Justice for Children

Adoption and Foster Parent Conference

barclaym — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:31:42 GMT

2008-Survey results and presentation regarding notice and right to be heard.

Preparation for 2008 J4C Retreat

barclaym — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:52:07 GMT

See discussion and summary from 2005 Retreat

See updated strategic plans for the data, training and basic grants

Reasonable Efforts

rebas — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:21:49 GMT

Reasonable Efforts Workshop

On August 13, 2008, Judge Richard FitzGerald (bio below) joined J4C to present a two-hour workshop on Reasonable Efforts. The workshop, held at Emory University School of Law, focused on the history, definition, and power of the Reasonable Efforts finding. Attended primarily by attorneys, but also other child welfare representatives, the workshop (link to webcast below) was widely praised by attendees.

Webcast and Documents

The webcast can be viewed at: http://www.law.emory.edu/webcast/fitzgerald.ram. Additionally, the handouts from the workshop, and documents referred to during the lecture, are available below.

Judge Richard FitzGerald

Judge Richard FitzGerald is a Senior Judge of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Since assuming the bench in 1975, he has served as a District Judge and Special Circuit Judge. He served as chief judge of the Family Court.

Judge FitzGerald has served as adjunct faculty for the University of Louisville School of Law and for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. He has been a visiting professor at the ChildLaw Center at Loyola University.

Prior to assuming the bench in 1975, Judge FitzGerald worked as a social worker with the Christian Appalachian Project in McKee, Kentucky and taught at Hughes Quinn Junior High School in East St. Louis, Illinois.

Judge FitzGerald serves as a member of advisory board of The National Association of Counsel for Children. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the National Council of Juvenile & Family Judges and is the past chairman of the Permanency Planning Committee. He currently serves as a consultant to Court Improvement Programs as a judicial educator for various states.

Judge FitzGerald is the recipient of the judge of the year award from the National CASA Association and the Louisville Bar Association. He has received the National Council of Juvenile and Family Courts Judges Award for Meritorious Service to the Juvenile Court System and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award from the Justice Resource Center. He has been awarded an Equality Award by the Urban League and the Chief Justices Award for Outstanding Service to the Courts of Kentucky. Upon his retirement, he received the Governors Distinguished Citizen Award. In 2003, he was awarded a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from Bellarmine University.

Judge FitzGerald is the co-author of Juvenile Practice for West Publishing Co. and was a contributing consultant in the drafting of The Resource Guidelines for Improving Practice in Abuse and Neglect Cases and the Resource Guidelines for Adoption and Permanency published by the NCJFCJ. He also participated in the publication of Effective Interventions in the Intersection of Family Violence and Child Maltreatment.

Child Welfare Volunteer Transportation Policy

barclaym — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:35:21 GMT

There is DHR policy in place, enacted in 1995, that dictates the procedure for using volunteer services, this would include volunteers transporting children in foster care.

The Policy provides:

- Volunteers are to contact the county where they live
- Volunteers need to request to be a volunteer resource for their county DFCS office
- The volunteer will have to fill out an application
- Depending on the approach the County takes they will either go to an orientation after filling out their application, or go to orientation after their back ground check
- The County will conduct a back ground check through GCIC & NCIC databases
- The volunteer will be digitally finger printed at the County office
- DFCS will check their driving record
- The application is sent to the state risk management office to be approved by the state's liability insurance policy
- The state will provide liability insurance to cover any amount in excess over the volunteer's own policy
- Time frame depends on staffing of the individual counties

See attached policy (scanned copy)

Child Removal Statutes

barclaym — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:27:07 GMT

Should there be a national standard statute for removing a child?

Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children

barclaym — Thur, 24 Jul 2008 15:56:30 GMT

Georgia's Report as required by the Federal CIP grant

Training Opportunities Facilitated by J4C 2007

robertsr — Thur, 22 May 2008 16:39:20 GMT

The attached document is a listing of the training opportunities J4C facilitated in 2007. The majority of the trainings address our mission of improving representation for all parties in child abuse and neglect cases.

