Michelle D. Seymore MPNA
Embedded Files
Director, Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families
Conference Participation
Lightning Round III: The Impact of Government & Public Interventions on Marginalized Communities
Paper: Legislation as a Catalyst for Change: Minnesota's African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act — Early Implementation Lessons
Abstract: Minnesota's African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act (MAAFPCWDA) represents one of the most ambitious statutory responses to racial disproportionality in child welfare in U.S. history. Enacted to address the persistent overrepresentation of African American children in the child welfare system, the law mandates culturally specific services, community-centered practice, and accountability structures across 87 counties and 11 federally recognized tribes.
This lightning round presentation will share early implementation lessons from the law's statewide rollout; including service definition development, infrastructure challenges, and the establishment of an African American Child and Family Well-Being Advisory Council; and explore what this model offers as a replicable framework for dismantling structural racism in public systems.
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Biography: Michelle D. Seymore, MPNA, is the Director of Child Safety and Permanency at the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), where she has direct oversight of the African American Child and Family Well-Being Unit and leads statewide implementation of the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act (MAAFPCWDA) across Minnesota's 87 counties and 11 federally recognized tribes. In this role, she builds the policy infrastructure, accountability systems, and county-level partnerships needed to translate anti-disproportionality law into everyday practice.
In 2021, Michelle completed AdoptUSKids' Minority Professional Leadership Development (MPLD) fellowship, where her action research project on moral injury and its intersectionality with race gained national attention. Her research names the lasting harm practitioners carry when repeatedly forced to act — or watch others act — against their values within an inequitable system, and calls for child welfare reform that addresses workforce healing alongside policy change.
Michelle brings more than 20 years of child welfare experience — from frontline case management to state-level leadership — to this dual focus on systemic reform and workforce wellbeing.
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