Organizing for Radical Change:
Nationwide, we see a growing recognition that structural racism and inequity are at the root of child welfare involvement and that all families deserve the resources to thrive.
At Rise, we envision communities that are free from injustice, family regulation and separation, and a society that is cultivating new ways of preventing and addressing harm. We imagine a radical commitment to ensuring that all families have what they need to live beyond … Read More
Launching Rise & Shine to Invest in Parent Leadership: In 2019 and 2020, Rise ran its first two sessions of our 18-week, parent-led leadership program to prepare 10 parents each year to lead at Rise and in aligned community justice movements. Rise & Shine supports healing and community and builds knowledge, writing, public speaking and community organizing skills.
Current Rise & Shine Coordinator Teresa Bachiller, the former assistant director of CWOP, joined the staff.
Watch our 2019 … Read More
A New Vision: Advocating for Families to Live Free of Child Welfare Policing and Punishment: In 2017, the horrific murder of Zymere Perkins ended the city child welfare agency’s trajectory away from policing and punishment. Media fell back on false and biased narratives. The number of investigations, emergency removals and court-ordered supervision of families all jumped. In 2017 and 2018, more new families entered child welfare supervision each year than at the hysterical height of … Read More
Challenging the Media Narrative: Through reprints of parents’ stories, original reporting, letters to the editor, op-eds, and interviews, Rise has worked to shift public images of parents in publications including The New York Times, the Marshall Project, The Appeal, Fusion, Slate, Jezebel, The Imprint, The Daily Beast, City Limits, The Nation, The New Republic, Colorlines and the Daily News.
In 2016, Rise documented the trauma of investigations and, in 2017, the price of parenting while … Read More
In exploring child welfare system abolition, Rise is learning that abolition is a vision and strategy to cultivate hope about society and to reimagine community-based care. This summer, Rise began facilitating community conversations as part of a longer-term process to develop and support a vision for building safe, just and healing-centered communities that support the well-being of children and families — without child welfare system surveillance and involvement.
In order to share our journey transparently and in solidarity with others involved in abolition work, we talked with some of the Rise team who facilitated and joined the community conversations: Bianca Shaw, assistant director for programs and culture; Halimah Washington, community coordinator; Nancy Fortunato, senior parent leader; Genevieve Saavedra Dalton Parker, development director; and Careena Farmer, contributor. Here, they discuss what we are working on and learning about at Rise.
