H.E.A.L.
(heal, Educate, advocate, lead)
for PARENTS IMPACTED BY FAMILY POLICING
H.E.A.L. is a 12-week fellowship that builds parent leadership. The program offers a space for communal healing, peer support, and political education. Parents who participate are trained to take on a more active role in influencing policy and addressing structural issues within the family policing system.
JMACforFamilies is not a case management organization and does not offer individual case management or advocacy services.
Participants are eligible to receive a $500 stipend upon completion.
Applications for our Fall 2023 H.E.A.L. session are now closed. Please check back for information about our next session!
Advocacy from previous H.E.A.L Fellows
National Black Leadership Commission on Health / A Drug Test Is Not A Parenting Test / Ericka Brewington
“Changing the narrative that testing and reporting to ACS helps families is a necessity, one that’s long overdue. We need community-based alternatives that truly help families and children. We must work to ensure the rights of people who use drugs are respected, including pregnant people. We must dismantle and divest from systems that unfairly target and criminalize Black and Brown people. People are starting to pay attention to this injustice and demand better. We can create alternatives that work for families.”
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS / WATCH HERE / Shalonda Curtis-Hackett
“In an NBC News-ProPublica investigation, Kate Snow takes a deep dive into New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services searches. She spoke with one mother, Shalonda Curtis-Hackett, who explains why she felt she “couldn’t say no” when a caseworker came to search her house.”
NYN Media / A better way of keeping kids safe / Michelle Sanchez, Desseray Wright, Shalonda Curtis-Hackett
“If asked, families would tell you that they need better. Better housing, jobs, schools. They would tell you that they need more. More money, support, help. Instead, the government spends billions of dollars a year on the child welfare system, or more appropriately known as the family regulation system, that fails to meet the most basic needs and care that children and parents deserve.
Although agencies like the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) purport to keep children safe, experiences and outcomes for foster youth and parents who endure separation are well-documented and troubling. Children, overwhelmingly Black, brown, and from low-income communities, are not kept safe by ACS. Because when the government says safety, it means surveillance and prosecution. It means policing.”
NY DAILY NEWS / Stop weaponing protective serviceS / Shalonda Curtis-Hackett
“I believe the kind of retaliatory reporting I experienced is weaponized against Black and Brown families… My family was assumed guilty and had to prove our innocence. No one fact-checked whoever called in their allegation, and I believe that will embolden them to terrorize other families.
Unfortunately, this isn’t new. For decades news accounts have documented how schools use family police agencies to punish parents who demand a safe, quality education for their children.”