As East Bay Family Defenders takes this opportunity to reimagine our work with families, we want to take a moment to honor and recognize the founding vision and contributions of EBFD Co-Founder Zabrina Aleguire as she moves on to her next chapter in the fight for families. – The Board of Directors

“East Bay Family Defenders did an unbelievable thing. In just three years, we defended over 5,000 parents and their dignity during the worst moment of their families’ lives. We pioneered a new and much-needed vision for what representation for families could be, with reverberations locally, across California, and throughout the country. We united with a diverse array of allies to push for laws, funding distribution, and practices that curb family separation. In short, we played an important part of a burgeoning movement of brave parents, skilled family defenders, and conscientious practitioners who are developing a more responsive, productive, and compassionate way forward for struggling families to heal and thrive.

The pandemic has revealed much. We have learned that child abuse did not increase during the pandemic, and that the expanded time children spent with their parents may have kept them just as safe from abuse and kept them safer from unnecessary and traumatic system intervention. I have great hope for the alternatives to the child welfare system (now understood as the “family regulation system”) that we are in the midst of creating. Just look at the first edition of the Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly, whose Editorial Board I have joined alongside Carmen Hidalgo, EBFD Senior Parent Advocate.

I look forward to contributing to our field’s monumental progress in my next chapter. For now, I’ll be taking time for rest and reflection in between some teaching, consulting, and writing. As a wise mentor says, “Onward.”

With gratitude to each of you,
Zabrina”