My name is Shanita Dildy-Goings and I am considered a lived experience expert on life within and transitioning from substitute care. Lived experience experts use their personal encounters in life to educate and inform others who may not have first-hand knowledge. That expertise is then used to aid in things like the strategic direction, governance, and design and delivery of research an organization can take to improve itself. Basically, lived experts have insight that could greatly increase the effective implementation of an organization’s goals better than anyone without personal insight could. In this way, since I was young, I have been lucky enough to be a witness to and be a part of real change in the system by just being willing to share my story.
It started with SaySo. They first taught me that despite what I had gone through, or how old I was, that I had a voice. My voice became my platform for change to fix what I didn’t like about being in care including my lack of agency, normalcy, sibling visits, etc. I was an angry and confused child who felt passed around, alone, and unstable. The adults around me lacked the capacity, training, or will try and understand what I was going through, let alone how to make the experience better for me. For this reason alone, the system needed to look to experienced experts if they hoped to improve.
The adults who sought out these experts valued what I had to contribute and learned from what I and other youth like me have lived through. With their help I have been in the room with mayors, governors, representatives, and senators who have direct influence over how the state views foster youth. The lived experience I was able to share through speeches, articles, workshops, and my art paved the road to better kinship care, sibling connections, and normalcy standards. I can only look forward to and support others with lived experience as they make their mark in creating change within substitute care.
