Alan Dettlaff

upEND Co-Founder, Author

Alan Dettlaff is a Mexican-American scholar, author, and abolitionist. Alan began his career as a social worker in the family policing system. Today his work focuses on ending the harm that results from this system. He is author of Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System: The Case for Abolition, published by Oxford University Press in 2023.

Josie Duffy Rice

Journalist, Podcaster

Josie Duffy Rice is a journalist, writer, law school graduate, and podcast host whose work is primarily focused on prosecutors, prisons, and other criminal justice issues. She is the host of the podcast UnReformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, released in January 2023, which she also co-wrote. In addition, she co-hosts What a Day, Crooked Media’s daily news podcast, two days a week. She is also the creator and co-host of the podcast Justice in America. Until May 2021, she was President of The Appeal, a news publication that publishes original journalism about the criminal justice system. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, among others. She was a writer on the FX show The Premise. Josie was also a consulting producer for Campside Media’s #1 podcast Suspect.

Maya Pendleton

upEND Co-Founder

Maya Pendleton has been a part of the upEND movement since its inception. She currently works as researcher and writer for the upEND movement, focusing on how we abolish the family policing system, the harms of the current system to children, families and communities, and the world we will build post family policing.

connease warren

Communications Director at Abolitionist Law Center & upEND Co-Founder

connease warren (she/her) is a veteran communications strategist and writer who has led bold, innovative campaigns centering racial justice and abolition. connease thinks daily about ways the written word advances and sustains abolitionist conversations, ideas, and actions. She believes joy is an act of revolution that she pursues through reading and writing poetry, singing, practicing yoga, roller skating, and hiking.

Micah Herskind

Organizer

Micah Herskind is an organizer, writer, and law student. He is active in abolitionist movements against police and jail expansion, and has written for publications including New York Magazine, Scalawag, MSNBC, Prism, Teen Vogue, and Race & Class.

Takara Pierce

Co-Founder + Managing Partner, Black Alder

Takara (she/her) is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Black Alder, a radical story-telling and communications strategy firm. Founded in 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrelenting uprisings around the state-sanctioned killings of Black people, Black Alder was created out of a desire to support organizations, companies, movements and other formations advance a vision of collective liberation and equity. Having led communications and digital strategies for various electoral, decarceral, and issue-based campaigns, she is passionate about building narrative power for social change. She formerly served as Communications Director for Dream Defenders, a Black-woman-led social justice organization advancing a new vision of safety in the state of Florida.

Jotina Buck

Licensed Professional Counselor, Root + Yoke Wellness, LLC

Jotina Buck (she/her) is a black queer female licensed professional counselor, 200 hr. registered yoga teacher, meditation and breathwork guide. She is the owner and founder the first and only black, queer, female-owned integrative mental health practice in central Houston, Root + Yoke Wellness. Jotina has over 15 years of experience studying psychology and human behavior. Over the years her soul’s work has manifested in various forms. She’s written personal development books, hosted empowerment gatherings, shared messages as a public speaker, served as an educator, school counselor, and mobilized on-ground support for marginalized communities in need both locally and abroad. Today her soul’s work is manifesting through listening and looking at what’s here now to help heal as a mental health therapist + yoga guide. She is a wellness advocate with a commitment to closing the gaps of equity disparities in the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities. Jotina loves supporting humans with better humaning. She is a native Houstonian who loves her city. Jotina affirms that she is here to co-build a better, kinder, and more compassionate human-centered world.

Shanta Trivedi

Professor

Shanta Trivedi is an assistant professor of law and faculty director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Prior to joining academia, Trivedi was a staff attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services’ Family Defense Practice, representing parents embroiled in the family policing system. Trivedi is a widely published legal scholar and policy advocate in popular media, with a focus on promoting approaches to reduce family separation by the family policing and other legal systems.

Sydnie Dan'el Mares

upEND Communications Manager

Sydnie Dan’el Mares is a creator committed to supporting and uplifting marginalized communities through an abolitionist lens. Sydnie uses her experience in graphic design, video production, and communications to build a future free of carceral systems where Black, LGBTQ, and immigrant communities can thrive.

