What We Work For
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.
Abolition requires ending this oppressive system and fundamentally imagining and recreating the ways in which society supports children, families, and communities in being safer and thriving. Co-created with and now housed at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, the upEND Movement works to create a society in which the forcible separation of children from their families is no longer an acceptable solution for families in need.
How We Do It
We have known for decades that Black, Native, and in many jurisdictions Latinx children are disproportionately separated from their families and involvedandwith child welfare systems. We also know that foster care causes harm to many children. In addition to the initial trauma of separation from their families, children too often experience additional trauma from failed or unsafe placements, multiple moves while in care, placements in congregate care settings, and loss of connections to friends, extended family, and school. These stressors put children who spend time in foster care at high risk for a host of negative outcomes including poverty, homelessness, unemployment, unplanned pregnancies, mental health disorders, and criminal punishment system involvement.
The potential for these negative outcomes is increased for Black and Native youth who are already at risk of experiencing adverse outcomes due to structural and institutional racism.
Racism is so deeply rooted in child welfare systems’ history, policies, and practices that they are not easily modified or revised. Rather, the system as we know it has to be ended in order to ensure racial justice and equity.
Thus, the work of the upEND Movement isn’t about reform, it is about ending the current child welfare system; it is about the abolition of child welfare through the creation of new, anti-racist structures and practices to keep children safe and protected in their homes. It is about changing our approaches to family poverty and instability so that we are working collectively to tackle the core stressors that make children vulnerable to unnecessary family separation.
Learn More
Visit www.upENDmovement.org or read our FAQ document to learn more about the upEND Movement including how you can get involved with this critically important work. Join us on Twitter @upENDmovement to get the latest information.
