Awards

The Child Welfare Leadership Award recognizes Minnesota Leaders for their outstanding statewide contributions to child welfare practice.

Stacy Hennen is the Director of Western Prairie Human Services, a joint powers entity formed January 1, 2022, covering Grant and Pope County and Traverse County Social Services through a contract. Stacy has been a human services director for 15 years, starting in Grant County and adding Pope County in 2019 and Traverse County in 2021. Prior to being a human services director, Stacy worked in child protection and supervision of a children’s residential facility for 14 years. Stacy has served in numerous leadership roles in the past 15 years. She was appointed by the Governor to the Governor’s Child Protection task force and served on it for its entirety. She was also appointed by the Governor to the Human Services Performance Management Council and served on it since its inception. Stacy was President of the Minnesota Association of County Social Services Administrators (MACSSA) in 2015 and served in many other leadership roles within MACSSA including Chair of their Children’s Committee and the first Vice President of MACSSA. She currently is the Legislative Lead for MACSSA. Stacy received MACSSA’s Human Services Award in 2016. Stacy worked on many endeavors in her time as a director, including targeted case management redesign, vulnerable children and adults formula changes, and many child welfare projects. Stacy worked with her counties and teams to create Western Prairie Human Services and worked with her colleagues within her region to bring things like Collaborative Safety and Community Intensive Bridging Services (CIBS) to her counties and communities. Stacy testified in front of the Minnesota Legislature on a variety of children’s and general human services issues. She is married with two adult daughters.

Past Award Winners

The Child Welfare Exemplary Service Award was developed in early 2015 by the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) in order to recognize Minnesota county and tribal child welfare supervisors and frontline workers for exemplary service to children and families.

Outstanding nominees will demonstrate a commitment to engaging families, engagement in strengths-based work with families, a focus on reducing disparities in the child welfare system, and utilization of research-supported practice.

Michelle Buysse started her career with Lincoln, Lyon and Murray Human Services (which would eventually become Southwest Health and Human Services [SWHHS]) in May 2000 as a Child Welfare Social Worker. She was passionate about working with adolescents and stayed in that position until taking the Social Services Supervisor position in May 2008. Since then, she has supervised across several areas within SWHHS. Michelle is part of the child protection team, the children’s justice initiative team, the restorative practices stakeholder group, and many other children focused groups. She is the on-call supervisor on a rotating basis providing guidance to not only her own unit, but also children’s mental health and child protection units as well. She collaborates constantly with others within the agency and outside of the agency to find the best resources and services for families. One of her biggest accomplishments is implementing the Circle Program for SWHHS in 2011. She is a strong advocate for families and remains strengths-based in her work trying to prevent placements or shorten them in order to keep families unified. In her free time, Michelle enjoys spending time in Montana and with her husband, their two sons, and their families–especially their five grandchildren.

Allyssa Mashak is a supervisor with Hennepin County Child Protection’s 24-Hour Response Team. She holds her BSW from the University of St. Thomas, and she received her MSW/MBA from Augsburg University. She started with Hennepin County in 2016 as a Child Protection Screener, later transitioned to Child Protection Investigations, and has now spent the last four years in her current position. Prior to coming to the county, Allyssa held several positions with the YMCA’s Youth Intervention Services area doing work with youth via mentoring, probation, and violence prevention. She is passionate about serving families and supporting children. She is always looking for areas where she can work to reduce disparities for BIPOC families involved in the child welfare system. Allyssa’s nomination for this award stemmed from her leadership in coordinating a pilot that became a program in the fall of 2023 called The Prior TPR/TLC Support Program. The voluntary program supports expecting mothers with a prior loss of rights through Child Protection due to substance use and/or mental health concerns. The program allows Child Protection workers to engage with expecting mothers on a voluntary basis prior to the birth of their newborn, in efforts to ease anxieties about what will happen once the new baby is born. The program has goals of assessing the mother’s capacity to care for the newborn, preventing unnecessary removals, and planning for family/kin to care for the baby should the mother not be able to do this on her own.

Past Award Winners

The Child Welfare Change Maker Award was developed in 2018 in order to recognize the significant work and dedication of child welfare stakeholders whose impact positively affects change in child welfare practice, policy and research across Minnesota. The 2018 inaugural year Child Welfare Change Maker Award was awarded to the Minnesota Office of the Ombudsperson for Families to recognize and honor their critical work with children and families.

