his purpose in life.  As a result of this experience, it sparked a flame of passion to become an ambassador for Adoptees and Foster Youth.  Despite the barriers that were suppose to hinder Darryl’s mission to locate his biological mother, he was able to utilize his resources and hired a private investigator and with much success, was able to locate his mother within 6 weeks learning she was a teenage mother of Harlem at the time of his adoption.

Darryl has been a great asset and mentor to foster youth and the adoption community since learning of his identity as an adoptee. In September 2006, Darryl McDaniel was presented with the Congressional Angels in Adoption Award for his work with children in foster care and promotion of adoption. He sits on the Board of Directors of Children’s Rights, a national watchdog organization of failing child welfare systems. He has advocated for foster youth and adoptees in front of New Jersey officials to promote foster youth and adoptee rights.  With great humility and resilience, in February 2006 Darryl has decided to give back in founding the Felix Organization, a 501 C (3) organization that helps to enrich and provide new experiences to foster youth residing in New York.  The Felix Organization has provided over 170 foster children with resources and experiences they otherwise would not have had access to without the additional support from agencies such as  Felix.

His message to empower foster youth and adoptees inspires them to dream “If you dream it, you can do it!”

 

Shalita O'Neale

founder and board chair

shalita@fcnfoundation.org

Shalita holds a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Masters of Social Work Degree with a primary concentration of Management and Community Organization and a specialization of Social Action and Community Development from the University of Maryland Baltimore. She is a proud graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee’s 2013 Leadership Program, and 2018 Maryland Department of Human Services Leadership Development Initiative and in 2020 became licensed to offer consulting services for The Standards for Excellence® program by completing an exclusive professional development initiative that gives independent consultants and nonprofit leaders, the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to work with and build nonprofit organizations across the country.

Mrs. O'Neale founded Fostering Change Network LLC in 2012 as a way to use her 20 years of experience child welfare training, program development and advocacy to connect young professionals with foster care histories, like herself, through local and national professional networking events such as the Alumni Powerhouse Networking Conferences (APNC), that have taken place in Maryland, California and New York City since 2015. Her desire to help adults from foster care secure resources that will allow them to contribute to the economic development in their communities led her to found the Fostering Change Network Foundation

Shalita is also the Founder of Hope Forward, Inc., now a program of Fedcap Rehabilitation Services established in 2008, based in Baltimore City that worked with transitioning and former foster youth (ages 17-25) to connect them to housing, education, employment and supportive networks. Mrs. O'Neale formerly served as the Foster Youth Ombudsman for the Maryland Department of Human Services.

In 2011, she was honored as one of The Daily Record’s 20 In Their Twenties and the BFree Daily’s 2nd Annual 10 People to Watch Under 30, the Prince Georges County Social Innovation Fund’s 2015 Forty Under 40, featured in the 2013 October issue of Baltimore Magazine’s 40 Under 40 and honored by the Baltimore Business Journal in 2014 as one of their Forty Under 40. Mrs. O’Neale also serves on the Children’s Justice Act Committee (CJAC) and the Board of the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. Mrs. O’Neale is also a Graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee’s 2013 Leadership Program.

 

Elizabeth “Maija” Day

cO-CHAIR of the Board

Maija is a multitalented millennial with a passion for storytelling, advocacy, and community-building. Utilizing her educational background in political science, as well as her extensive experience in hospitality, she prides herself in championing social entrepreneurs by acting as a generative force behind their vision. As the Founder of MaijaMusings, her blog, and Mama ALKEMIE, a mental health support group for mothers, she aims to ignite and inspire a new generation of women - women who recognize the strength of their scars & the power in their words. She is a poet, proud Alumni of foster care, mother, and dreamer, with a deep belief that communities are strengthened by the bond of breaking bread together. In her free time, you can catch her knee-deep in motherhood, scouring the internet for her next sushi adventure, or conjuring up her next big idea.

 
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SHANTEL RANDOLPH

BOARD MEMBER

Shantel Randolph has a 9-year history in the non- profit & child welfare sector and is also an Alumni of the foster care system. Shantel’s history of work includes Founder of  Foster Youth Inc. and former Deputy Director position of Hope Forward Inc. Shantel worked closely with the Executive Director on fundraising strategies that have yielded highly successful fundraising opportunities to support the work at Hope Forward Inc. Hope Forward, Inc; was a  non-profit organization which worked with transitioning foster youth ages 17-25 to employment, educational resources, housing and supportive networks. Shantel’s grant-writing skills and relationships with local Foundation funders and key community figures was critical in creating sustainability outcomes for Hope Forward Inc, from 2008-2015.

