Two connected efforts, one standard: safely. We advocate for Safe Harbor protections for families raising children with severe behavioral and neurodevelopmental needs, and for real family preservation practice inside local CPS offices — so children stay with the people who love them whenever it is safe to do so, and families get real support instead of an investigation when they ask for help.
The first cross-population study to ask families, caseworkers, judges, teachers, medical professionals, and former foster youth the same core questions about the child welfare system — then compare the answers, by state and by country. This is the study behind our family preservation advocacy. Most participants finish the core in 5–8 minutes.
Begin the SurveyDocumented crisis behaviors, safety risks, access to emergency and stabilization services, and system responses following help-seeking.
View ResultsExamined coercive relational patterns, credibility harm, and impacts on siblings and caregivers.
Results Coming SoonDocumented pre-placement disclosure, training, informed consent, and post-placement supports.
Results Coming SoonFit more than one role, or more than one experience? Please complete a separate CPS study submission for each — it keeps the data clean for analysis.
Everything UTAS advocates for comes back to one standard: children should stay with the people who love them whenever it is safe to do so — and families should get real support before they lose each other, not after.
For families who seek emergency medical or psychiatric care for a child in crisis due to imminent danger. Seeking help should never trigger an investigation.
Seeking emergency care is a protective action, not a failure of parenting.
Families acting in good faith should not face retaliation or criminalization.
Disability-related behaviors must not be used to deny access to care.
Crisis response systems must prioritize safety, stabilization, and coordination.
Children with severe neurobehavioral conditions deserve access to medically necessary care.
Advocating for local CPS offices to prioritize keeping families safely together over removal, whenever that's possible. The CPS Experience Research Study exists to document where preservation is being missed.
Poverty is not neglect, and should never be treated as evidence of it.
Concrete resources should be offered before removal is pursued — not after.
Kinship and family placement should be prioritized before strangers, every time.
Caseworkers need manageable caseloads and real preservation-focused training.
"Safely" is the standard — preservation is the goal only when a child can remain safe.
"Families acting in good faith to protect their children — or simply trying to stay together — should never face retaliation or criminalization for it."
Families raising children with RAD and related neurobehavioral conditions face profound challenges that remain significantly under-researched. We collect structured data to create a record.
We examine crisis response, service access, and the intersection of disability, Medicaid obligations, and child welfare practices across multiple states.
Evidence-based policy reforms, including Safe Harbor protections. Findings are compiled in aggregate and used to inform policy, oversight, and reform efforts at federal and state levels.
This work is grounded in data, not anecdote. The record we build now becomes the foundation for sustained federal and state-level advocacy for years to come.
Data collected across both initiatives points to the same underlying pattern: crisis-level behaviors met with insufficient response, families investigated instead of supported, poverty and disability conflated with unfitness, and inconsistent preservation practice from state to state. These patterns raise serious questions about disability discrimination, Medicaid compliance, and whether "safely together" is ever actually attempted before removal.
Crisis-level behaviors posing safety risks to children, siblings, and caregivers — with insufficient system response and inadequate stabilization options.
Barriers to accessing medically necessary emergency and stabilization services, including inappropriate denials, delays, and discharge without adequate planning.
Retaliatory or punitive system responses following good-faith help-seeking — families penalized for trying to access the care their children need.
Poverty routinely documented as neglect — separating families who needed resources, not removal.
Families investigated after voluntarily asking CPS for help, rather than being offered support first.
Local CPS offices without consistent preservation practice, manageable caseloads, or a clear threshold for when removal is truly necessary.
We conduct structured, voluntary, parent-reported surveys designed to capture:
Crisis behaviors and safety risks within the home environment
System responses following emergency help-seeking by caregivers
Relational and family-wide impacts of severe attachment disorders
Foster and adoption disclosure and preparation practices
Participation does not obligate families to legal action or public disclosure. Behind-the-scenes support is just as essential as public storytelling.
All three Safe Harbor research surveys are now closed. Together they documented crisis-level behaviors and safety risks, how systems responded when caregivers asked for emergency help, coercive relational dynamics and credibility harm, and foster/adoption disclosure and preparation practices for families raising children with severe attachment-related and neurobehavioral conditions. Findings from the crisis and extreme-behavior survey are published now — the full data set is informing our Safe Harbor legislative work.
View the Full ResultsCrisis behaviors and safety risks inside the home
What happened after caregivers called for emergency help
Coercive relational dynamics and credibility harm
Foster and adoption disclosure and preparation practices
Families navigating child welfare, psychiatric systems, legal battles, insurance denials, and schools need advocates who truly understand what they're up against. The Certified Family Advocate program trains you to be that person.
The Certified Family Advocate designation is UTAS's professional certification for advocates who work directly with families in crisis. It is built around a specific, documented methodology — developed by Kristina Miller from her own experience navigating these systems — and tested in real cases across the country.
It requires advocates to have done sufficient work on their own story before carrying the stories of others, with supervised practice and CAO oversight throughout. The credential means something because the standard is real.
People with lived experience in child welfare, psychiatric systems, legal involvement, or family advocacy — parents who've been through it, advocates who've been in these rooms, and community members who understand what these families are carrying.
"The wound becomes the credential. The path they walked becomes the lit path for the next family."
— Kristina M., Founder & Executive Director, UTASWe are assembling a national advocacy and research team. No legal or clinical background is required. Public storytelling is optional. Behind-the-scenes support is essential.
Every voice matters. You don't need to be public to make an impact. The families who share their data are building the evidence base that makes federal reform possible.
Join the Team139 volunteers and counting · Until They're All Safe
Donors who join this work are not funding charity. They are funding replacement infrastructure — the research, advocacy, and community organization that pushes federal and state systems toward accountability.
Every dollar becomes a declaration: we are no longer waiting for permission to protect our own.
Your contribution funds data collection, policy analysis, advocacy coordination, and the volunteer infrastructure that keeps this movement running.
"Every dollar you give helps a family take one solid step toward safe ground."
Donate to Until They're All SafeUntil They're All Safe is a nonprofit organization.
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