A History of the Child Welfare System Why do things work like this?

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A History of theChild Welfare System Why do
thingswork like this?
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Civil and Criminal Court Process

• Criminal prosecution of child abuse
  perpetrators
• Civil focus is on protecting the child
• Different Standards of Proof

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How Did We Get To This Point?

• A Volunteer Started
• The Child Welfare System

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First Civil Case AcknowledgingA Childs Rights

• I saw a child carried out on a horse blanket at
  the sight at which grown men wept aloud and I
  knew a chapter was being written in the rights of
  man
• Jacob Reese (Court Reporter) in the 1870s
• Story of Mary Ellen-1st reported case of civil
  court intervention in a child abuse or neglect
  case

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Mary Ellen

• Privately placed out in a home by the NY
  Department of Charities
• Decisions were made without court review
• Father had died during the civil war
• Mother, after widows pension was cut off, became
  ill with tuberculosis
• Ms. Etta Wheeler visited the tenement buildings

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Ms. Wheeler

• Looked for legal relief, but there was no
  governmental response to child maltreatment
• Teamed up with Henry Bergh Elbridge T. Gerry of
  the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• Obtained a special writ from a civil judge in
  Brooklyn
• Mary was made a ward of the court

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Impact Around the Nation

• Notoriety
• 1899 Juvenile Court
• Community based organizations formed that focused
  on child protection and monitoring governmentally
  run child protection services

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Child Protection Servicesin the Early 1900s

• Child Rescue Societies Institutional Care
• Cultural assumptions about parenting children
• Fathers generally did not raise the children
• African-American Community

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But What Is Primary Bonding For A Child?

• A great deal was learned about warehousing
  children
• Influenza epidemic hit twice at the turn of the
  century and again in 1918

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Movement to Get Outof Institutions

• Orphan Train Movement
• Children of Choice were shipped out west
• Smithsonian exhibit
• http//pda.republic.net/othsa/

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Clinic-Court

• Only a few
• Still a contract system-saw children as property
• Slowly a new concept of child protection services
  emerged
• Sometimes children must be
  removed
• Yet, children removed should get a new safe
  permanent home (not institutions)

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Quasi Recognitionof Parents Rights

• Institutional care debate lingered
• Judicial gatekeeper role developed very slowly
  across the country
• Courts were only for parents to have a place to
  voice their complaints
• No formal review process of children in the
  system

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Late 1960s and into the 1970s

• The concept of judicial review of children in
  placement emerged over time
• The case of Gerald Frances Gault pushed us down
  this path
• Concept of due process was applied
• When the state takes an action and that action
  abuts a fundamental zone of family privacy
  the state must do so with the least restrictive
  alternative

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Gaulting the System

• Officially recognized the liberty interest in the
  right to raise ones own child
• Response was to become a court-clinic
• Lawyers were appointed, notices were served,
  appellate records kept, codes were drawn

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Court-Clinic

• We separated the clinic and the court
• We did not teach clinicians the value of the law,
  the role of due process and fundamental rights,
  how to investigate a case, or use evidence in a
  court of law
• We did not teach our judges about child
  development, childrens needs or psychological
  issues about separating families

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Clopperation instead of Collaboration

• By late 1970s, we were saying that judges had a
  much stronger role in overview responsibility
  in the system
• We were testing the limits of judicial authority
  versus executive authority

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Adoption Assistance andChild Welfare Act 1980

• Federal law that strengthened the role of the
  state judiciaryall children in the child welfare
  system must have judicial oversight
• Set up the federal dollar system that was
  triggered by a judges order
• Plan was to get significant federal dollars into
  the foster care system

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Problem

• Courts and agencies did not get together and
  develop a strategic plan with local protocols
  built around judicial findings
• They searched for ways to pass the federal audit
• No money was designated for courts so many really
  werent interested in developing a schematic of
  practices

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State Funding

• Passed -In effect October 2000
• Why? 3 Primary Reasons
• Provide Judges in Jurisdictions where Local
  Governments were Without the Resources to Do So
• Allowing for the Opportunity to Appoint More
  Full-time Juvenile Court Judges When Needed

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1997-New Laws and Their Effect on the System

• Adoption and Safe Families Act,
• Reasonable Efforts
• Reunification of Families

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1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act

• Focus of law is on health safety of the child
• Georgias laws which bring us into compliance
  with this act
• SB 611
• HB 1585
• Both Georgia laws offer dramatic changes to our
  system

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SB 611

• Shortened time frame from 18 months to 12 months
• Allows for submission of a non-reunification plan
  where reasonable efforts do not have to be made
  to reunify

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SB 611

• Submission of a non-reunification plan requires a
  hearing w/ a report listing specific items
• A presumption against providing reasonable
  efforts emerges in 3 instances
• failure to comply w/ prior case plan
• third time removing a child (3 strikes)
• any of the grounds for TPR

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HB 1585

• Focus is on safety of the child v. reunification
• Further pushes the states to move children to
  permanent homes
• Courts must hold a permanency hearing

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HB 1585

• 15/22 months/ abandoned infant/ murder provision
• 3 Exceptions
• in care w/relative
• services have not been provided to the families
  by DFCS
• compelling reason

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Where Are We Today?

• Intent of the new laws was to make the process
  more balanced and get more court involvement and
  more community involvement
• Concern is how the laws will be implemented

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A History of theChild Welfare System Why do
thingswork like this?