In 2007, Shantel Randolph was awarded a grant through Open Society Institute and a Community Fellow in Baltimore Maryland. This social innovation grant was used to establish the program F.Y.I. (Foster Youth Incorporated), which works with youth in foster care to advocate for rights through Baltimore City School System.

In 2011, Shantel was awarded the Human Rights and Justice Champion award along with A Step Closer Foundations Foster Care Alumni Champion Awards for her work with foster youth and improving the child welfare system.

 

alicia nance, PhD

board member

A Diasporic Afro-Indigenous, Afro-Latine genderfluid, queer, multilingual, disabled femme with 25+years of lived experience as a radical educator, coach, and grassroots organizer, alicia (sibling/beloved/we/they, elle/ella/she) descended from rural, working-class, immigrant Black, Brown, and Indigenous earth-, youth-, and spirit-workers. She is a proud Alumni of foster care, somatic abolitionist, spiritual herbalist, healer, lifecycle doula, and storyteller focusing on youth-, birth-, earth-, energy- and memory-work rooted in and continuing the revolutionary legacies of her ancestors. Co-founder of Liberated Routes/Roots Freedom Farm and She Who Learns, alicia is part of an intergenerational youth-led Black palenque/quilombo/maroon collective born in the waters of Hurricane Katrina. Working across the Global South, she co-creates a freedom school/farm and other spaces that practice expansive, inclusive, joyful understandings/imaginings of Blackness and liberation. She believes connecting to “what our people were doing to thrive and heal before colonisation”- place, space, land, and village- is essential for healing and getting free.

 

Rachel J. Barrett-Dolcine

Board Secretary

Rachel launched Compass Consulting and Training Solutionsin 2010 and has continued to implement innovative strategies to grow the company’s training classes, consulting services and other offerings. Compass Consulting and Training Solutions, LLC is a community based business that prides itself on being an asset to the communities throughout Central Maryland.  Through its Community Giving Back Program, Compass facilitates free training classes and workshops for nonprofit and community organizations that are on a limited budget.

Rachel has been a Trainer and Professional Development Facilitator for over 10 years.  Rachel is an Adjunct Faculty staff member at Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC); a Certified Health & Safety Institute (HSI) CPR and First Aid Instructor; a Certified Health & Safety Institute Instructor for CPR and First Aid Trainer Certification Course; and an approved Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Office of Childcare (OCC) Core of Knowledge Trainer.  

In April 2017, Rachel published her first book, ‘Conversations With My Son: Fun & Witty Inspiration for Mothers Raising Boys’.  ‘Conversations With My Son’ is a collection of conversations Rachel has had with her son, Julius, since he was in preschool.  Rachel wrote this book in hopes of inspiring mothers raising boys to listen to their sons, look for opportunities to have meaningful conversations and create a safe space at home so that sons feel safe enough to talk, make mistakes and grow. ‘Conversations With My Son' is available at www.compasscts.comor can be purchased on Amazon. Rachel is currently working on her second book project.


Rachel received her Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Deviant Behavior and Social Control from John Jay College of Criminal Justice; a Master of Public Administration from the University of Baltimore; is a graduate of the Associated Black Charities (ABC) Board Pipeline Leadership Program and the prestigious Maryland Certified Public Manager Program- Nonprofit Track at the University of Baltimore.  In February 2015, Rachel was named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women. In July 2018, Rachel was listed as a Maryland V.I.P (Very Important Professionals), a recognition given to Maryland's leaders who are 40 years or younger based on their professional accomplishments, community service and a commitment to inspiring change.


Rachel is an avid volunteer and currently serves as the Founder of the Joseph and Vera Douglas Family Foundation, Inc.; is on the Board of Directors for Bringing On New Direction (BOND), Inc., MSPRITY, Inc; and A Good Black Man, Inc. Rachel is a member of Maryland Nonprofits, Black Speakers Network (BSN), National Association for Christian Women Entrepreneurs and Hagerstown Professional Women's Group. She is also a proud Alumni of kinship care. Rachel lives in Randallstown, Maryland with her husband and son.

