Broken
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Film Feature
Documentary
We need your help now! We must raise 80% of our goal -- $5,000 more by Tues, Sept 12 for this "all or nothing" campaign -- to receive all the funds pledged! Please make a pledge now and help produce this critical look at the fatally flawed child protection, foster care and juvenile court systems.
Broken
Cambridge, Massachusetts | Film Feature
Documentary
6 Campaigns | Massachusetts, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $60,581 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
55 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
We need your help now! We must raise 80% of our goal -- $5,000 more by Tues, Sept 12 for this "all or nothing" campaign -- to receive all the funds pledged! Please make a pledge now and help produce this critical look at the fatally flawed child protection, foster care and juvenile court systems.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
More than 400,000 kids in America are taken from their families each year and put into foster care. But for six in seven children, it's not for abuse but for neglect, which all too often stems from poverty such as the lack of food, shelter, or medicine. Once in foster care, children can face horrific abuse -- and worse.
Broken is our new, feature-length documentary for festival, theatrical, public TV and home/educational release that focuses on the child protection, foster care and family court systems in one state, Massachusetts, which inexplicably, despite the state’s resources and reputation ranks among the worst of all states when it comes to the care and protection of children.
For more than 50 years, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), the state agency charged with child welfare, has been called a broken system and ranked among the worst in the nation for the care and protection of children.
In 1992, Boston Globe opinion columnist Bella English wrote “It’s time to burn the [Department of Children and Families] to the ground.”
Earlier this year, Michael Dsida, of the state public counsel’s office, said “The Department of Children and Families is broken."
Broken follows reporter Brooke Lewitas as she investigates and unravels the untold story of these failed multi-billion dollar child care and protection system in Massachusetts -- and nationally. The feature-length documentary is being produced for festival, theatrical, public television and home/educational distribution by LCMedia Productions and Peabody Award-winner Bill Lichtenstein.
Broken exposes:
- Documented accounts of horrific abuse of children in foster and group homes;
- The disappearance of more than 4,000 kids and the unexplained deaths of hundreds of children in Massachusetts state care over the past five years;
- A legally-flawed system for removing children from their families which allows state social workers to remove children without a court order, leaving the children -- and their families -- traumatized; and
- Questions about the state's $1.4 billion annual budget to care for 8,000 foster kids.
Meanwhile, no media organization has done an investigative examination of the Massachusetts child and family welfare system, including child care and protection, foster care, and juvenile court.
Broken will reveal how it's possible this is happening in Massachusetts with all of the state's resources and expertise when it comes to health and education. And what this tells us about the state of child welfare today nationally -- and what can be done to support families and keep kids safe.
Why now? Why Broken?
The film will offer viewers an unprecedented window on the failed child protection, foster care and juvenile court systems -- through the compelling and dramatic first-person accounts and personal stories of those whose lives have been caught up and in many cases wrecked by these systems.
In addition, these conditions disproportionately impact families of color, families with mental health issues and other disabilities.
The film, in conjunction with a companion book, and educational and community outreach, will help create a national dialogue about how to strengthen families and keep children safe—and the disasters that can happen when these systems fail. Additionally, in order to bring sunlight into the dark corners of this broken system, we have gone into court and won several landmark rulings providing the first looks ever at the unconditionally secret and impounded systems.
The best and brightest minds in child welfare and juvenile law including a former Harvard Law School dean, retired First Justice of the Massachusetts Juvenile Court, and leading expert on child abuse among others have long called for sweeping changes to the child welfare system, and its disproportionate racial and socio-economic impacts, but they've never been united before in an effort to bring about awareness and changes.
Until now.
We are currently in the production phase, conducting interviews and filming with
families and children who have been affected by the system -- as well as experts.
Your critical support is needed NOW for this this campaign which will allow us to finish filming and to begin editing the film for its release in 2024.
The time to stop the punishing, traumatizing, and failing child care and protection systems is now.
Broken is a chance to make real changes -- and save lives!
But it can't be done without you! We are at a critical point in our investigation where every dollar counts towards finishing the project and telling these important stories.
