About Us

Who We Are

The upEND Movement is a collaborative movement that works to abolish the existing child welfare system, which is built on a model of surveillance and separation and is more accurately described as a family policing system. Abolition requires ending this oppressive system AND imagining and recreating the ways in which society supports children, families, and communities in being safe and thriving.

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Why upEND the system?

We have known for decades that Black, Native, and, in many jurisdictions, Latine children have disproportionately high rates of family separation and involvement with child welfare systems. We also know that foster care causes trauma and harm. In addition to the harm of family separation, children experience trauma from failed or unsafe placements, multiple moves while in care, and loss of connections to friends, extended family, and school. Children who spend extended time in foster care are at high risk for a host of negative outcomes including poverty, homelessness, joblessness, mental health disorders, and involvement with the criminal punishment system.

We strive for abolition because we understand that the biggest threats to child safety and well-being are ingrained anti-Blackness in our policies and practices; economic exploitation produced by racial capitalism; the continuing cultural genocide produced by colonialism; gender oppression sustained through patriarchy; and White supremacist norms of good parenting, family, and safety—norms that maintain power in the hands of oppressive systems. We seek to build a society where children, families, and communities self-determine what well-being and safety mean for them and are supported with the resources to do so.

We build on the work of reproductive justice, which centers bodily autonomy and asserts that parents should live in a society where they have the power to make decisions about how and when they will parent and the ability to raise their families in conditions that are free of oppression. In other words, we seek to build a world where the care, support, and well-being of children, families, and communities is fully realized.

Meet the Staff