We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: System-Impacted Young People’s Call for Abolition and a Future Centered on Self-Determination and Humanity

Since the racial justice reckoning in the United States, a debate has persisted within academia whether the child welfare or family policing system should be reformed or abolished. Various pieces of evidence have been presented in this debate; however, the perspectives of system-impacted young people have been largely absent. This paper presents findings from a qualitative youth participatory action research (YPAR) study ( n = 20) that demonstrate that a proportion of system-impacted youth believed the system should be abolished and that support for young people should be re-imagined. The knowledge that system-impacted young people viewed the system as harmful and unrepairable has significant implications for practice, supporting the upending of the system and the creation of alternative supports for youth that center their self-determination and humanity.