Alice Carter
At the intersection of dedication and articulate care, Alice Carter turns the leaves of a family tree in the right direction. Making the details of growing a healthy family has strengthened her own. Others find her opening the arteries of public assistance in a truly grass roots approach.
As Program Manager for Wyoming Kinship Advocacy, a program of Wyoming Citizen Review Panel (WYKA), Carter worked determinedly to ease financial hurdles in the bureaucratic system as well as the kinks and clogs and health care issues that often burden families. The support system that WYKA provides rose organically as family needs presented themselves and Carter was there tuning into policy or legal documents to keep the pulse alive in an organization that just began in 2004.
“I know that out of home care will always be needed, but my journey is to help eradicate the need for foster care and keep families united.” Working with families that are not in the child welfare system, Carter and the organization maintain a steadfast belief in the blood of family ties. She’s currently pushing through training and programming measures for non-family providers to align respite care so that parents, aunts, uncles and outside kinship caregivers have a reprieve from the very real responsibility of maintaining the safety and wellbeing of a child.
WYKA has, to date, worked with around 850 children and has a success rate of 88 out of 89 in their birth-family reunification program. “I believe that kids fare the best when they are raised by their parents,” says Carter. “I work really had for that.” In addition to her own attentive ideas, she loves stealing best practices from other non-profits to use in Wyoming. She’s earned the respect of her community as well as the family she’s created through intelligent and thoughtful leadership.
Speaking with Carter it’s hard to tell where her own family begins and ends. To raising her own three children and two grandchildren, she’s learned from the hardships that come along with medical bills and the disconnections of an untraditional or fractured family unit. Whether she’s making scarves and hats for every kid that comes in so as to eliminate the prideful auspices that block children and parents from accepting support, or ensuring that everyone gets to show off their unique selves during the holiday party, Carter believes in knowing who you are. She makes giving a lifestyle choice.
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