Tara Urs

Special Counsel, King County Department of Public Defense

Tara Urs, special counsel for civil policy and practice supports the King County's family defense practice, supervises the training team, and coordinates the Rule 9 summer intern program. Tara has led the department’s efforts to fundamentally transform dependency law in the state, drawing on our attorneys’ expertise representing clients to challenge a system that harms children and families, and disproportionately harms Black and Indigenous families. Working closely with partners, she has helped advance legislation that aims to prevent family separation; prioritize parents’ ability to see their children when the state has separated the family; prioritize children remaining with extended families; and decrease the use of termination of parental rights and adoption. She has testified countless times in the state legislature, argued on behalf of clients before the State Supreme Court, including In re Dependency of ZJG and In re Matter of KW, and co-authored numerous amici briefs on key appellate cases. Before joining DPD’s management team, she practiced family defense at TDAD and, prior to that, worked as a staff attorney at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project. Tara received her BA from Wesleyan University and her JD from New York University School of Law, where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow and winner of the John Perry Prize for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights. She clerked for Judge Deborah A. Batts, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Erica Hubbard

Progressive Fifth Ward Community Association, Founder

Erica Hubbard is the founder of Progressive Fifth Ward Community Association, a civic group that operates both Fifth Ward Pocket Prairie and the Hershe Street Community Garden. She is a community & environmental activist devoted to the intersectionality of environmental justice and nature conservation in the Fifth Ward, a place she has called home since 2015. Erica recently finished her Permaculture Design certificate from Urban Harvest and is getting close to completing a Master Naturalist program offered through Texas Parks & Wildlife. When Erica is not on iNaturalist in the prairie, sowing seeds in the garden or filing public comments against nearby industrial polluters, you can find her inside of Central Library at Houston Community College, Midtown location.

Kirsten West Savali

VP Content, iONE Digital

Kirsten West Savali is VP of Content at iOne Digital and a veteran movement journalist. She most recently served as executive producer at ESSENCE Magazine and as the magazine’s senior editor of News & Politics. She has also served as a member of the 'me too.' Movement's editorial team. As both a writer and cultural critic, her commentary explores the intersections of race, social justice, feminism, and politics. She is the recipient of the Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence, which honors exemplary reporting on Black life in America, an NABJ Award for Journalistic Excellence, and a John Jay College of Criminal Justice/Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship for her work focusing on criminal justice. She is represented by Sarah Burnes of the Gernert Company in Manhattan. Follow her on Twitter: @KWestSavali and IG: @KirstenWestSavali

Carrington Buze

Staff Attorney, Iowa Judicial Branch

Carrington Buze is an attorney with a Juris Doctor from the University of Iowa College of Law and a dedicated background in child welfare and human rights. In 2019, she was honored with the University of Iowa's Philip G. Hubbard Human Rights Award. Carrington’s legal experience spans roles as a Staff Attorney at Iowa Children's Justice, a Law Clerk with the Iowa Supreme Court under Chief Justice Mark Cady, and a student attorney in the defensive asylum legal clinic at Iowa Law. Beyond her legal achievements, she holds a Master’s in Social Work from Arizona State University, reflecting her commitment to systems work to improve the lives and outcomes of children, youth, and families. Carrington's multifaceted expertise uniquely positions her at the intersection of law, social work, and advocacy.

Ash Williams

Abortion Doula/ Community Organizer, Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective

Ash Williams (he/him) is a Black trans abortion doula, public intellectual, and abolitionist community organizer from Fayetteville, NC. For the last 5 years, Ash has been vigorously fighting to expand abortion access by funding abortions and training other people to become abortion doulas. Ash is an abortion doula with the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective.

Melissa Houston

Community Organizer, The Houston Abolitionist Collective

Mellissa is a community organizer, educator, and researcher. Organizing in intersectional movements against policing and surveillance in reproductive justice, environmental justice, and mutual aid in the greater Houston area and Harris County.