The Proximity Process
This is a show about how child welfare transformation actually starts with personal transformation. Follow Matt Anderson, a former child welfare executive with 20 years of experience, as he goes deeper into his own process of becoming who he needs to be. Matt has conversations with creative disruptors who help us see how systems can harm and oppress people. Each episode is an invitation to go deeper into your own process of being in service of people rather than systems.
Episodes
53 episodes
One Year Anniversary Episode: What Does Proximity Mean?
This is the one-year anniversary of The Proximity Process podcast. Thank you for listening and being part of the community that we are building. To mark this milestone, we thought we'd go back into the archives and pull clips of our guests answ...
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Season 1
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Episode 52
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19:20
Seeing the System Through an Economic Justice Lens
Why do we remove kids from their family and pay for foster care when stable housing is a better solution? 10% of children in foster care are removed due to unstable or unsuitable housing. Investing in affordable housing programs to prevent fost...
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Season 1
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Episode 51
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12:22
Why Housing is the Right Problem to Solve with Carol King
In this week's episode my friend Carol King joins me for a conversation about why she made the pivot from technology to affordable housing. The story actually starts during her childhood. Carol grew up with her father as the primary caregiver a...
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Season 1
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Episode 50
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1:00:41
A Framework for Being in Right Relationship
For this week's journal episode, I scrolled back into my photos to see where I was one year ago. I was on production of Standing with Mom's, a short film we produced for Mother's Outreach Network about their guaranteed income pilot. One of the ...
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Season 1
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Episode 49
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10:48
Michigan Supreme Court's Decision on TPR and What's Next with Vivek Sankaran
This week's episode is the next in a series of conversations with a variety of guests on the topic of Termination of Parental Rights. The question we've been asking is, what if TPR didn't exist? In past episodes with Vivek, we've talked about t...
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Season 1
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Episode 48
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57:17
Imagination Factory has Launched
In this week's episode I talk about why I'm cofounding the Imagination Factory and what I'm learning about myself and the work to advance justice. Systems change, changing the structures of what currently exists, is not enough to advance justic...
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Season 1
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Episode 47
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10:32
Systems Change Starts with Personal Transformation with Dr Bruce Perry
In this episode I talk to leading trauma expert, Dr. Bruce Perry. I wanted to continue an ongoing conversation Bruce and I have been having about why systems don't change and the important role of storytelling in personal transformation. Dr. Pe...
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Season 1
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Episode 46
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58:40
Am I in Right Relationship and What Can I Do About It?
In this week's journal episode, I talk about the practice of Right Relationship and how it has been a significant part of my process. I share a few different definitions that can be helpful in how we think about what this principle and practice...
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Season 1
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Episode 45
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14:16
Building Technology to Improve Parent Legal Representation with Ryan O'Donnell
I'm excited to bring you the third installment of an ongoing conversation with Ryan O'Donnell. Ryan embodies the idea of systems change starting with personal transformation. In previous episodes we hear about how Ryan went from being a tech en...
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Season 1
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Episode 44
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57:54
Journal Entry: Our Future is a Declaration Away
This week's episode was prompted by a quote I read in the book, Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor. The chapter on imagination began with this quote, "A talent for speaking differently, rather than arguing well, is the chief instrum...
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Season 1
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Episode 43
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13:49
Should I Leave My Job with Brendalyn King
This week's episode is a conversation with my coach, Brendalyn King. Brendalyn is a talented ontological leadership coach, an experienced entrepreneur, and one of the more influential people in my process. I wanted to talk to Brendalyn about th...
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Season 1
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Episode 42
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1:08:58
Journal Entry: Am I Living a Life that is a Full Expression of Who I Am
In this week's journal episode, I share the origin story of my search for the world's best chocolate chip cookie. This is not the first time I've been on this search. Sometime around 2007 I found the best cookie in the world and the search was ...
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Season 1
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Episode 41
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11:48
How to Launch a 100-Year-Old Start Up with Dave Newell
In this episode I talk with Dave Newell who is the CEO of Akin in Seattle, WA. Akin is a new organization (kind of) that formed as the result of a merger of two 100+ year old organizations, Children's Home Society of Washington and Childhaven. ...
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Season 1
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Episode 40
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1:01:11
Journal Entry: Learning Through Loss
Today's episode is much more personal and emotional that most. I recorded this on the four-year anniversary of losing my cousin and friend, Patrick. I wanted to honor him and our relationship. I also tell the story of how Patrick's death led to...
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Season 1
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Episode 39
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15:51
Our Whiteness is not Connected to Our Humanity with Maleeka Jihad
Today's conversation with Maleeka Jihad (MJ) dives into the difference between whiteness (white ideology), white identity, and humanity. MJ is the Executive Director of the MJCF: Coalition and runs a consulting business. She's also earning her ...
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Season 1
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Episode 38
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57:23
Journal Entry: Making the Invisible Visible
I recorded this week's journal episode about 15 minutes after the weekly Proximity Podcast Club ended. I had a plan for this week's episode but the conversation that played out in the Podcast Club changed my plan. One of our goals for this show...
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Season 1
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Episode 37
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10:29
TPR and the Michigan Supreme Court with Vivek Sankaran
In our first conversation with Vivek Sankaran, we talked about the morality, necessity, and constitutionality of Terminating Parental Rights. At the end of the conversation, he mentioned that he would be presenting two TPR cases to the Michigan...
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Season 1
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Episode 36
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47:05
Episode One Reboot: My Proximity Problem
We're doing something new! We decided to bring back episode one, which goes into a bit of my origin story! We've added a lot of new listeners over the past couple of months and I thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce myself and the ins...
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Season 1
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Episode 35
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38:58
From Agent to Advocate to Activist with Dr Jessica Pryce
I'm excited to bring you this week's conversation with Dr Jessica Pryce. Dr Pryce's new book, Broken: Transforming Child Protective Services, gave us a great backdrop to a wide-ranging conversation. At the beginning of the book, she lays out a ...
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Season 1
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Episode 34
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1:05:54
My Journal: Am I Afraid to Address Racism Publicly
This episode is a follow up to the previous journal episode, Am I Biased? One of our ambitions with this show is to build community and engage the community in a conversation. So, the series of episodes about termination of parental rights led ...
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Season 1
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Episode 33
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7:56
Ask Me Anything with guest host Kathleen Creamer
I'm super excited to bring you the first ever (but not the last) Ask Me Anything episode. We put out a call for questions and you all came through. We received more questions than we could get to in one episode. We also asked the Proximity Podc...
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Season 1
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Episode 32
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46:38
My Journal: Am I Biased?
In this week's episode I start with the journal prompt, am I biased? This was prompted by some of the feedback to our most recent episodes on Termination of Parental Rights. I thought I would let you all into my process of how I try to ap...
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Season 1
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Episode 31
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12:33
Termination of Parental Rights with Vivek Sankaran
This week's episode continues our series of conversations about Termination of Parent Rights. I wanted to talk to Vivek Sankaran because he has a unique depth of knowledge to bring to the thought experiment that we've been bringing to these epi...
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Season 1
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Episode 30
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1:01:13
Termination of Parental Rights with Mollie Warren
Today's guest, Mollie Warren, is the Director of Family and Children's Services in Boulder County, Colorado. I wanted to return to the conversation about Termination of Parental Rights with someone who is in a "practitioner" role and a position...
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Season 1
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Episode 29
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52:23
My Journal: Notes from the Podcast Club
In today's journal episode I share some of the questions and ideas that came up on this week's Proximity Podcast Club conversation. The jumping off question this week was what shifts are happening for each of us as we think more deeply about pr...
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Season 1
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Episode 28
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8:22