The film is non-profit and all contributions are tax-deductible through its its 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship by Filmmakers Collaborative.
Broken holds the promise of exposing for the first time the various systematic problems and factors that create these circumstances, as well as to show how real changes can be made to these tragically failed systems.
Please support this landmark non-profit production that will examine the failed child welfare, foster care, and juvenile court systems -- and save lives! Make your pledge to Broken now!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Travel (local)
Costs $400
Local travel for meetings and filming families and experts.
Office Administration
Costs $8,000
Office and administrative costs for Production Phase (four months).
Archival Material
Costs $1,200
Archival material including rights for news footage and photographs for use in Production Phase.
Video crew with studio for production phase.
Costs $16,000
Video crew with studio for interviews during production phase (eight days).
Research Material
Costs $2,000
Books, video and other research material for production phase.
Audio Equipment for Production Phase
Costs $3,200
Audio equipment for Production Phase (16 shooting days).
Camera and gear for Production Phase.
Costs $4,000
Camera and gear for Production Phase. (16 shooting days ).
Audio Recordist for Production Phase
Costs $8,000
Audio Recordist for Production Phase (16 shooting days).
Team for Production Phase
Costs $26,000
Team for Production Phase (16 weeks).
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
THE TEAM:
The documentary represents the work of an unprecedented reporting team comprised of seasoned journalists with decades of experience covering child welfare nationally, intrepid student journalists doing enterprise reporting, and leading national experts working to identify and expose the underlying systemic problems in the child welfare system. By doing so the film will bring about real change to these broken systems.
Bill Lichtenstein is a Peabody Award-winning print and broadcast journalist and documentary producer who has covered national child welfare issues for more than four decades.
: PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
Bill has received more than 60 major journalism honors including a George Foster Peabody Award; United Nations Media Award; three National News Emmy Award nominations; eight National Headliner Awards; and four Gracie Awards from the American Women in Radio and TV, along with other journalism honors.
Bill previously worked for seven years for ABC News producing investigative reports for “20/20,” “World News Tonight” and “Nightline,” and has written extensively for the Huffington Post, Nation, Newsday, New York Times, New York Daily News, Village Voice, Boston Globe, and TV Guide on child welfare, health and media issues.
Bill’s work covering (and uncovering) critical stories about the welfare of children over the past 40 years includes:
* Bill was on the ABC News team that broke the Atlanta child murders story and co-produced a 20/20 report on the deaths of children in state custody in Oklahoma following a nine-month investigation that led to an overhaul of the state’s human services department and the resignation of its long-time director.
* Bill and LCMedia produced "If I Get Out Alive," a one-hour radio documentary narrated by Academy Award-winning actress and child advocate Diane Keaton, which exposed the systematic abuse and brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system, as well as diversion programs to keep young offenders from prison. The program was used as part of national educational outreach campaign.
* Bill was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and studied the intersection of children's welfare and foster care; children’s mental health; education; and the family court/juvenile justice systems, and the need for coordinated care for youth-at-risk that involves all four areas.
* Bill's groundbreaking article revealed the national practice of locking children at school in seclusion or "time out" rooms and using physical restraints on kids as young as five years old. His reporting was later honored by the Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism and along with Congressman Joe Kennedy III he received a Special Recognition Award from the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health.
* Bill's article "Mass. Problems for Kids" for the Huffington Post exposed a myriad of fatal problems for kids in the Massachusetts state child welfare system including 103 deaths in a three-year period.
* Bill's documentary film West 47th Street followed three years in the lives of four people with serious mental illness and won Best Documentary" at the Atlanta Film Festival, aired on PBS’s documentary series P.O.V., and was called “must see” by Newsweek.
Bill's latest film, "WBCN and The American Revolution" and companion book on MIT Press/Penguin Random House, tells the untold story of the early days of the legendary Boston radio station to examine how media can create social change. Both the film, which aired on PBS, and the book received multiple award.
