September 18, 2026 · Mt. Pleasant Library, Washington, DC · Streamed Live
Detention Preparedness Workshop: Making a Plan for You, Your Family, and Your Community
▶ Watch on YouTube
What it covered
Partners Victoria Slatton, Ashley Hass, and Jack Goodman walked through what it takes to be ready before anything happens. The session opened with why preparation matters to a case: when someone is detained, building their defense gets harder for reasons that have nothing to do with the merits, because documents sit in a house nobody can get into, nobody else knows the dates and details of their history, and signatures that need to be wet are difficult to arrange from inside a facility. It then moved to the practical side people rarely plan for, including who collects the children from school, who holds the emergency contacts, how medical needs and prescriptions are handled, how money reaches someone in detention, and who outside the household has a copy of everything. Attendees filled out their own plans in the room and took printed kits home. The workshop was conducted in English with Spanish translation and closed with a live Q&A.
Who it was for
- Anyone with a pending case & their families
- Parents & mixed status households
- Neighbors, employers, teachers & faith leaders
- Advocates & volunteers
Resources
The full recording is above, and everything we handed out that day is free on this site. Download the Detention Preparedness Kit, read our detention resource page for what happens in the first 48 hours, and save our 24 hour detention hotline, 240-891-4343, to call if someone has just been detained.
