How can we support survivors of domestic violence and their children without the child welfare system? 

State intervention often forces survivors into impossible choices: remain in a harmful situation to keep their children or engage with a legal system that might use their trauma as evidence of an unstable home.

In this episode, we sit down with Ashley De Anna Albert, an abolitionist, writer, and survivor of intimate partner violence whose children were taken by CPS. Ashley has transformed her own pain into powerful advocacy through Stolen Children’s Month and her work leading healing justice circles that remind us no family is disposable.

Together, we talk about how survivors are punished instead of supported, how the family policing system connects to other forms of systemic violence, and what it means to imagine a future where survivors are met with care, resilience, and community, instead of surveillance and separation.

About Our Guest: 

Ashley De Anna Albert is an abolitionist working to dismantle the family policing system and its ties to mass incarceration. Through her advocacy, writing, and healing justice circles, she uplifts the voices of parents impacted by child removal and challenges the racialized harms of foster care, adoption, and termination of parental rights. Her work centers on building community-based alternatives rooted in care, resilience, and the belief that no family is disposable. 

Episode Notes: 

• Support the work of upEND: upendmovement.org/donate
• Episode Transcript: upendmovement.org/podcast/episode305
• Read “Reclaiming Safety”: upendmovement.org/safety 
• Learn more about the campaign to Repeal CAPTA.
• Read “Owning Your Story, Claiming Your Power” by Ashley Albert. 
• Learn more about Stolen Children’s Month, the annual movement in June honoring families separated by family policing and other carceral systems. 
• Learn more about Ashley’s work as the founder of Intuned Consulting.