BROOKE LEWITAS: REPORTER
Reporter Brooke Lewitas is a recent graduate of Boston University School of Journalism. Brooke’s master’s thesis involved identifying, interviewing, and forming journalistic relationships with families affected by the Massachusetts child welfare system, as well as experts in the field. Her thesis paper forms the approach and scope of the film. Brooke has worked in university, local, and national newsrooms, including as a reporter and columnist for the Virginia-based Fairfax Times, and as the editor-in-chief of the Boston University News Service.
Consulting producer Peter Miller is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries have screened in cinemas and on television throughout the world. Peter has co-produced PBS documentaries by Ken Burns including the epic PBS series "The War" and "Jazz," and the Peabody Award-winning "Frank Lloyd Wright." He is also the producer of the BEDLAM: A Documentary, which focuses on the American mental healthcare system and was the consulting producer for LCMedia's previous documentary "WBCN and The American Revolution."
Director of Photography Rob Massey travels New England and around the world for newsmagazines and documentaries. He shoots for CBS News, CNN, ABC News, NBC News, and PBS, as well as shooting independent documentaries and non-fiction TV. Rob was the director of photography for LCMedia's previous documentary "WBCN and The American Revolution."
Publicist Chris Kelly, director of Fifth House Public Relations, has 25 years of working in public relations. As senior publicist for the award-winning PBS documentary series Frontline, he promoted groundbreaking and acclaimed films including “The Farmer’s Wife,” “Assault on Gay America,” and “A Company of Soldiers.” He has been working with LCMedia Productions on independent documentaries since 2009.
EXPERTS AND ADVISORS
Our experts and advisors are leaders in their fields. They will help ensure the precision, balance, and accuracy by reviewing the treatment and various rough cuts for comments.
Alan Dettlaff is a prominent critic of child welfare systems. Starting his career as a child protection investigator, he has served as Dean of Social Work at the University of Houston and is a founding member of the upend movement, which advocates the abolition of the child welfare system. Dettlaff will provide his perspective as a former social worker and as a respected researcher/academic.
Amanda Wallace is a former child abuse investigator for Durham County, NC, and she now leads Operation STOP CPS. The grassroots activism organization aims to curtail CPS involvement and promote community-based interventions for families. Amanda will bring her experience navigating systemic racism as a Black woman, and also her experience as
a former investigator and current activist.
Bill Bettencourt is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy. He is also the former Deputy Director of San Francisco’s Division of Children Youth and Families. At the Center for the Study of Social Policy, part of Bettencourt’s job was to examine different child welfare systems for possible reforms, and he will provide those insights to the film.
Caroline Clauss-Ehlers is Professor of Psychology at Long Island University. Her research focuses on cultural resilience, trauma, and work with children and families within diverse community contexts. CC is an American Psychological Association (APA) Fellow in the Society for Couple and Family Psychology. She served as Chair of the APA Task Force on Re-envisioning the Multicultural Guidelines.
Dr. Carolyn Newberger’s professional writings have appeared in professional journals, books, popular magazines, and newspapers. Her writings include work on parental conceptions and development as well as analyses of the state of American children, research reports on studies of children that have been abused, and commentary on issues leading to and deriving from the abuses of children. She has also appeared widely on local and national television, including two appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Deidra Brooks is the Director of Outreach and Programs for JMac for Families. She leads their H.E.A.L. program, which provides support and empowerment to system-involved parents. She also holds a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. From this experience, she will bring a deep knowledge of the emotional impacts of system involvement.
Dr. Eli Newberger is a pediatrician and prolific expert on child abuse since he established the first ever child protection unit in Boston Children’s Hospital 50 years ago. Currently, he serves as a pediatric medical consultant and testifies in trials nationwide. Dr. Newberger will speak to the early days of the department and the medical implications of child abuse and the impact of removing kids from their homes.
Gary Bailey is the Assistant Dean for Community Engagement and Social Justice at the Simmons University School of Social Work where he has also taught for nearly 30 years. He has served as the president of the International Federation of Social Workers and as the president of the National Association of Social Workers.
Irene Linda Gordon is an award winning historian and writer, focusing primarily on feminism and women’s issues. Pitied But Not Entitled, her history of welfare, won the Berkshire Prize for best book in women's history. She served on the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women during the Clinton administration. She brings her insights into the history of family violence to the film.