 
 

Blessit Bryant

Board Member

Blessitt Shawn Bryant is a dynamic community organizer and social influencer with a decade-long career in the non-profit advocacy space.
A Midwesterner at heart, Blessitt’s passion for social justice and civic outreach landed them a highly competitive internship with House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi. Their ability to work across difference and zeal for the ever-relevant work of the labor movement led them to senior digital communications & strategy roles at the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union. Blessitt is most proud of serving as the online voice of the union’s International President, Mary Kay Henry, who was selected as one of Politico’s Top 50 visionaries transforming American politics in 2015, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in 2015, and ranked #4 on NPR’s The Power List in 2016.

Blessitt now uses their talents as the Director of Digital Storytelling & Strategic Programs for Do Big Things, which helps the world’s leading non-profits, foundations and social enterprises design digital ecosystems that create change globally. Blessitt uses evidence-based digital tactics and traditional organizing principles to create online movements that move communities to action.

Blessitt’s commitment to social justice moves far beyond the political arena as it remains an integral part of their daily life. Blessitt is changing the definition of beauty as an unapologetic, queer style icon with cerebral palsy. Using their sense of fashion and a bit of humor, Blessitt has cultivated communities that have allowed their reach to extend far beyond their midwestern foundation. Blessitt’s work has been featured on Qwear.com, TAGG Magazine, and Refinery29.

Blessitt is a leading voice on “WYD Weekly?,” a podcast of #WeBuiltThis-- an online community celebrating the brilliance of Black people through culture, art, and politics. They currently serve on the board of the Chocolate City Burlesque and Cabaret Historical Society & Fostering Change Network.

 

SUSAN EMFINGER

Treasurer of the Board

Susan Emfinger is a senior program management and fundraising professional with over 15 years’ experience in US and international fundraising, partnership, staff and program development and management. She has led programs that support at-risk youth through encouraging educational achievement and providing job training and work opportunities.

She has also raised more than $30 million for universities in the US and UK, and she has restructured development and alumni relations teams to increase major gifts by over 20% annually. She co-founded one of the first named, endowed scholarships in the country to support students with foster care histories, thus providing the foundation of what is now Michigan State University’s highly successful FAME program and is an Alumni of the foster care system. As a Board Member of the Fostering Change Network Foundation, she is supporting the development of a global foster care alumni network whose members support each other’s professional and entrepreneurial goals.

 

JAMOLE CALLAHAN

bOARD MEMBER

Jamole is a passionate advocate, educator, and consultant committed to improving outcomes for youth in foster care and those experiencing homelessness. With a background rooted in personal experience and over a decade of professional work, Jamole has become a leading voice in child welfare reform and youth empowerment. As a Training and Coaching Specialist at Families Rising, he focuses on developing and implementing the Center for Workforce Equity & Leadership Coaching Strategy. He is also a partner at The 220 Experience, a child welfare consulting firm, and a graduate of the Minority Professional Leadership Development Program (MPLD) by Adopt US Kids. Jamole serves as a national trainer and consultant for various organizations, including the National Resource Center for Youth Services. His advocacy work has been instrumental in developing the Foster Stable Housing Opportunities Act and HUD's FYI voucher program, which has awarded $60 million across 50 states. Jamole emphasizes the importance of action beyond words. His interactive teaching style and evidence-based training methods focus on transforming child welfare programs, with a strong emphasis on coaching and supervision,  synchronizing emancipation with housing and economic supports to prevent homelessness for youth leaving foster care.

 

SHANNON SCOTT

bOARD MEMBER

Shannon Scott is a nonprofit leader with over 15 years of dedicated service in the sector. She has been instrumental in launching and co-leading four mission-driven organizations, both domestically and internationally. Shannon’s journey in education began as a Teach for America corps member, teaching English in St. Louis, Missouri. She later transitioned into education reform within the Teach For All network. As the founding Leadership Development Officer at Teach For Malaysia, Shannon played a pivotal role in establishing the organization’s leadership development framework. Recently, Shannon focused on cultivating learning experiences for child welfare leaders. She co-created and managed a national leadership development fellowship spanning 15 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.  Shannon is also the Senior Director, Training Hub for StriveTogether and to co-founder of Our Lived Experienced.