Christy Belz welcomes attorney, trailblazer, and founder of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center Shari Shink — now the force behind Cobbled Streets — for a conversation rooted in nearly 50 years of advocacy. What began as a one-year detour to Colorado became a lifetime commitment after one courtroom moment Shari couldn’t walk away from. This is a fierce, urgent, and deeply human conversation about a broken system, the children caught inside it, and what it looks like to build something better from the outside.
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Key Takeaways
- One Courtroom Moment That Changed Everything: Shari traces her entire career back to a judge’s decision to remove a thriving two-and-a-half-year-old from the only family he’d ever known — and her refusal to let it happen again.
- Why the System Keeps Failing: She breaks down the policy pendulum swinging from family-first to child-safety-first and back — and why every swing traumatizes the kids caught in the middle.
- The Accountability Gap: With judges, lawyers, and caseworkers all involved, nobody is held responsible for outcomes — and that’s why kids cycle through placement after placement.
- What Cobbled Streets Actually Does: Community events, individual experiences, and ambassador networks across Colorado’s 23 judicial districts — all built around one question: what does this child want?
- “My Horse Didn’t Give Up on Me”: A seven-year-old’s four words after equine therapy that capture everything foster kids are missing — and everything Cobbled Streets is trying to give back.
Resources Mentioned:
Rebecoming Me (Film): https://www.cobbledstreets.org/rebecomingme
Connect with Christy Belz:
Website: https://christybelz.com
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