Real Talk Real Solutions with Special Expert Guest Tara James-Wallace. Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker in private practice providing community-based behavioral and mental health services. She is nationally certified as a Trauma Focused - Cognitive Behavioral Therapist.

We're discussing our education system and the way we educate, discipline and relate to black children. We uncover the adultification of black girls and how to reshape and reframe the mind after trauma. 

Tara implemented the Community Outreach Program for Family Service and Guidance Center’s Outreach & Integrated Care Program in Topeka, KS. This program allowed Tara to work directly with families to identify and overcome systemic challenges contributing to their struggle for mental and emotional stability.

Collaboration with multiple community partners led to Tara becoming President of the

Kansas African American Foster Care/Adoption Coalition. This volunteer organization works to engage community-based resources to support children and families involved with the child welfare system. A major accomplishment for KAAFCAC under Tara’s tenure was a state-wide conference to educate birth families, foster/adoptive families and child welfare workers about the issues contributing to the overrepresentation of African American children in the child welfare system.

Tara’s fierce and passionate advocacy work has led to volunteer opportunities serving on the boards of multiple agencies and organizations whose missions involve improving the lives of children and families. She was appointed to the Kansas Governor’s Child Welfare System Task Force and provided testimony to the legislature related to child welfare reform. As a result of this work she was appointed to the Social and Economic Justice & Peace Section of the National Association of Social Workers.