Alan Dettlaff

Alan Dettlaff is co-founder of the upEND Movement. Alan began his career as a social worker in the child welfare/family policing system, where he worked as an investigative caseworker and administrator. Today his work focuses on ending the harm that results from this system. In 2020, he helped to create and launch the upEND movement, a collaborative effort dedicated to abolishing the family policing system and building alternatives that focus on healing and liberation. He is also the co-founder and co-facilitator of Toward Liberation, an abolitionist reading and study group.

Alan is author of Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System: The Case for Abolition, published by Oxford University Press in 2023. He is also co-founding editor of Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to developing and disseminating an abolitionist praxis in social work.