Mother’s Outreach Network plans Baltimore convening on cash aid and child welfare reform

Mother’s Outreach Network will host the Mother Up National Convening on Nov. 6 in Baltimore with the University of Baltimore School of Law. The event will spotlight the first known guaranteed income pilot studying whether direct cash can reduce families’ involvement with the child welfare system, with Professor Dorothy Roberts delivering the keynote.

Why it matters: - The Mother Up National Convening will focus on a central policy question: whether direct cash support can help keep families out of the child welfare system. - The event brings together researchers, lawyers, funders and mothers pushing to replace family policing with systems of care. - The gathering is tied to work that could shape how communities and policymakers think about poverty, surveillance and family separation.

What happened: - Mother’s Outreach Network will host the Mother Up National Convening on Nov. 6 in Baltimore. - The University of Baltimore School of Law’s Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts is partnering on the event. - Professor Dorothy Roberts will deliver the keynote address. - Registration is open, and organizers said space is limited.

The details: - The convening will be held Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, followed by an evening reception. - The venue is the University of Baltimore School of Law, 1401 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201. - The event is aimed at researchers, lawyers, advocates, funders, policymakers and mothers with lived experience. - The Mother Up Pilot is the first known guaranteed income research pilot examining how direct cash may limit families’ involvement with the child welfare system. - Independent research on the pilot is being conducted by the Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law School. - The convening will present the pilot’s methodology as a model for other communities, researchers and funders. - The event will also launch the national Family Justice and Cash Working Group. - The working group is intended to continue the effort beyond the event and outside the D.C./Baltimore area. - A full agenda will be released in the coming weeks. - Registration is available at Mother Up Convening registration.

Between the lines: - Dorothy Roberts’ keynote signals the event’s emphasis on the legal and constitutional critique of what many scholars and advocates call family policing. - The convening is framing child welfare as a system that often punishes Black and low-income families instead of supporting them. - The launch of a working group suggests organizers want the Baltimore meeting to become a national organizing and research platform, not a one-off conference. - Melody Webb, executive director of Mother’s Outreach Network, said the pilot asks what happens when mothers receive money instead of a case file.

What's next: - Organizers said they will release a full agenda in the coming weeks. - The national Family Justice and Cash Working Group will carry the work forward after the convening. - The Mother Up Pilot will continue generating research through the Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law School.

The bottom line: - The Baltimore convening is designed to turn one guaranteed income pilot into a broader national strategy for keeping families together.