Judge Jay Blitzman (ret.) served as First Justice-Massachusetts Juvenile Court. He has written about the inequity and lack of transparency in juvenile court. He founded Citizens for Juvenile Justice and was Interim Executive Director of Massachusetts Advocates for Children. Judge Blitzman will speak on his experiences working within the child welfare system as well as his advocacy work.
Josh Gupta-Kagan is a clinical law professor at Columbia University, and the director and founder of their Family Defense Clinic, which represents parents and other caregivers facing allegations of child neglect or abuse. He is also a noted researcher on the gaps and biases in child neglect and abuse law. Gupta-Kagan will bring insights into the legal processes that shape the child welfare system.
Joyce McMillan is a thought leader, advocate, activist, community organizer, and educator. Her mission is to remove systemic barriers in communities of color by bringing awareness to the racial disparities in systems where people of color are disproportionately affected. She is the executive director of JMAC for Families, which works to abolish the current punitive child welfare system and to strengthen the systems of supports that keep families and communities together.
Kate Lowenstein is the Multisystem Youth Services Coordinator for Citizens for Juvenile Justice, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit advocating for statewide systemic reform that achieves equitable youth justice. She holds a joint J.D/M.S.W from the Catholic University of America. Lowenstein will speak to the intersection of the child welfare system and the criminal justice system.
Martha Raimon of the Center for the Study of Social Policy leads the team's monitoring of New Jersey’s compliance with a consent decree intended to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families in New Jersey.
Martha Minow has taught at Harvard Law School since 1981, where her courses include civil procedure, constitutional law, fairness and privacy, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop. An expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, she also writes and teaches about digital communications, democracy, privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict. After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, Minow received a master’s degree in education from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. She clerked for Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States. Minow served as Dean of Harvard Law School between 2009 and 2017.
Dr. Mical Raz completed her medical training at Tel Aviv University, where she also received a PhD in history of medicine. Raz is the author of Abusive Policies: How the American Child Welfare System Lost its Way, a history of the failures of child welfare policy in the United States. A historian of American psychiatry, Raz is interested in the intersection of psychiatry, poverty and politics. She has provided expert testimony and has published on the unintended consequences of current child abuse policies.
Richard Wexler began his career as a Massachusetts newspaper reporter, where he covered child welfare issues. He is now the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Wexler will explain the failures of the press to cover this story in a way that gives voice to the most vulnerable populations.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
More than 400,000 kids in America are taken from their families each year and put into foster care. But for six in seven children, it's not for abuse but for neglect, which all too often stems from poverty such as the lack of food, shelter, or medicine. Once in foster care, children can face horrific abuse -- and worse.
Broken is our new, feature-length documentary for festival, theatrical, public TV and home/educational release that focuses on the child protection, foster care and family court systems in one state, Massachusetts, which inexplicably, despite the state’s resources and reputation ranks among the worst of all states when it comes to the care and protection of children.
For more than 50 years, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), the state agency charged with child welfare, has been called a broken system and ranked among the worst in the nation for the care and protection of children.
In 1992, Boston Globe opinion columnist Bella English wrote “It’s time to burn the [Department of Children and Families] to the ground.”
Earlier this year, Michael Dsida, of the state public counsel’s office, said “The Department of Children and Families is broken."
Broken follows reporter Brooke Lewitas as she investigates and unravels the untold story of these failed multi-billion dollar child care and protection system in Massachusetts -- and nationally. The feature-length documentary is being produced for festival, theatrical, public television and home/educational distribution by LCMedia Productions and Peabody Award-winner Bill Lichtenstein.
Broken exposes:
- Documented accounts of horrific abuse of children in foster and group homes;
- The disappearance of more than 4,000 kids and the unexplained deaths of hundreds of children in Massachusetts state care over the past five years;
- A legally-flawed system for removing children from their families which allows state social workers to remove children without a court order, leaving the children -- and their families -- traumatized; and
- Questions about the state's $1.4 billion annual budget to care for 8,000 foster kids.
Meanwhile, no media organization has done an investigative examination of the Massachusetts child and family welfare system, including child care and protection, foster care, and juvenile court.
