foster care

Consistency, Genuineness, and Boundaries with Sumiyah Mshaka

My guest this week is double-duty social worker and fitness guru Sumiyah S. Mshaka. Sumiyah and I talk about a bunch of complex social phenomenon including trauma, experiential change, and social work.

Sumiyah is a LCSW and group fitness instructor who comes from a family with a legacy of social justice. After graduating from the UCLA MSW program in June 2004, Sumiyah began her extensive career in social justice advocacy, youth development and mental health treatment of adolescents in foster care and juvenile justice. This has included serving most recently in a mezzo social work position in the new DMH Division, Continuum of Care Reform, Interagency Placement Committee (IPC) program.

Sumiyah is active in her community, serving on the Governance Board of CAIR-LA and volunteering with L.A. AIDSWalk, Islah L.A. and Islamic Relief’s Disaster Response Team. For the past five and a half years, Sumiyah has taught Group Fitness classes at 24 Hour Fitness.

You can learn more about Sumiyah’s work by connecting directly with her via Facebook!

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Nightmares Can Lead to Dreams

Slam's life quote is "Sometimes a Nightmare Can Lead to a Dream".
 In this week’s interview Slam shares how the quote, as well as writing and poetry, have motivated and helped her life. It has also led Slam to her dream; working with kids in the foster care system and helping people all over.

Slam Anderson

Florida native Slam Anderson was born the fourth of five children raised by a single mother. She spent her important adolescent years in Foster Care, and knew from an early age she’d have to forge her own path. And regardless of these early challenges, she still gained admission to the University of South Florida, where she graduated with a Bachelors in Creative Writing and is now working on her Master in Social Work.

Slam is a strong advocate of ‘Youth’ social welfare, and works in the community to promote literacy, self-empowerment, awareness, domestic violence, social justice and most importantly LOVE for ourselves and for others.

Check out this powerful and moving episode.

Follow Slam on Facebook

Slam Anderson will be our feature on this week's edition of the Live and Online: Expression Session.  Register below! 

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