Solidarities: Reflecting on What It Takes to Go From Silos to System Change

Alliance for Boys and Men of Color (ABMoC) Policy Convening and Workshop

Last month, we hosted a workshop at Alliance for Boys and Men of Color (ABMoC) Policy Convening rooted in reflection, collaboration, and shared mission. The gathering brought together organizers, advocates, and leaders to sit with difficult questions about systems, narratives, and power, as well as to imagine what becomes possible when we work together across silos.

The convening also more broadly centered solidarities.

“Solidarity is radical, continuous, difficult, and requires honest conversation. It is fragile and needs consistency.”

That understanding by one of the event’s speakers framed the day.

At the Back to the Start workshop, we centered our shared commitment to reshaping the social contract and shifting focus from downstream punishment to upstream investment in children and families. We grounded our conversation in the realities of the cradle-to-prison pipeline, naming how systemic inequities across education, housing, health, and child welfare converge long before young people encounter the criminal justice system.

Using our Multisector Map, we explored how these systems are often treated as separate when, in practice, they are deeply interconnected. Seeing them together allowed us to move beyond fragmented solutions and toward prevention oriented, cross-sector approaches that reflect how families actually experience institutions.

The session was anchored in narrative. We opened with a poem by Jesse Milo, one of our co-leads, reminding us that lived experience is not supplemental to policy, it is foundational. We then examined ACEs and toxic stress through a lens that asks what systems produce harm, and how they might be transformed.

Participants named narratives that continue to limit possibility. For example, that parents don’t care, that youth don’t know what’s best for themselves, that punishment creates safety, that poverty reflects personal failure, or that expertise only lives in clinical or professional spaces. Across groups, there was a call to move from individual blame to shared accountability and systems change. The shared truth emerged that everyone can rally around, regardless of sector or affiliation, which is that all youth are sacred.

What resonated most was a shared understanding that solidarity is not transactional. It requires time, trust, humility, and care. Participants spoke about the need for authentic relationships, sharing credit, and refusing to let power brokers define what solidarity should look like. Solidarity, we were reminded, is not a strategy, it is a practice. We leave this still committed to building solidarities rooted in common ground that can also hold complexity and different view points. This gathering reaffirmed that meaningful change does not come from working harder in isolation, but from choosing to stay in conversation, together.

Stay tuned for updates as we take this feedback to heart and explore how narratives, policy advocacy, and cross-sector collaboration can be woven together to dismantle the cradle-to-prison pipeline and ensure that children and families can reach their full potential, regardless of zip code. In the meantime, if you are interested in getting involved, please reach out here.