Broken will reveal how it's possible this is happening in Massachusetts with all of the state's resources and expertise when it comes to health and education. And what this tells us about the state of child welfare today nationally -- and what can be done to support families and keep kids safe.
Why now? Why Broken?
The film will offer viewers an unprecedented window on the failed child protection, foster care and juvenile court systems -- through the compelling and dramatic first-person accounts and personal stories of those whose lives have been caught up and in many cases wrecked by these systems.
In addition, these conditions disproportionately impact families of color, families with mental health issues and other disabilities.
The film, in conjunction with a companion book, and educational and community outreach, will help create a national dialogue about how to strengthen families and keep children safe—and the disasters that can happen when these systems fail. Additionally, in order to bring sunlight into the dark corners of this broken system, we have gone into court and won several landmark rulings providing the first looks ever at the unconditionally secret and impounded systems.
The best and brightest minds in child welfare and juvenile law including a former Harvard Law School dean, retired First Justice of the Massachusetts Juvenile Court, and leading expert on child abuse among others have long called for sweeping changes to the child welfare system, and its disproportionate racial and socio-economic impacts, but they've never been united before in an effort to bring about awareness and changes.
Until now.
We are currently in the production phase, conducting interviews and filming with
families and children who have been affected by the system -- as well as experts.
Your critical support is needed NOW for this this campaign which will allow us to finish filming and to begin editing the film for its release in 2024.
The time to stop the punishing, traumatizing, and failing child care and protection systems is now.
Broken is a chance to make real changes -- and save lives!
But it can't be done without you! We are at a critical point in our investigation where every dollar counts towards finishing the project and telling these important stories.
The film is non-profit and all contributions are tax-deductible through its its 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship by Filmmakers Collaborative.
Broken holds the promise of exposing for the first time the various systematic problems and factors that create these circumstances, as well as to show how real changes can be made to these tragically failed systems.
Please support this landmark non-profit production that will examine the failed child welfare, foster care, and juvenile court systems -- and save lives! Make your pledge to Broken now!
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Travel (local)
Costs $400
Local travel for meetings and filming families and experts.
Office Administration
Costs $8,000
Office and administrative costs for Production Phase (four months).
Archival Material
Costs $1,200
Archival material including rights for news footage and photographs for use in Production Phase.
Video crew with studio for production phase.
Costs $16,000
Video crew with studio for interviews during production phase (eight days).
Research Material
Costs $2,000
Books, video and other research material for production phase.
Audio Equipment for Production Phase
Costs $3,200
Audio equipment for Production Phase (16 shooting days).
Camera and gear for Production Phase.
Costs $4,000
Camera and gear for Production Phase. (16 shooting days ).
Audio Recordist for Production Phase
Costs $8,000
Audio Recordist for Production Phase (16 shooting days).
Team for Production Phase
Costs $26,000
Team for Production Phase (16 weeks).
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
THE TEAM:
The documentary represents the work of an unprecedented reporting team comprised of seasoned journalists with decades of experience covering child welfare nationally, intrepid student journalists doing enterprise reporting, and leading national experts working to identify and expose the underlying systemic problems in the child welfare system. By doing so the film will bring about real change to these broken systems.
Bill Lichtenstein is a Peabody Award-winning print and broadcast journalist and documentary producer who has covered national child welfare issues for more than four decades.
: PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
Bill has received more than 60 major journalism honors including a George Foster Peabody Award; United Nations Media Award; three National News Emmy Award nominations; eight National Headliner Awards; and four Gracie Awards from the American Women in Radio and TV, along with other journalism honors.
Bill previously worked for seven years for ABC News producing investigative reports for “20/20,” “World News Tonight” and “Nightline,” and has written extensively for the Huffington Post, Nation, Newsday, New York Times, New York Daily News, Village Voice, Boston Globe, and TV Guide on child welfare, health and media issues.
Bill’s work covering (and uncovering) critical stories about the welfare of children over the past 40 years includes:
* Bill was on the ABC News team that broke the Atlanta child murders story and co-produced a 20/20 report on the deaths of children in state custody in Oklahoma following a nine-month investigation that led to an overhaul of the state’s human services department and the resignation of its long-time director.
