Domestic Violence

Throughout our series on the intersection of family policing and domestic violence, Rise is exploring community-led, anti-carceral approaches to preventing violence, supporting healing and building safety. Malikah, based in Queens, New York, is a global grassroots network of women leaders who support each other and together remake their communities to be inclusive, safe and just. Here, Rana Abdelhamid, Founder of Malikah, discusses their work, which focuses on self-defense, healing justice, financial literacy and organizing. 

Q. Please … Read More

At Rise, the vast majority of parents impacted by the family policing system are Black and brown women who are survivors of domestic violence (DV), intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or sexual violence. Every year, many—if not most—parents in our Rise & Shine Parent Leadership Program write about and/or discuss experiences of domestic violence, sexual abuse and/or intimate partner violence in connection to their experience with the family policing system, a more accurate term than “child welfare” system. Our intention in sharing stories in our programs and in this publication series is to hold space for each other and to honor each person’s story and what it means to them to share it. Often, parents choose to write or talk about these painful experiences and to build our advocacy skills out of a desire to support other people going through similar experiences—and to further our healing, reclaim our stories and push for meaningful societal and policy changes to prevent harm and support families.

My biggest fear has always been ACS taking my kids. I have embodied trauma from when I was a child—the system broke me and my siblings apart and took us away from our mom. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to my two kids.

As a parent, I had my share of ACS cases when I was experiencing domestic violence, but because of my childhood experiences, I don’t believe ACS could have helped. ACS actually made things worse for me because caseworkers weren’t sensitive about my needs and didn’t understand the domestic violence (DV) situation I was in.