Graduate Share Her Experiences in the Child Welfare System to Inspire Change
Kenisha Anthony, a first-generation college graduate, had a rough road early in life. Removed from her parent's custody at the age of four due to their struggles with substance use, she spent most of her childhood in foster care. "We were unable to be reunified, and I never returned home," she shared in a VoyageMIA article.
After years of abuse and neglect and falling through the cracks, she aged out of the child welfare system. At 18, she found herself "frustrated, hopeless, and without guidance, stability, or resources."
She ultimately credits learning from trial and error and the power of self-perseverance for saving her. While not without many obstacles, she stated in a blog post for The Miami Foundation, "I was going to get my high school diploma and pursue higher education. I saw college as my 'road to independence.'"
Kenisha searched for resources to pursue higher education and ultimately found mentors, organizations, and support that would allow her to reach her goal. She stressed the importance of "research, networking, and building relationships to attain these resources."
With scholarships and dedication, she earned her associate degree from Miami Dade College and her bachelor's degree in social work from the College of Social Work at Florida State University in 2015, followed by a master's degree in public administration from Florida International University.
Kenisha's experience with the child welfare system and desire to change it motivated her to major in social work and pursue a career in child welfare and policy. "My idea was to be on the inside and be a catalyst for change in the foster care system," she asserted.
Through her advocacy work with Florida Youth Shine, a youth-led advocacy organization, liaisons are now provided to young adults in foster care, and those attending college no longer have to turn in financial aid paperwork semesterly.
After completing her bachelor's degree, she worked as a dependency case manager, followed by an internship with Broward County's Homeless Initiative Partnership division. For Kenisha, the more experience she gained, the more ways she found to be involved in and to contribute towards making her community a better place, especially for the underserved and at-risk.
In 2020, she published her book LABELED: Ward of the State. The memoir shares her unique perspective as someone who has experienced the child welfare system from the inside and who is now a child welfare practitioner with an eye on change. "It is a social awareness tool for anyone who's faced adversity, beat the odds, and refused to be labeled," she emphasized in her interview with VoyageMIA.
"It's very educational," she explained in another interview with Essence magazine. "It teaches you a lot about how the system works, how the system should operate, what falls through the cracks at times."
"In writing this book, it was for me to bridge all of those voices and even give children a different perspective for how they look at their social workers. It's so much more going on than what we think," she said about her book. "This was just my experience and my walk of life. This is what I learned from it. This is how I move forward with my life, and this is how I am who I am today. It's a mixture of all of those things that I wanted to give to the world, that you can be and have whatever you want in life. You just have to work at it."
Today, Kenisha is an author and child welfare professional who aims to inspire, educate, and advocate for children and families, primarily by alleviating barriers and providing resources.
"I use my voice to share my lived experiences to educate others and impact systematic change as a youth and foster care advocate," she affirmed in her blog. "I share my triumphs to empower others like me to show up. There will always be someone who says, 'No.' Yet, there will also always be someone ready to open a door."
Learn more at KenishaAnthony.com.
