Press conference and action outside Philadelphia Family Court: Take away our poverty, not our children – Implement recommendations on child separation

What: Press conference and action
Where: Family Court, 1501 Arch St, Philadelphia, PA 19102
When: Monday June 12  gather @4pm, press conference @4:30pm
Who: Local and national Give Us Back Our Children and international Support Not Separation

For Children’s Week for the Child Tax Credit, mothers, grandmothers and supporters from Philadelphia will be joined by others from Baltimore, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, England and Scotland who are suffering from the same abusive child welfare system.

We are demanding the implementation of the Recommendations of the Philadelphia City Council Special Committee on Child Separation, starting with:

• Poverty is not neglect and must not be used as a reason for child removal
• Get resources to mothers/caregivers – support, not separation
• Open the family court

“We are announcing to all the players in the child welfare system – DHS, the City, State, courts, agencies – that we expect them to implement the recommendations so that they become reality and not something on a piece of paper that sits on a shelf.,. Mothers and children in Philadelphia urgently need it and it will be an example others in our national and international network can point to,” said Phoebe Jones of Philadelphia Support Not Separation.

“Poverty is the racist state’s neglect of mothers and children, not mothers’ neglect,” says Margaret Prescod of Give Us Back Our Children, a national coalition based in Los Angeles.  “Blaming mothers, especially Black, Indigenous and other mothers of color, is an excuse to feed the private child removal industry which makes millions from the pain of separation.”

Speaking at the press conference will be:

• Carolyn Hill, Give Us Back Our Children, Philadelphia
• Rosemary Barbera, SWEPT, Philadelphia
• Shell Kane, Scottish Kinship Care Alliance, Scotland
• Anne Neale, Support Not Separation, London, England
• Rev Annie Chambers, National Welfare Rights Union, Baltimore
• Pat Gowens, Welfare Warriors, Milwaukee
• Sidney Ross Risden, Give Us Back Our Children, LA

The women are in town to take part in the international and community gathering, End Women’s Poverty – A Guaranteed Care Income for Caregivers of People and Planet held June 9-11 as part of the grand opening of the new Crossroads Women’s Center in Germantown.

Together we are stronger and a victory in one place strengthens the movement of mothers everywhere!