Commit to Antiracist Practice 
Help Families with Actual Needs 
Advance Legal/Policy Protections 
Nurture Partnerships 
Generate Relevant Research 
Eliminate Incentives for Child Removal The intersection of racism, domestic violence, and the child welfare system presents a complex web of challenges that disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) survivors and their children. Although domestic violence is a pervasive issue that knows no boundaries, BIPOC survivors face unique challenges due to historical and structural racism, economic disparities, and overall limited access to culturally appropriate resources that hinder healing. While the child welfare system was designed under the premises of protecting children from harm, it can instead perpetuate it, due to inherent systemic and structural biases that influence decision-making in ways that have profound and long-lasting consequences for domestic violence survivors’ lives. It’s time to reimagine systems rooted in racial inequities that conflate poverty with child neglect, sever cultural ties, and exacerbate trauma and displacement for survivors of domestic violence and their children.
A Tool to Create Change
Get immediate access to a tool that can help you move from asking if racism is a problem to actively engaging in anti-racist practices that dismantle the structures that perpetuate it.
Strategies to counter these challenges can include:
Educate oneself on the impact of colonization and white supremacy
- Organize regular training sessions and workshops for child welfare workers to understand the historical context of colonization and white supremacy, and its impact on indigenous communities and people of color. CL-LUPE provides training and TA nationally to combat violence, centering racial equity
- Encourage child protection workers to read books, articles, and research papers written by BIPOC scholars and activists to gain diverse perspectives on racism and oppression such as Shattered Bonds by Dorothy Roberts. (Please, review our suggested list of resources below and feel free to recommend others!)
- Commit to undoing racism and provide ongoing opportunities for analysis in professional development curriculums and in-service activities for child welfare agencies. Make the provision of concrete terms and accompanying definitions a regular practice of your capacity building efforts and invite discussions about the impact of racism on system’s responses
- Share opportunities to discuss the role of child welfare workers in ending racism and the impact of internal biases on critical decision-making points that have detrimental consequences for BIPOC survivors and their families
- Explore concrete instances in which poverty was/is conflated with neglect and discuss how this attitude influences decisions that often end with the removal of BIPOC children
- Share concrete situations to understand the legacies of racist policies and their impact on BIPOC families that are rooted in the ongoing devaluing of BIPOC parents and their children by:
- Define and discuss key concepts such as systemic and structural racism and understand how it permeates policy decisions that have tangible impact on BIPOC families (i.e. welfare reform, requirements to file for child support in order to be eligible for TANF benefits, etc.)
- Review White Supremacy Culture under tools here: www.dismantlingracism.org by Tema Okun and discuss how each practice shows up in the child welfare system. Follw this exercise with a discuss about the application of the antidotes included in this resource
Model equity and trauma-informed practices by becoming an active participant in the work of undoing racism by
- Relating to those that are interacting with child welfare with respect and providing options that center the humanity of the individual seeking support
- Avoiding practices that retraumatize those in need of services and showing up with humility
- Resisting the habit of judging the person by their current set of circumstances. Remembering that our stories are rarely single-issue narratives and as such, practicing curiosity, wonder and self-awareness regarding our own biases
- Practicing and centering the six principles of a trauma informed care approach in interventions and decision-making processes as much as possible. Consider whether you are applying these principles in your decision-making process as they relate to survivors and their children. They are:
- Safety
- How is safety being centered for all involved? Understand that planning for safety may include anticipating harm caused by systems such as child welfare. Recognize that help seeking may be different for BIPOC survivors and that the legacy of harm caused by systems may impact their trust in people such as yourself that’s interacting and making critical decisions about their future
- Trustworthiness and transparency
- Peer support
- Collaboration and mutuality
- Empowerment, voice, and choice
- Cultural, historical, and gender issues
- Safety
Remedy historical harm through truth-telling and accountability
- Acknowledge and publicly address past mistakes and harms caused by child welfare systems to communities of color and Indigenous people by implementing concrete practices that support this acknowledgment (i.e. ongoing anti-racist capacity building efforts for child welfare workers, supporting policy development and implementation that center those with lived experience, disincentivize the removal of children from their families, etc.)