Webcast Trainings

robertsr — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:50:12 GMT

This attached document is a partial listing of the webcast trainings available through our website. The presentations were sponsored or co-sponsored by J4C. The Lecture Series presented by Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation includes expert speakers in the field of child development addressing the critical needs of special needs and at-risk youth.

Improving Representation for the Agency

barclaym — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:06:03 GMT

An article written for the GA State Bar Journal (was not accepted) by J4C Committee member, Director of the Office of the Child Advocate, Tom Rawlings and former Dean of Emory Law School, Prof Frank Alexander.

Update: Article was resubmitted to the State Bar of GA Journal in December 2008

Summits-Justice for Children Summits

barclaym — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:42:03 GMT

What is a summit?

A project created by the Supreme Court of Georgia Committee on Justice for Children which calls for the Juvenile Court Chief Judge to hold a multi-disciplinary one day summit in each of the 49 Judicial Circuits in Georgia or each county to focus on improvement for child deprivation cases.

31 summits (75 counties) have been done so far.

Circuits:
Appalachian (Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens)
Toombs (Glascock, Lincoln, McDuffie, Taliaferro, Warren, Wilkes)
Stone Mountain (DeKalb)
Eastern (Chatham)
Western (Oconee, Clarke)
Ocmulgee (Baldwin, Greene, Hancock, Jasper, Jones, Morgan, Putnam, Wilkinson)
Blue Ridge (Cherokee)
Dublin (Johnson, Laurens, Treutlen, Twiggs)
Clayton (Clayton)
Douglas (Douglas)
Cordele (Ben Hill, Crisp, Dooly, Wilcox)
Tallapoosa (Polk, Haralson)
Atlantic (Bryan, Evans, Liberty, Long, McIntosh, Tattnall)
Augusta (Richmond, Burke, Columbia)
Atlanta (Fulton)
Piedmont (Banks, Barrow, and Jackson)
Southwestern (Lee, Macon, Schley, Stewart, Sumter and Webster)
Cobb Circuit (Cobb)
Lookout Mountain Circuit (Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade and Walker)
Griffin Circuit (Fayette, Pike, Spalding and Upson)
Dougherty Circuit (Dougherty)
Macon Circuit (Bibb, Crawford and Peach)

Counties:
Glynn
Houston
Paulding
Bartow
Newton
Gordon
Troup
Hall
Thomas

Upcoming summits are:
Bell-Forsyth Circuit
Chattahoochee Circuit

Sample agenda and powerpoints are attached. A strategic plan for improvement is prepared by the participants at the end of the day.

Title IV-E Federal Funding

barclaym — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:27:30 GMT

You can find Georgia's Title IV-E Reports here:

Georgia
PIP Report or (PDF - 436 KB)
Initial Primary Review or (PDF - 74 KB)
Primary Review or (PDF - 29 KB)

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/cwmonitoring/final/index.htm

Independent Living Services for Foster Youth

barclaym — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:17:37 GMT

"Know Your Legal Rights" presentation by Michelle Barclay, Judge Vincent Crawford and Anthony Reeves. Presented at the "Its my Life" Conference 10/1/07 in Atlanta, GA. Write barclaym@gaaoc.us with any questions..

GA Child and Family Services Review

barclaym — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:25:23 GMT

The 2007 GA Child and Family Review took place this past May.

State Assessment and the Preliminary Results are located on this federal website.

http://basis.caliber.com/cwig/ws/cwmd/docs/cb_web/SearchForm

Judge Leonard Edwards, executive director National Court and Child Welfare Collaborative, recently visited GA to speak at the Committee on Justice for Children meeting regarding the upcoming CFSR final report and the preliminary results and shared these articles which were the basis for his remarks.

GA Appellate Law Summaries

barclaym — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:08:38 GMT

See attachment for summaries

Visitation for Children/Parents/Siblings While in Foster Care

barclaym — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:03:45 GMT

See:

http://www.visitationseminar.org