Welcome to the Season 2 Finale! 

Reproductive justice has always been the foundation of upEND’s work to abolish the family policing system. Both movements focus on bodily autonomy and our human right to keep ourselves and our children safe from oppressive systems.

That’s why we wanted to speak with Ash Williams, a Black trans abortion doula, storyteller, community organizer, and public intellectual from Fayetteville, Nc.

We talk about gender affirming care, abortion doula trainings, and how abolitionist work means providing support and care to one another outside of the system. 

Episode Notes:

• Support the work of upEND: upendmovement.org/donate

• Episode Transcript

• Watch Ash’s panel at upEND’s 2023 Convening.

• Learn more about the Carolina Abortion Fund. 

• Ash discusses the death of a child in North Carolina, which is a reproductive justice issue. 

• Learn more about the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective. 

• Ash recommends learning about organizations like We Testify.

• Follow Ash Williams on Instagram, @ashwilliamsclt.

The foster system has more than double the representation of LGBTQ youth than the general population. And LGBTQ youth of color have significantly greater odds of being in the foster system compared to white LGBTQ youth. When marginalized identities intersect across race, gender, and sexuality, we see the harms of the family policing system become compounded. 

As a young person, our guest experienced the these systems of oppression and has valuable insights that can help us understand beyond the statistics. 

Content Warning: 

This episode features conversations around child sexual abuse. 

About Our Guest:

Nalo Zidan is a philosopher, accountability strategist and masculinity scholar who seeks to challenge the landscapes of how we engage gender, community and justice. From intentional, thought-provoking content to training community organizations, Nalo continues to invite us all to consider implementing community concepts above policing and disposal. Nalo’s next project,  The Adult Preschool, seeks to imagine necessary lessons to connect adult experiences with how to practice community together. This virtual project will offer lessons we deserved to learn as young people; lessons that can change how we see the world and each other.

Episode Notes: 

• Support the work of upEND: upendmovement.org/donate

• Episode Transcript

• Follow @nalodarling on Instagram. 

• On the Bad People Podcast, Nalo shares lessons on the complexities of being, the magic of community praxis, and the transformative power of accountability.

Schools have become sites of policing and surveillance that mirror the criminal legal system. To address this, we need to understand what our guest calls the “school-to-prison nexus,” the intersecting web of racist, carceral systems that criminalize our youth.

We discuss the history of organizing against the school-to-prison pipeline and how the call for “Counselors Not Cops” needs an abolitionist framework to succeed. We also highlight important wins from decades-long fights like the recent vote to end the school resource office (SRO) program in Chicago Public Schools.

Episode Guest:

Erica Meiners is a writer, educator and organizer. Their recent books include For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State, a co-edited anthology The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Towards Freedom, and the co-authored *Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence* as well as 2022’s Abolition. Feminism. Now. Most importantly, Erica has collaboratively started and works alongside others in a range of ongoing mobilizations for liberation, particularly movements that involve access to free public education for all, including people during and after incarceration, and other queer abolitionist struggles. They are a member of Critical Resistance, the Illinois Death in Custody Project, the Prison+Neighborhood Arts and Education Project, and the Education for Liberation Network. Erica is also a sci-fi fan, an avid runner, and a lover of bees and cats.

Episode Notes:

• Transcript: upendmovement.org/podcast/episode-205/
• Support the work of upEND: upendmovement.org/donate
• To understand the difference between reforms and abolitionist steps to end family policing, explore our framework tool at upendmovement.org/framework
• We mention the Repeal CAPTA episode of The upEND Podcast. Learn more about the efforts to repeal the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act at repealcapta.org
• Erica encourages people to check out the work of organizations like Critical Resistance, Dream Defenders, Movement for Family Power, and the blog Black on Both Sides.

