A Look Into Better Ways 2 Better Days!

Hi, my name is Kristen Williams. I'm the owner of Better Ways 2 Better Days LLC, and I'm also in the process of launching the Better Ways 2 Better Days Foundation. It's going to be an organization dedicated to advocacy, community education, and offering real support for families navigating the justice system and to help juveniles that have been effected by toxic stress. .

But beyond the titles and the work I do, I’m a mom. I'm a single mother to a wonderful child.. but because of the trauma and the difficult circumstances surrounding our lives, my child now lives with something called toxic stress syndrome.

Now, you might not have heard of it, but it’s becoming terrifyingly common. It’s what happens when a child experiences strong, frequent, or prolonged adversity—like the kind that comes from an unhealthy, high-conflict family separation. And right now, these separations are happening in massive numbers all across America.

When you look at one child, one family, one case… it might seem like a small, isolated problem. You might think, "Okay, that’s a tough situation, but it's just one story." You might even think that the system, as flawed as it is, is generally working. That a few errors here and there don't make a real difference in the grand scheme of things.

But that’s where we’re getting it so, so wrong.

Because it’s not just one story. It's not just my child. It's thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Millions of children and families being impacted by traumatic events, often made worse by the very systems that are supposed to protect them.

Imagine a single crack in a dam. By itself, it might not look like much. But when you have thousands of those cracks… when you have a crack for every family torn apart by conflict, for every child whose sense of safety is shattered, for every parent fighting a lonely battle in a confusing system… those individual cracks add up. They weaken the entire structure.

And that’s what we’re seeing. We're not just looking at individual issues anymore. We are looking at a catastrophic failure. A wave of collective trauma that is shaping an entire generation.

The stress these kids are enduring isn't just "being sad." It affects their brain development. It impacts their ability to learn, to form healthy relationships, to regulate their emotions. It increases their risk for physical and mental health problems for the rest of their lives.

So, when we talk about the "errors" in the system, we're not talking about minor inconveniences. We are talking about life-altering, generational damage. This isn't about one family's bad experience. This is about the future of our communities. It's about the future of our children.

The difference isn't small. It's not insignificant. When you take a step back and see the sheer number of lives affected… the difference is catastrophic. And it’s a catastrophe we can no longer afford to ignore. We have to start seeing the bigger picture. We have to demand better. For my child, and for the future of all our children!