WHEREAS, Ann Ahlstrom has spent more than 40 years of service as a Hennepin County attorney advocating for children involved the Child Protection system, earning accolades for her work and taking several leadership roles that improved the system and the lives of children, and
WHEREAS, Ms. Ahlstrom worked with the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Minnesota Legislature to pass recodification of the Maltreatment of Minors Reporting Act (260E) which established a system for reporting possible child maltreatment to government agencies and also set standards for how those agencies should respond; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Ahlstrom contributed significantly to the county’s Child Well-being Transformation work, guiding the county’s Child Protection system to adopt a strengths-based, proactive approach, tailored to prevent child abuse and neglect from happening in the first place. The work recognized disparities in the system and sought to provide early identification and intervention for at-risk families, more partnerships with private and public entities to identify at-risk families, and interventions that recognized that race and racism contribute to a disproportionate number of brown, black and Native American children and families being involved in the system, and
WHEREAS, Ms. Ahlstrom engaged with numerous county departments to strengthen the safety net for children, including working with Hennepin County Public Health to align existing programs – from nutrition to childhood development – with a new family health service area dealing with maternal, child and early developmental issues, and with Human Services as they implemented a research-based model, Safe & Connected™ Consultation and Information-Sharing framework, to transform child welfare practice. For this transformation effort, Hennepin County launched data metrics to monitor racial disproportionality and disparities in decision making, added social workers and cultural navigator and community engagement staff, and enhanced staff training for critical thinking, shared accountability, cultural competence, and community engagement; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Ahlstrom stepped in during a time of transition to lead the six-person Child-Well-being Transformation team in 2019, so the team would continue with their mission of transforming the county’s Child Protection system and improving outcomes for children and families; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Ahlstrom has dedicated her career to child protection work and improving systems that benefits children and families; therefore