* Bill and LCMedia produced "If I Get Out Alive," a one-hour radio documentary narrated by Academy Award-winning actress and child advocate Diane Keaton, which exposed the systematic abuse and brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system, as well as diversion programs to keep young offenders from prison. The program was used as part of national educational outreach campaign.
* Bill was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and studied the intersection of children's welfare and foster care; children’s mental health; education; and the family court/juvenile justice systems, and the need for coordinated care for youth-at-risk that involves all four areas.
* Bill's groundbreaking article revealed the national practice of locking children at school in seclusion or "time out" rooms and using physical restraints on kids as young as five years old. His reporting was later honored by the Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism and along with Congressman Joe Kennedy III he received a Special Recognition Award from the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health.
* Bill's article "Mass. Problems for Kids" for the Huffington Post exposed a myriad of fatal problems for kids in the Massachusetts state child welfare system including 103 deaths in a three-year period.
* Bill's documentary film West 47th Street followed three years in the lives of four people with serious mental illness and won Best Documentary" at the Atlanta Film Festival, aired on PBS’s documentary series P.O.V., and was called “must see” by Newsweek.
Bill's latest film, "WBCN and The American Revolution" and companion book on MIT Press/Penguin Random House, tells the untold story of the early days of the legendary Boston radio station to examine how media can create social change. Both the film, which aired on PBS, and the book received multiple award.
BROOKE LEWITAS: REPORTER
Reporter Brooke Lewitas is a recent graduate of Boston University School of Journalism. Brooke’s master’s thesis involved identifying, interviewing, and forming journalistic relationships with families affected by the Massachusetts child welfare system, as well as experts in the field. Her thesis paper forms the approach and scope of the film. Brooke has worked in university, local, and national newsrooms, including as a reporter and columnist for the Virginia-based Fairfax Times, and as the editor-in-chief of the Boston University News Service.
Consulting producer Peter Miller is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries have screened in cinemas and on television throughout the world. Peter has co-produced PBS documentaries by Ken Burns including the epic PBS series "The War" and "Jazz," and the Peabody Award-winning "Frank Lloyd Wright." He is also the producer of the BEDLAM: A Documentary, which focuses on the American mental healthcare system and was the consulting producer for LCMedia's previous documentary "WBCN and The American Revolution."
Director of Photography Rob Massey travels New England and around the world for newsmagazines and documentaries. He shoots for CBS News, CNN, ABC News, NBC News, and PBS, as well as shooting independent documentaries and non-fiction TV. Rob was the director of photography for LCMedia's previous documentary "WBCN and The American Revolution."
Publicist Chris Kelly, director of Fifth House Public Relations, has 25 years of working in public relations. As senior publicist for the award-winning PBS documentary series Frontline, he promoted groundbreaking and acclaimed films including “The Farmer’s Wife,” “Assault on Gay America,” and “A Company of Soldiers.” He has been working with LCMedia Productions on independent documentaries since 2009.
EXPERTS AND ADVISORS
Our experts and advisors are leaders in their fields. They will help ensure the precision, balance, and accuracy by reviewing the treatment and various rough cuts for comments.
Alan Dettlaff is a prominent critic of child welfare systems. Starting his career as a child protection investigator, he has served as Dean of Social Work at the University of Houston and is a founding member of the upend movement, which advocates the abolition of the child welfare system. Dettlaff will provide his perspective as a former social worker and as a respected researcher/academic.
Amanda Wallace is a former child abuse investigator for Durham County, NC, and she now leads Operation STOP CPS. The grassroots activism organization aims to curtail CPS involvement and promote community-based interventions for families. Amanda will bring her experience navigating systemic racism as a Black woman, and also her experience as
a former investigator and current activist.
Bill Bettencourt is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy. He is also the former Deputy Director of San Francisco’s Division of Children Youth and Families. At the Center for the Study of Social Policy, part of Bettencourt’s job was to examine different child welfare systems for possible reforms, and he will provide those insights to the film.
