VIDEOs/Webinars
may 2026 / How adoption celebrations ignore the destruction of black and brown families
This webinar highlights how adoption celebrations mask the trauma and pain of family separation. Centering the voices of people with lived experience, panelists will explore how these narratives overlook harm while uplifting adoption as a positive outcome. Drawing on organizing and policy expertise, panelists will examine how race, power, and dominant narratives shape who is seen as a 'fit family and who is denied family autonomy.
april 2026 / know before they knock: the state of family miranda rights across the u.s.
Across the country, parents are facing child abuse investigations without being told their rights. No warning. No attorney. No meaningful due process. This national webinar brings together advocates from multiple states who are working to secure "Family Miranda" protections, clear notice of rights provided both verbally and in writing before questioning, searches, or coerced agreements during child abuse investigations.
Panelists will share legislative efforts, grassroots strategies, legal challenges, and lessons learned from the front lines. We will examine what is moving, what is stalled, and what it will take to build momentum nationwide.
Sponsored by REPEAL CAPTA, this convening is designed for attorneys, organizers, impacted parents, policy advocates, and anyone committed to protecting families from unchecked investigative power.
Before they knock, families deserve to know their rights.
march 2026 / supporting families without surveillance: abolitionists social work in practice and possibility
This webinar challenges dominant narratives around social work, examining the real and often overlooked harms caused by systems meant to "help." Panelists will explain how harm shows up in everyday social work practice and agency decision-making, while lifting up abolitionist social work in practice. This webinar will also highlight how to meaningfully recognize, resource, and celebrate abolitionist social workers who operate beyond the system.
february 2026 / the manifesto of child welfare in the 21st century: a government declaration of intentions, motives, and views about black families
This webinar will highlight the vision of people with lived experience who are working to create a system of care that ensures the well-being of families. Utilizing their own power, panelists with lived experience, organizing, and policy expertise will examine how race, power, and narratives have shaped decisions around who is deemed a "fit" family-and who is not.
September 2023 / Repeal CApta community teach-in
Ayami Hatanka, JMACforFamilies Chief of Staff, joined lived experts, professors, and advocates to discuss the need to repeal the Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act (CAPTA) and our visions for a care and resource-driven approach to meeting the needs of children and families.
AUGUST 2023 / Town Hall: Family policing in New York City
The Parent Legislative Action Network and Council Member Shaun Abreu hosted a town hall to highlight the harms of family policing in New York City. PLAN members led a discussion about the family policing system, parents' rights, and organizing efforts to protect the rights and autonomy of families in New York City.
AUGUST 2023 / What is mandated supporting?
In collaboration with impacted families, social work students, advocates, and experts, JMACforFamilies is working to transform mandated reporting to “mandated supporting.”
AUGUST 2023 / Book Launch: Confronting the racist legacy of the american child welfare system By Alan dettlaff
JMACforFamilies hosted the launch of the new book, Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System by Alan Dettlaff, Author and Professor of Social Work at University of Houston. Joyce McMillan, Founder and Executive Director of JMACforFamilies, and Author Alan Detlaff led an eye-opening conversation about the history of family separation, the racist intents of the family policing system, and common misconceptions about abolition.
June 2023 / Juneteenth celebration: Where we’ve been, where we are, and where we will be
In celebration of Juneteenth, JMACforFamilies hosted a conversation about the history of family policing, the movement for abolition, and our visions for the future. Kamaria Excell, Director of Project Management at JMACforFamilies, led this conversation alongside Shalonda Curtis-Hackett, impacted parent and Community Outreach Coordinator at Neighborhood Defender Service, Desseray Wright, impacted parent and Parent Advocate at Bronx Defenders, and Mical Raz, Author and Professor at the University of Rochester.
March 2023 / Getting to the root: Unpacking and dismantling the family policing system
The so-called Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), does not prevent and it does not treat. Instead, it targets our most vulnerable neighbors, particularly those living in poverty and especially Black, Latinx, and Indigenous families. Through policies like mandated reporting, social workers, medical professionals, and other community helpers are made agents of the surveillance state and part of the machinery of family policing, regulation, separation, and destruction. Joyce McMillan, Founder and Executive Director of JMACforFamilies, joined NAASW and Haymarket Books for a panel discussion that will explain the harms of CAPTA and discuss what can be done about it.
February 2023 / online rally to END MANDATED REPORTING
After the New York State Assembly cancelled an essential hearing on mandated reporting, JMACforFamilies hosted a digital day of action. During this online rally, impacted community members, family defenders, and mandated reporters themselves joined together to speak about the harms of mandated reporting.
DECEMBER 2022 / rally for family miranda rights
In November 2022, the New York Times uncovered an internal report commissioned—and later buried—by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) documenting ACS staff themselves describing the agency as a "predatory system that specifically targets Black and Brown parents."
The Parent Legislative Action Network coalition gathered on the steps of New York City Hall to demand Family Miranda Rights, which would require ACS workers to inform parents of their rights at the onset of an investigation.
October 2022 / Angela Davis in Conversation with Joyce McMillan
During a two-day virtual gathering hosted by the UpEND Movement, Joyce McMillan of JMACforFamilies joined Angela Davis to discuss connections between prison abolition and the family policing system.
May 2022 / From Complicity to Resistance: Demanding an Abolitionist Model of Social Work in Reproductive justice
Joyce McMillan, Founder and Executive Director of JMACforFamilies, joined community leaders to discuss the role social workers play in the oppression, criminalization, and surveillance of pregnant and postpartum people within the criminal and family policing system.
April 2022 / Social Work and Family Policing
Sponsored by Haymarket Books, Dorothy E. Roberts, J.D. and Joyce McMillan led a conversation highlighting the harms, and in particular the damage social workers have caused and continue to perpetuate, within the so-called “child welfare system.”
October 2020 / upEnding the Child Welfare System: The Road to Abolition
Joyce McMillan, Founder and Executive Director of JMACforFamilies, joined the Center for the Study of Social Policy and the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work for a panel discussion about the road to family policing abolition.
October 2020 / Moving from Why to How: Parent Leaders’ Perspectives on the Movement for Child Welfare Justice
The Shriver Center on Poverty Law facilitated a conversation to hear parent leaders' perspectives on the movement for justice in the so-called “child welfare system.” Joyce McMillan, Founder and Executive Director of JMACforFamilies, joined to share her visions for the future.