Allison Gilbreath and Sophia Booker drop a pin (or two) at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
It’s not every day you’re invited to the White House. Except … Allison Gilbreath (B.S.’11/GPA; M.S.W.’16/SW) went twice in four months in 2022, the second time bringing along fellow alum Sophia Booker (B.S.W.’18/SW; M.S.W.’22/SW).
The policy and programs director for Voices for Virginia’s Children, Gilbreath participated in a Build Back Better roundtable in February, discussing affordable child care, working mothers and equitable pay for child care, particularly for women of color. Her son, Perry, then 3, attended.
In June, she tapped Booker to join her for a session with the Domestic Policy Council on child welfare. Booker spoke about her own lived experience with mental health challenges and her work experience as youth development coordinator at foster care agency UMFS.
Both Gilbreath and Booker had similar reactions to the experiences: “Who gets to go twice?” Gilbreath says. “I felt enormous pride and couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be going back to the White House.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to wrap my head around it … who gets to go to the White House?” Booker says. “For me, just being in that space as a social worker meant a lot to me. I feel like our work sometimes is underappreciated. The fact that I’m even in that space as a social worker, it means there are people here that value social workers and direct care-practice people. It’s powerful to see that.”
Gilbreath and Booker have forged a connection, with the latter serving both her B.S.W. and M.S.W. field placements with Gilbreath at Voices, a nonprofit that champions public policies to help children in the commonwealth. Having served on a number of national coalitions in leadership roles, Gilbreath is a go-to resource for child welfare as well as diversity, equity and inclusion.
“What is interesting about the June event, they reached out because in addition to child welfare knowledge, they see me working with young people and lifting up their ideas and helping turn that into legislation,” Gilbreath says. “So it was a very quick turnaround when I was emailed on a Tuesday to be at the White House the very next Tuesday. They have to put it together very quickly, so it’s, ‘if you can give me a name in a couple of hours,’ and the first person I thought of was Sophia.”
Booker laughs at the memory. “I got a text from Allison super early, and I’m not a morning person. I looked at it and she said it’s a cool opportunity for me to go to the White House. I’m rubbing my eyes, saying, ‘what are you talking about?’ I’m still waking up.”
For me, just being in that space as a social worker meant a lot to me. I feel like our work sometimes is underappreciated. The fact that I’m even in that space as a social worker, it means there are people here that value social workers and direct care-practice people. It’s powerful to see that.
Booker and six other youth advocates from around the country spoke, with a focus on expanding funding for the federal Chaffee Program, which provides financial assistance to youth in foster care and young adults who have aged out of the foster care system and are transitioning to independence.
“One of the things I talked about was mental health, which is really important but not just for foster youth,” Booker says. “The systems intersect with schools, the doctor’s office. … It’s about making sure they’re talking about that more and having trauma-informed care practices in the work we do. A lot of times youth in foster care get that label of being bad kids or having behavioral problems, but it’s more of them acting from trauma.”
As everyone shared about their personal experiences, Booker says, “it got emotional. Staffers were crying. It’s good to be able to talk in an intimate place, and hopefully they heard us. I have a serious problem with tokenism, just sitting around at the table but not really utilizing what we’re saying and that experience, and not putting it into policy. But it sounds like the administration is serious about it.”
When it comes to policy, Gilbreath says, “it’s not always about the results, but the process. I imagine with child welfare, we might see something huge come out in a year and a half. It can be frustrating if you're not familiar with the legislative process.”
Experiences like this lead to greater leadership opportunities, she says, “because more folks see your name and are connected to your work.” She sees the same opportunities for Booker. “I could definitely see Sophia going back (to the White House). She has the mind and the wherewithal to be in a position like that. This is just the beginning for Sophia.”
Gilbreath says the second time around was also more relaxing than the first trip, where she was in “mom mode” with Perry. “It was a whirlwind with a 3-year-old. Right before the cameras went live, Perry was yelling that he wanted to go home now. (U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra) and everyone were laughing. I reached into my purse and said, ‘would you like a Reese’s? You can have it if we stay longer.’ “We’ll look back and say, ‘when you were 3, we had to give you a Reese’s at the White House because you wanted to go home.’ ”
It’s a family legacy now, and one that Gilbreath hopes stretches for generations. “At the end of the second visit, the secretary said that anytime anyone comes to the White House, they write your name in a ledger, and that goes into the archives. I thought that was really cool. One day, maybe 150 years from now, my descendants will see that and know that their ancestor was at the White House on a particular day.”