Legal Kidnapping is Real - and It's Happening to Our Children
- Deyona Kirk
- Sep 7
- 3 min read
Thinking about courage, I think about people like Kelis Houston. She didn’t set out to make child protection reform her life’s work. In fact, she told us outright - this wasn’t her dream job. But when God shows you injustice and places a fire in your heart, you don’t walk away. You step in, even when the work is heavy, painful, and costly.
Kelis is the Executive Director of Village Arms, a Christ-centered organization she founded to support African American families impacted by child protection. She also chairs the NAACP Child Protection Committee - the first of its kind - and has been a leading force behind the African American Family Preservation Act. Her work is grounded in advocacy, training, and policy change, but at the core of it all is her relentless belief in the dignity of Black families.
Her story began in an emergency shelter in Hennepin County, the very first stop for children pulled from their homes. Young and new to the field, she assumed, like so many of us do, that if a child ended up in foster care, it must mean terrible abuse had taken place. But within days, that illusion shattered. She watched as Black children made up nearly 100% of her unit, often left in limbo for months, while white children were quickly placed. She listened to petitions that didn’t add up. She saw parents punished not for abuse but for poverty, bias, and circumstances beyond their control.
Out of that experience, she became a guardian ad litem and then an organizer, founding the NAACP Child Protection Committee and eventually writing the African American Family Preservation Act. It took seven years of prayer, organizing, and testifying before lawmakers - seven years of facing red tape, political games, and even personal trauma - before it became law.
Kelis reminded us of a critical truth: most families caught in child protection are not abusers. In Minnesota, only a tiny percentage of removals are for confirmed physical or sexual abuse. The vast majority are due to “neglect” - a vague, catch-all category often tied to poverty. In her words, child protection has become a system that punishes families instead of supporting them.
Her advice to families? Stay calm. Document everything. Ask questions. Bring advocates and family members with you. Know that you do have the right to push back, even when the system tries to silence you. And to foster parents, she had a challenge: if you really want to act in a child’s best interest, support their family instead of fighting against them.
This conversation wasn’t easy to hear. It wasn’t packaged pretty. But it was real, and it was necessary. Kelis speaks with the urgency of someone who has sat in courtrooms, prayed through despair, and refused to give up on our children. And I left this episode reminded that family preservation and child safety are not opposites — they belong together.
“Family preservation and child safety are not oppositional. Preservation is safety.”
⏱ Chapter Markers
00:00 – Introducing Kelis Houston and Village Arms
04:00 – Early work in emergency shelter and first encounters with disproportionality
06:00 – Becoming a guardian ad litem and seeing systemic bias firsthand
07:00 – Organizing through the NAACP and writing the African American Family Preservation Act
09:00 – The toll of advocacy and the role of faith
11:00 – Neglect as a “catch-all” and how poverty drives removals
14:00 – Schools, mandated reporters, and overreporting Black families
20:00 – Practical advice for parents facing investigations
25:00 – What the African American Family Preservation Act requires from agencies
31:00 – Transfer of custody vs. termination of parental rights
37:00 – Legal trafficking, adoption bonuses, and the system’s incentives
40:00 – Breaking cycles: generational trauma and systemic change
44:00 – Why documentation and advocacy matter in court
50:00 – Manipulation, family separations, and the human cost
57:00 – How families can use the African American Family Preservation Act now
Weekly Reflection
What would it look like to believe, truly believe, that every parent loves their child and wants what’s best for them? How might that shift the way you see families who are struggling?
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