May 8^th, 2026 Welcome McKenzie Pearson | Metro Staff Trainer

Learn more about McKenzie M. Pearson, MSW our new Metro Staff Trainer at the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy!

What is your job title, and what will you be doing?

• I’m a Metro Staff Trainer here at the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy. I’ll be training new child protection workers, and I also have the privilege of facilitating training on the Minnesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act and cultural responsiveness. That last part especially sits close to my heart. It’s not just a curriculum to me, it’s something I believe in deeply.

Tell us about your education and/or work experience prior to joining the MNCWTA.

• I have a undergraduate degree in Family Social Science and a Master's in Clinical Social Work. Most of my direct experience has been working with individuals and families experiencing homelessness, which really shaped how I see systems and how people move through them, especially when they’re navigating multiple barriers at once. From there I moved into child welfare working to implement the African American Family Peserfation Act in practice, and then crisis therapy, spending a lot of time sitting with people in really intense, high stakes moments. 
• Along the way I became deeply involved in equity work, looking at how systems operate day to day, how decisions get made, how people are treated, and where the gaps show up for the families connected to those systems. That perspective is something I carry with me into every room I’m in.

How long have you been working in your field?

• Ten years, all of it in direct front-line work, and systems level advocacy.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

•  The challenging conversations and the deep impact this work has on families. There is something powerful about creating a space where people feel safe enough to sit in discomfort and actually grow from it. I love knowing that what happens in a training room ripples out to real families, and any opportunity I have to advocate within that I will always take.

What are you most passionate about professionally?

• Anti-racism. Not as a concept or a talking point, but as a practice. I genuinely believe that if we’re not actively working against racist systems and practices, we’re contributing to them. In child welfare that’s not an abstract idea, it has real consequences for real families. Each training I facilitate is an opportunity to move people closer to doing this work with that kind of honesty and accountability.

What are you most passionate about personally?

• Advocating for my family and my community. Building relationships that are real and rooted in something. And breaking cycles, the ones that keep people stuck, that cause harm, that get passed down when nobody interrupts them. I've seen what happens when those cycles don't get interrupted and I'm committed to calling people in, rather than "out." 

What are you surprisingly good at?

• Supporting people. I have a natural ability to meet people where they are and make them feel seen in the process. I can usually read a room and sense when something isn’t landing or when someone needs a different approach before we move forward. I’d always rather slow down and connect than push through just to get to the end.

What do you like to do outside of work

• Outside of work, I spend time with my family. I also try to stay pretty engaged in my community and I’m constantly in a process of learning and unlearning. 

What else should we know about you?

• I’m a deeply passionate person. I care about systems change, about impact, about doing this work with intention and purpose. But more than anything I want people to know that I genuinely care about this work, the people in the room with me, and the families connected to it.