The trauma of state-sanctioned family separations is shared by victims of immigrant detention and the family policing system (also known as the child welfare system). Additionally, immigrant detentions are so intertwined with the prison industrial complex that they are nearly the same. Abolitionists must see these systems as connected if we want to create a successful strategy to dismantle them. 

This episode was recorded in the summer of 2024 and details the detention and separation policies of presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden. We discuss the call to Abolish ICE, prisoner uniforms on babies, and policies like SB4 in Texas that are being duplicated across the country. 

Episode Guest: 

Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the US. She is also the author of the recently published book,Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024). She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, the prison industrial complex, and racial and migrant justice for over 20 years.

Episode Notes: 

• Support the work of upEND:upendmovement.org/donate

• Silky mentions the campaigns ofGrassroots Leadership andFamilies Belong Together. 

• Learn more aboutDetention Watch Network. 

• ReadUnbuild Walls by Silky Shah. 

Family separations have been used as a colonization and genocidal tactic since before the founding of America and these practices continue today. Native children are currently removed from their homes at 2–3 times the rate of white children. They are often taken away from relatives and their communities, even when those options are available.

In this episode, we’ll talk about the legacy of boarding schools and what Indigenous organizers are doing to preserve their culture and support their communities. 

About Our Guest: 

Marcella Gilbert is a member of the Oceti Sakowin-7 Council Fires known as the Great Sioux Nation.  Currently living on the Cheyenne River Indian reservation in north central South Dakota, Marcella is involved with the Standing Strong grandmothers group whose main focus is to create local action in regards to child rescue efforts. Marcella is a lifelong member and student of the American Indian Movement and We Will Remember Survival Group, a water protector, wife, and grandmother. Marcella also holds a Master's Degree in Nutrition.

Episode Notes: 

Welcome to the upEND 2024 Convening! This episode was recorded live in Houston, TX on October 10, 2024. 

Our liberation movements are intertwined. What are our strengths and opportunities in working together to achieve our collective goals? Guest host Corey Best moderates a conversation with activists working against prisons, immigrant detention, family policing, and more.

Episode Guests:  

Corey B. Best is a Black father, community organizer, activist, and leader. Originally from Washington, DC, Corey now resides in Florida. Corey has attached himself to “justice doing” — a movement and never-ending journey of being guided by the principled struggle to advance racial justice within this nation’s child welfare and human service delivery systems.  This work puts Corey in front of more than 10,000 professionals annually and has afforded him with the fundamental knowledge about the importance of connecting to something bigger than himself–allowing perspective, pain, truth, joy, and vulnerability to surface in search of meaningful, collective impact.  In all his endeavors, Corey brings a deepened historical and contemporary analysis of the invention of race, racism, systems of oppression and how those systems interconnect to produce white advantage gaps.

Tanisha Long (she/her) is the Allegheny County community organizer for ALC. She holds a BA in English writing and a minor in legal studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Before her work with ALC, Tanisha organized the Black Lives Matter Pittsburgh and Southwest PA organization working to fight systemic racial injustice. Since 2008, Tanisha has organized rallies and direct actions centered around climate change, voting rights, and mass incarceration. She is also the founder of RE Visions, a nonprofit committed to creating a more equitable learning environment for students of color. Tanisha believes there is a power at the intersection of art & activism; she hopes to use her passion for storytelling to both center and better the lives of those impacted by our inequitable justice systems.

Tarek Ismail is Associate Professor at CUNY Law School, where co-directs the Family Law Practice Clinic and Family Defense Practicum, and is counsel to CUNY Law’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project.