Kelis Houston is founder of Village Arms, an organization created in direct response to the over representation and inequitable treatment of African Americans across the child welfare service continuum. Kelis began her career in social services over a decade ago, and she has long served as an advocate and voice for marginalized communities. Her early work in child welfare advocacy was spent at St. Joseph’s Home for Children in Minneapolis. At that time, St. Joseph’s was the central intake shelter for Hennepin County and often the first stop for children once removed from their families. From there, she became a volunteer guardian ad litem (GAL) before taking a full-time position as a cultural specialist GAL. During that time, she also joined the NAACP and created the first child protection committee with the goal of meeting with decision makers across the state with demands and recommendations to reduce disparities. Kelis’ personal mission is to address and help eradicate child welfare disparities through legislative action, youth and family advocacy, policy reform, and community engagement. Kelis wrote and is advocating for the African American Family Preservation Act, which promotes the stability and security of African American families by the establishment of standards to prevent the arbitrary removal of African American children from their families. Kelis currently serves as cultural consultant to child welfare staff, students, and service providers. Her training is designed to bring a new level of cultural awareness to those working for and within the African American community in an effort to achieve clearer lines of communication and a sensitivity to culture.

Past Award Winners

The Outstanding Service Partner in Child Welfare Award was developed in 2020 in order to recognize the contributions of the many frontline professionals working in a variety of fields who support and serve child welfare-involved children and families.

Outstanding nominees will demonstrate a commitment to engaging families, engagement in strengths-based work with families, a focus on reducing disparities in the child welfare system, and utilization of research-supported practice.

Nominations examples for this award might include but are not limited to: community social workers, school social workers, Guardians Ad Litem, private agency foster care and adoption workers, and many others.

Jeanne Mercer is the founder of the Family Resource Center in Detroit Lakes and has over 30 years of experience providing child welfare services and facilitating Family Group Decision Making meetings as well as court mediation. She worked at the Lakes Crisis and Resource Center in Detroit Lakes prior to opening her own business. While there, Jeanne was involved in domestic violence advocacy services and served as their coordinator of Positive Connections, a supervised visitation and exchange program. Jeanne Mercer founded the Family Resource Center as part of her passion for going above and beyond to help families have their voices heard. Jeanne has been involved in Family Group Decision Making since the program’s inception in Minnesota in 1999. She has served multiple counties and tribes in providing strengths-based Family Group Decision Making services to families involved with the child protection system. Upon completing her advanced mediation training at St. Olaf College, Jeanne was approved for inclusion on both civil facilitative and family facilitative hybrid panels as a qualified neutral under the Minnesota Rules of Practice. She has also completed training at William Mitchell College of Law and through the Minnesota Department of Human Services to coordinate and facilitate Family Group Decision Making Conferences.

Faith Jaspersen has worked with Family Alternatives for 38 years as a licensing worker and clinical supervisor and is retiring this spring (2023). She is highly involved in licensing of new families, supporting licensing assessments, and writing home studies. Faith is active in youth programming, most recently at our little girls overnight, and has been teaching foster parents during orientation and continuing education sessions on the topics of mental health, licensing investigations, trauma responsiveness, and capacity building.

Past Award Winners

Heather Keeler is a 2023 Award Winner, and is the Minnesota State House Representative for District 04A. Her Committee Assignments include: Vice Chair, Children and Families Finance and Policy, Human Services Finance, and Education Policy. Ms. Keeler is a Native American and a registered member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Representative Keeler has sponsored many important bills while in office, including: the Minnesota Indian Family Preservation Act, protecting gender affirming health care, a Safe Harbor shelter and housing grant program, as well as a bill to provide free school breakfast and lunch for all students regardless of income.

Mary Kunesh is a 2023 Award Winner, and is the Minnesota State Senator for District 39. Her Committee Assignments include: Chair, Education Finance, Education Policy, Agriculture, Broadband and Rural Development, Environment, Climate and Legacy. Ms. Kunesh is a person of Lakota heritage and is one of the founding members of the Native American and People of Color & Indigenous (POCI) caucuses. She is the first indigenous woman to serve in the Minnesota Senate. Senator Kunesh has authored and and co-sponsored many important bills while in office, including: the Minnesota African American Family Preservation Act, Affordable Health Care available for every Minnesotan, Tribal Nation aid establishment and appropriation, and Informal kinship caregiver support grant establishment, which expanded financial support for adoptive, foster, and kinship families.

Past Award Winners