What up, what up, what up everybody? This is Michael Steele with a quick take from the

Michael Steel Podcast. Check it out.

Alright everybody, welcome back to the Michael Steel Podcast. We have a great conversation,

very insightful and I think an important conversation with the Reverend Dr. Starsky Wilson,

President of the CEO of the Children's Defense Fund, Board Chair of the National Committee

for Responsive Philanthropy and Vice Chair of the Forum for Theological Exploration.

So Reverend Dr. Wilson, we've touched on a lot of elements that sort of go into shaping

and influencing policy around kids and certainly the impact that that has had and is continue

to have on children. We are still within the grip of a global pandemic. We've seen these

battles being played out now at the state level as things start open up with the vaccine

and the age to get the vaccine has come down to 16 and there's now consideration to lower

the age to 12 and of course there's this debate around the impact on children. How have

you assessed, how is the CDF assess more directly the impact of COVID on our kids beyond just

the educational narrative that we started out talking about. Oh, kids got to go back

to the classroom and there's value to that but we also know some of what was driving

that as well but more importantly the psychological as well as emotional impact that this pandemic

has had on children and how we may see that manifest itself over the next 10, 12, 18

months. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you first how I assess it is I look at my four kids and

think about their individual needs. So this has been a unique journey for us and our family

because I've got a 16 year old who wanted to continue to play basketball and so he was

virtually schooling. He was still having an in-person practice and having to get tested

every week or during the pandemic and during the season with several scares with access

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