Kristen Brock-Petroshius grew up in a working-class Midwestern city. After receiving her BA in Sociology with a minor in Gender Studies from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, she began a career in social services and community organizing. She supported low-income families and incarcerated individuals through housing, transportation, and employment training at the YWCA. She helped found Operation Welcome Home, a grassroots organization dedicated to decriminalizing and addressing the root causes of homelessness. From 2011-2016 she was the Executive Director of GSAFE, a Wisconsin non-profit working to create just schools for LGBTQ youth.
Kristen’s movement work has focused on organizing white communities to take action for racial justice. She served as a founder, lead organizer, and educator on racial justice issues with Groundwork, a community organization of white people working to achieve racial justice. She also served as staff for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and achieve racial justice.
Kristen is an active organizer with the local SURJ affiliate AWARE-LA and White People 4 Black Lives and was a Regional Field Director on the Reform LA Jails campaign – a Los Angeles County ballot initiative approved in March 2020 that reallocates funds from jail expansion into community resources and increases accountability for the Sheriff’s Department.
Kristen Brock-Petroshius, MSW 