Community Is the Infrastructure: A Practical Case for Family Well-Being with Angela Burton

The child welfare field is increasingly asking what it would take to fundamentally change how we support families, and whether the systems we have today are capable of evolving into what communities and families have been asking for.

One of the ideas at the center of that conversation is abolition. For many, it has existed as a critique from outside the system. But as that conversation moves closer to positions of leadership, new questions are emerging about what it would actually look like in practice.

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Angela Burton, an attorney and advocate who was recently one of the final candidates to lead New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services.

Drawing from her perspective, Angela outlines a practical approach for how to build the infrastructure that would support the needs of communities and families while preventing investigations and removals. She also explores how abolitionist ideas translate into leadership, what changes might be possible within existing systems, and how strategy, accountability, and decision-making would need to shift.

This conversation doesn’t offer a simple answer. Instead, it invites listeners to think more critically about what it would take to move from critique to implementation, and what meaningful change would actually require.