In this episode, host Valerie Frost speaks with Liangliang Han, Program Director of the Family Enrichment Center at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Together, they explore Rise Up, a community-driven initiative where immigrant families are not just recipients of services, they are the architects of them.

Sunset Park is one of New York City’s most diverse neighborhoods, home to vibrant Latinx and Chinese communities. Rise Up works to ensure programs meet the real needs, culture, and history of its residents, flipping the traditional top-down approach to family support.

Liangliang shares how Rise Up began with families advocating at the Legislature in Albany. Rise Up has evolved into co-designing programs, developing leaders, and establishing new partnerships. One of these partnerships provides strategic financing tools and resources to help community led organizations secure sustainable funding.

This episode highlights the power of culturally rooted community-led work and the ways family advocacy is reshaping systems for lasting change.

Check Out Community In-Site's Blog!! You can go to the website to listen to episodes, read the blog, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are some additional resources Liangliang would like to share with you.

• Center for Family Life - Home
• Finding Resonance Amongst Diverse Cultures Through Weaving ← Taconic Fellowship ← Pratt Center For Community Development
• Rise Up: Instagram

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. comminsite@gmail.com

In this episode, host Valerie Frost sits down with Dr. Melissa Merrick, President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA), to talk about what it means to lead today as we all navigate through uncertainty. She emphasizes the importance of having courage, maintaining a clear vision, and being deeply committed to families.

With a background in clinical work, public health, and national leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Melissa brings a unique lens to the family well-being movement. Melissa and PCAA are working harder than ever to keep prevention front and center as programs across the country face changing policies and uncertain funding. This is not an afterthought for her, but a foundational strategy for lasting change.

Valerie and Melissa explore how PCAA is navigating this moment with both resilience and vision, how the Thriving Families, Safer Children initiative has shaped her leadership, and what it looks like to build systems that are not just reactive, but rooted in hope, healing, and partnership.

This conversation is a timely reminder that leadership is not about having all the answers. It is about showing up whole, even when things feel uncertain.

Check Out Community In-Site's Blog!! You can go to the website to listen to episodes, read the blog, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are some additional resources Melissa would like to share with you.

• 2025 National Conference Recap
• The Shift: Voices of Prevention — A podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. comminsite@gmail.com

In this re-release of one of our most impactful episodes, host Valerie Frost revisits her conversation with Adam Ballout, public defender and co-founder of the F.I.R.S.T. (Family Intervention Response to Stop Trauma) Legal Clinic in Washington State. The clinic provides a groundbreaking model of early legal advocacy, partnering with healthcare and community organizations to support mothers facing substance use challenges—helping to keep families intact before the trauma of separation takes hold.

This episode goes straight to the heart of the child protection system, challenging the assumption that termination of parental rights and adoption should always be considered success. Instead, Adam offers a powerful alternative: that keeping families together is true success.

Listeners will learn how early intervention and a holistic, family-centered approach—with legal advocates and parent allies involved from birth—can dramatically improve outcomes. The F.I.R.S.T. Clinic has kept mothers and infants together in 83% of their cases, offering a hopeful example of a prevention-focused child welfare system.

This conversation is both deeply personal and systemic, exploring how compassionate legal advocacy can disrupt cycles of trauma and create a more just, dignified future for families.

Check Out Community In-Site's Blog!! You can go to the website to listen to episodes, read the blog, access information and resources, and subscribe to the email newsletter. Podcasts Archive - Thriving Families

Here are some additional resources Adam would like to share with you.

• The First Clinic – Family Intervention Response To Stop Trauma
• The F.I.R.S.T. Legal Clinic: A New Frontier of Partnerships to Stop Trauma
• Being Gina - Institute for Family
• Family First: A group of Washington lawyers works to keep infants with their mothers

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. comminsite@gmail.com