Caroline Clauss-Ehlers is Professor of Psychology at Long Island University. Her research focuses on cultural resilience, trauma, and work with children and families within diverse community contexts. CC is an American Psychological Association (APA) Fellow in the Society for Couple and Family Psychology. She served as Chair of the APA Task Force on Re-envisioning the Multicultural Guidelines.
Dr. Carolyn Newberger’s professional writings have appeared in professional journals, books, popular magazines, and newspapers. Her writings include work on parental conceptions and development as well as analyses of the state of American children, research reports on studies of children that have been abused, and commentary on issues leading to and deriving from the abuses of children. She has also appeared widely on local and national television, including two appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Deidra Brooks is the Director of Outreach and Programs for JMac for Families. She leads their H.E.A.L. program, which provides support and empowerment to system-involved parents. She also holds a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University. From this experience, she will bring a deep knowledge of the emotional impacts of system involvement.
Dr. Eli Newberger is a pediatrician and prolific expert on child abuse since he established the first ever child protection unit in Boston Children’s Hospital 50 years ago. Currently, he serves as a pediatric medical consultant and testifies in trials nationwide. Dr. Newberger will speak to the early days of the department and the medical implications of child abuse and the impact of removing kids from their homes.
Gary Bailey is the Assistant Dean for Community Engagement and Social Justice at the Simmons University School of Social Work where he has also taught for nearly 30 years. He has served as the president of the International Federation of Social Workers and as the president of the National Association of Social Workers.
Irene Linda Gordon is an award winning historian and writer, focusing primarily on feminism and women’s issues. Pitied But Not Entitled, her history of welfare, won the Berkshire Prize for best book in women's history. She served on the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women during the Clinton administration. She brings her insights into the history of family violence to the film.
Judge Jay Blitzman (ret.) served as First Justice-Massachusetts Juvenile Court. He has written about the inequity and lack of transparency in juvenile court. He founded Citizens for Juvenile Justice and was Interim Executive Director of Massachusetts Advocates for Children. Judge Blitzman will speak on his experiences working within the child welfare system as well as his advocacy work.
Josh Gupta-Kagan is a clinical law professor at Columbia University, and the director and founder of their Family Defense Clinic, which represents parents and other caregivers facing allegations of child neglect or abuse. He is also a noted researcher on the gaps and biases in child neglect and abuse law. Gupta-Kagan will bring insights into the legal processes that shape the child welfare system.
Joyce McMillan is a thought leader, advocate, activist, community organizer, and educator. Her mission is to remove systemic barriers in communities of color by bringing awareness to the racial disparities in systems where people of color are disproportionately affected. She is the executive director of JMAC for Families, which works to abolish the current punitive child welfare system and to strengthen the systems of supports that keep families and communities together.
Kate Lowenstein is the Multisystem Youth Services Coordinator for Citizens for Juvenile Justice, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit advocating for statewide systemic reform that achieves equitable youth justice. She holds a joint J.D/M.S.W from the Catholic University of America. Lowenstein will speak to the intersection of the child welfare system and the criminal justice system.
Martha Raimon of the Center for the Study of Social Policy leads the team's monitoring of New Jersey’s compliance with a consent decree intended to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families in New Jersey.
Martha Minow has taught at Harvard Law School since 1981, where her courses include civil procedure, constitutional law, fairness and privacy, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop. An expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, she also writes and teaches about digital communications, democracy, privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict. After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, Minow received a master’s degree in education from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. She clerked for Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States. Minow served as Dean of Harvard Law School between 2009 and 2017.
Dr. Mical Raz completed her medical training at Tel Aviv University, where she also received a PhD in history of medicine. Raz is the author of Abusive Policies: How the American Child Welfare System Lost its Way, a history of the failures of child welfare policy in the United States. A historian of American psychiatry, Raz is interested in the intersection of psychiatry, poverty and politics. She has provided expert testimony and has published on the unintended consequences of current child abuse policies.
Richard Wexler began his career as a Massachusetts newspaper reporter, where he covered child welfare issues. He is now the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. Wexler will explain the failures of the press to cover this story in a way that gives voice to the most vulnerable populations.