- Collaborate with Indigenous communities and communities of color to develop strategies that redress historical harm and systemic injustices by establishing meaningful collaborations with culturally specific organizations and communities
- Establish and apply accountability measures that are guided by people with lived experience to monitor and evaluate progress in addressing past injustices and ensuring future equitable practices
Center the most marginalized survivors and their children in practice and policy efforts
- Prioritize BIPOC families when designing services and interventions. This can be done by centering the voices of people with lived experience through concrete mechanisms to provide ongoing feedback and input regarding existing policies and practices in child welfare. The development of Accountability Boards comprised of BIPOC survivors that meet regularly and receive compensation for their lived expertise is one way of accomplishing this goal. Their feedback and input will guide the developing and/or revision of policies and procedures
Work to address biases within your organizations, and child welfare's views and expectations of parenting
- Develop/provide training programs focused on challenging white centric views of parenting and caregiving, promoting inclusivity and respect for diverse family structures and practices
- Collaborate with community-based organizations that have experience in culturally relevant parenting support
- Facilitate discussions and ongoing training to identify and address internal biases within the child welfare system
Resources
Shattered Bonds
The story of foster care in the United States is the story of the failure of the social safety net to aid poor, largely black, parents in their attempt to make a home for their children.
Beyond Inclusion Beyond Empowerment
Nieto offers a powerful analysis of the psychological dynamics of oppression and privilege and shows readers how to develop the skills that can promote social justice for themselves and those around them.
How to Be an Anti-Racist
In his memoir, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science--including the story of his own awakening to antiracism--bringing it all together in a cogent, accessible form. He begins by helping us rethink our most deeply held, if implicit, beliefs and our most intimate personal relationships (including beliefs about race and IQ and interracial social relations) and reexamines the policies and larger social arrangements we support. How to Be an Antiracist promises to become an essential book for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step of contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.
So You Want to Talk About Race
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life.
- Measuring Love In the Journey for Justice: A Brown Paper
Sammy Nuñez and Shiree Teng
Sammy Nuñez and Shiree Teng discuss the power of love and how we can better understand love and learn to wield it and address harm done and injustices. To authentically love yourself and others around you: that is the sign of the true revolutionary in a society that teaches us to hate ourselves; where we are bombarded with pain and shame, stripping us of our power and traumatizing us; and where, as a result, we carry this baggage into every relationship, perpetuating further injustice. In this Brown Paper, we call upon love as an antidote to injustice. - Systemically Neglected
How Racism Structures Public Systems to Produce Child Neglect
- Be Antiracist with Ibran Kendi
Be Antiracist imagines what an antiracist society might look like and how we all can play an active role in building one. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the author of How to Be an Antiracist, the book that spurred a nationwide conversation redefining what it means to be antiracist, and in this podcast, he guides listeners how they can identify and reject the racist systems hiding behind racial inequity and injustice. Alongside notable guests, Dr. Kendi continues his journey towards building a just and equitable world and proposes how we can all help create it with him
- Let’s Be Real: The Urgent Need for Change in Child Welfare, Courts, and DV Programs
Moderator: Isa Woldeguiorguis, Executive Director at The Center for Hope and Healing
Speakers: Bryan Samuels, Executive Director at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago; Vickie Smith, Executive Director at Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Hon. David Spurgeon, Fifth Judicial District of Pennsylvania; Karen Tronsgard-Scott, Executive Director Vermont Network Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
Let’s Be Real was the public plenary of “All of Us, Every Family,” the QIC-DVCW conference that took place in March 2021. There, the QIC-DVCW convened a group of thought leaders from child welfare, dependency courts and domestic violence services for a real conversation about the roles of each system in perpetuating structural racism, and the need for accountability and action. -
Hombres Buscando Balance: Working With Wounded Men
Maestro Jaime Molina, Mario Ozuna-Sanchez, and Ozzie Cruz
This session presented by trainers of La Cultura Cura at National Compadres Network, explores the dimensions and dynamics of wounded men. The session focuses on what is important to consider when working with men, it provides an overview of how racism, colonization, racial inequity and generational trauma impacts men and the resultant aspects of substance abuse, mental health, and domestic violence. It also shares culturally based, trauma informed, healing centered approaches that have proven to be successful
- Racial Equity Tools
offers tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large - InSIGHT
is an anti-bias curriculum developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity specifically for child welfare that is offered through a combination of on-line modules and sessions with expert facilitators based on local needs