Global Leaders Driving Education, Child Welfare & Social Systems Transformation, 2026
Dr. Channing L. Collins’ work is a compelling reminder that meaningful reform begins not with idealism alone, but with systems designed to withstand reality. This feature powerfully captures her transition from frontline child welfare practice to becoming a leading architect of structural reform, bringing both credibility and urgency to her mission. Her approach stands out because it does not merely critique broken systems; it offers operational solutions grounded in lived experience, research, and measurable implementation strategies.
On Cover
Dr. Channing L. Collins
Founder & Lead Architect, The Collins Institute for Child & Family Systems, Architect of the Elizabeth Ophelia Child & Family Governance Framework
Some people enter public service with idealism. The best ones stay because of something harder to name: an inability to look away from what is broken. For this child welfare reformer and doctoral researcher, a decade on the frontlines of state child welfare systems did not produce cynicism. It produced clarity.
Sally Jones
Founder, SQS4KIDS
Some missions begin with anger. Others begin with grief. Sally Jones’s began with something quieter and far more enduring: a personal reckoning with her own childhood that refused to let her look away. That experience, and the determination it ignited, became the seed of SQS4KIDS a trauma-informed child protection program now poised to reach classrooms across the globe.
Rydhima Gupta
Founder of Upskill with Ridzi
In an era where education technology often prioritizes scale over substance, one educator stands apart by asking a fundamentally different question: How can technology amplify the human elements of teaching rather than replace them? Rydhima Gupta’s journey from classroom teacher to founder of Upskill with Ridzi represents more than a career transition. It embodies a philosophy that learning, at its core, remains deeply human work.
