Families Resist CPS Rally May 11, 2022 California State Capitol

The Resist CPS Rally on May 11, 2022 brought about 250 impacted persons from all across California together with allied organizations and stakeholders to demand change.

The family policing system in the United States, aka Child Protective Services or CPS, has waged war on the American family. Black, Indigenous, and Poor families are especially vulnerable and as such are overrepresented in the system. Nationwide, black children account for only 14% of the population but represent nearly 25% of all CPS cases. Meanwhile, about half of all indigenous children will experience a child welfare investigation before they turn 18. And finally, since poverty is conflated with neglect and parental unfitness by the “child protection” system, poverty is the single most important predictor of placement in foster care and the amount of time spent there.

Moreover, the system lacks accountability, transparency, and oversight. Families are all too often unnecessarily destroyed and children are frequently placed in foster and group homes where conditions are worse than in the homes they were removed from. It is incredibly traumatizing to remove a child from everything they have ever known or loved. There is no reason why a family should be destroyed. Children should be protected and supported by the government by providing services to keep families together instead of assuming parents inability to care.

In order for this to change, impacted families must join together and #Resist together.