Jennefer Canales-Pelaez joined the ILRC in 2022. Jennefer has advocated for immigrant rights from the age of 11 when she advocated for her father’s immigration status to the President at the time, George W. Bush. Although her father was ultimately deported, Jennefer dedicated her life and career to ensuring that no one else experiences the trauma she felt at the age of 11. She graduated from Occidental College with a B.A. in Sociology in 2012 and earned her Juris Doctor from Southwestern Law School in 2016. Jennefer is a member of the State Bar of Texas and California. She is also admitted in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Jennefer has been involved with ICE out of LA, Southwestern Immigration Law Clinic, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, Immigrant Defenders Law Center (IMMDEF), Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and worked with the Los Angeles Immigration Court. Jennefer is a former board member and co-president of the National Lawyers Guild-LA Chapter, and former Apen Ideas Scholar. After moving back to her hometown, Houston, Texas in 2019, she represented survivors of gender-based violence at Tahirih Justice Center prior to joining the ILRC. Jennefer was nominated as one of Houston’s Unsung Heros in 2020. 

Episode Notes: 

The call to end modern-day slavery and the prison industrial complex is gaining momentum because of organizers committed to realize the dream of abolition. At upEND, we understand that the demand to end incarceration is deeply linked to the movement to end family policing. 

Nearly half of the people in state prisons are parents to children under 18, which pushes thousands of kids into the foster system while also destroying their support systems. 

Then, one in three families dealing with incarceration goes into debt trying to stay in touch with their loved ones due to predatory systems profiting from imprisonment. Our episode guest works to end this cruel practice and keep families connected. 

Episode Guest: 

Bianca Tylek is one of the nation’s leading experts on the prison industry and the Founder and Executive Director of Worth Rises, a national organization working to end the financial incentives for incarceration.  Bianca is a leader in the national movement to make prison and jail communication free, which has saved families more than $400 million and generated two billion additional minutes of call time to date. She also leads the #EndTheException campaign to end prison slavery. 

Episode Notes:

Credits: 

In the first episode of Season 2, we discuss how the movement to abolish family policing is intrinsically linked to struggles for freedom in Palestine and Sudan. Solidarity unites us and makes our movements stronger. 

Harm is exported and imported around the world. Tactics of family separation in the U.S. through the child welfare system mirror state violence in other countries. Our guests make these connections and invite us all to become internationalists. 

Episode Guests:

Nadia Ben-Youssef is the granddaughter of artists, refugees, and revolutionaries. A human rights lawyer by training, Nadia currently serves as the Advocacy Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a radical legal and advocacy organization working with social movements to dismantle racism, cisheteropatriarchy, economic oppression and abusive state practices. Central to Nadia's lifework is a commitment to the liberation of Palestine, and she is a proud co-founder of the Adalah Justice Project. 

Tarek Ismail is an Associate Professor at CUNY Law School, where he co-directs the Family Law Practice Clinic and Family Defense Practicum. He is also counsel to CUNY Law's Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project.

Episode Notes:

Credits: 

In the first season of the upEND Podcast, we explored the past and present of the family policing system, commonly misidentified as the child welfare system. 

Now, we’re widening our scope. 

How does family policing intersect with reproductive justice and Black maternal health? Are borders and deportations a tactic of family policing? What can we learn from international freedom movements in the work ahead? 

Season Two of the upEND Podcast will draw connections between movements to deepen our political education, build solidarity between organizers and activists, and bring new people to the fight for our collective liberation. As Maya Angelou said, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.” 

The upEND team recaps season one and shares their visions for a future without family policing.

We break down recurring myths about “child welfare,” discuss the abolitionist communities growing from spaces such as book clubs, and reflect on topics like the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA).

About Our Guests: 

Maya Pendleton has been a part of the upEND movement since its inception. She currently works as a researcher and writer for the upEND movement, focusing on how we abolish the family policing system, the harms of the current system to children, families and communities, and the world we will build post family policing. 

Alan Dettlaff is a professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where he also served as Dean from 2015 to 2022. Alan began his career as a social worker in the family policing system, where he worked as an investigative caseworker and administrator. Today his work focuses on ending the harm that results from this system. In 2020, he helped to create and launch the upEND Movement, a collaborative effort dedicated to abolishing the family policing system and building alternatives that focus on healing and liberation.

Episode Notes: