Family Law Prof Blog

CFP: Children and the Law Junior Faculty Workshop Call for Papers

Children and the Law Junior Faculty Workshop

July 16 -17, 2009

The Frances Lewis Law Center at Washington & Lee University is sponsoring a workshop for junior scholars working on legal issues related to children. The workshop will be held this summer on the campus of Washington & Lee in Lexington, Virginia.
More info on Feminist Law Professors blog here.

RR

Fewer Children In Foster Care In NC County Promotes Child Welfare and Saves Money

Guilford County (North Carolina) has employed a multi-prong approach to family preservation, and has reduced the number of children in foster care by 31%.  In this Greensboro (NC) News-Record article, county officials and national experts agree that the children who have remained with their families have avoided the unnecessary trauma of being separated from their families, and note the cost-savings of prevention programs as compared to out-of-home care.

(MIF 04-17-2009)

Case Update -- Termination of Parental Rights Vacated Because Counsel Appointed for Parent Only Two Weeks Before Trial

The Michigan Supreme Court issued a decision in In Re Hudson/Morgan Minors on April 8, 2009.

(MIF 4-10-2009)

Science and the Drug Exposed Infant

As part of a program at New York University School of Law recently on Drugs, Pregnancy and Parenting: What the Experts in Medicine, Social Work and Law Have to Say, Dr. Deborah A. Frank, Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine presented a lecture on Prenatal Drug Exposure: What Does the Science Tell Us?   She explores the social meaning of certain drugs and exposes some of the myths laden in the term "crack-addicted babies".  The entire lecture is about 15 minutes and would be especially useful in child welfare classes and clinics.  The video can be viewed at http://www.vimeo.com/3916613 (last visited April 6, 2009 bgf)

Stimulus Funds Available To Prevent Foster Care Placements Due To Inadequate Housing

The National Center for Housing and Child Welfare (NCHCW) has published an issue brief identifying more than $2 billion in stimulus funding available for emergency housing to prevent placement of children in foster care.  Trade journal Youth Today summarizes the issue brief here.

(MIF 04-05-2009)

Florida Reports Success Via Community-Based Care Title IV-E Waiver

A report prepared by University of South Florida researchers describes Florida's use of a federal waiver on expenditure of Title IV-E funds.  Since October 2006, Florida has redirected monies from out-of-home care (i.e., foster care and group home placements) by expanding prevention, family preservation, and in-home and other diversionary services and supports for families involved in, or at risk of involvement in, the child welfare system.  According to the data-laden report, Florida's community-based approach has resulted in improved outcomes for children with respect to safety and permanency, potentially signaling important innovations in child welfare policy and practice.

(MIF 03-13-2009)

Orders Prohibiting Reproduction

In his forthcoming article, "Child Welfare and Future Persons",  Carter Dillard, Westerfield Fellow, at Loyola University, New Orleans takes on the questions raised by State v. Oakley, 629 NW2d 200 (Wis. 2001) that we find in most of our family law textbooks -- that is, when, if ever, are orders prohibiting procreation constitutional and enforceable?  Here is the abstract of the article:

While ethicists have delved deep into the rights and wrongs of procreating, lawyers have had little to say about the matter, stymied by practical concerns, the tendency of the law to ignore prospective children and their interests, and the misperception that a fundamental rights boundary absolutely forbids state intervention. But recently a small door has opened in this wall between law and ethics: as courts faced with having to repeatedly remove abused and neglected children from parents adjudged unfit have issued temporary no-procreation orders. As precedent builds and the possibility of ex ante regulation of procreation and parenthood grows, a moral and legal debate is developing over what duties prospective parents owe their future children and the society with which those children will interact. But increasingly the debate is a muddle of inapposite and conflicting state probation and constitutional law in search of statutory guidance. This Article attempts to cut through it, and to state the intermediate-level principle at its core:

A prospective parent has a moral and legal duty to be fit when he or she has a child, one arising from or creating correlative claim-rights shared by the state and prospective children, and a prospective parent has no liberty to have a child until he or she is fit.

The Article then argues for codification of this principle, to be applied in cases of recurring child abuse and neglect.

Read the article on SSRN. (last visited March 9, 2009 bgf)

Report -- Youth Transitioning Out of Foster Care

States require youth to leave foster care at ages that vary from 18 to 21.  Abundant research shows that children who are "emancipated" directly from foster care to adulthood are at "high risk for a number of adverse outcomes during their transition to adulthood, including economic insecurity, housing instability, criminal justice involvement, and early child-bearing."  Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago recently issued a report reviewing state "policies and procedures designed to support youth transitioning out of foster care." (free registration on the Chapin Hall website may be required to access the free report)

(MIF 03-06-2009)

Racism in Child Welfare -- National Public Radio

NPR's Michel Martin aired a segment this week about racial disproportionality and disparity in the child welfare system, a topic addressed previously on this Blog (including in an entry dated January 27, 2009).  Guests included Kristen Weber of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, Bernadette Blount, a parent advocate with New York's Child Welfare Organizing Project, and Toni Heineman, Director of A Home Within.  Click on this link and then click again on "listen here" to hear the program (17 mins 26 secs.)

(last visited MIF -2-20-2009)

Conferences -- Adoption and Child Welfare

According to the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the following conferences about adoption and child welfare are scheduled to occur in the next few months:

March 2009

• BACW 2009 Annual Conference
  Bridging the Gap for Our Children, Our Legacy
  Black Administrators in Child Welfare, Inc.
  March 8–10, Long Beach, CA
  www.blackadministrators.org
• Fifth Annual Conference on Childhood Grief and Traumatic Loss
  Restoring Joy to Children and Families
  ICAN Associates, Inc.
  March 26, Los Angeles, CA
  http://ican-ncfr.org/documents/Grief2009SavetheDate.pdf
• 36th Annual New England Adoption Conference
  Adoption Community of New England, Inc.
  March 28, Bellingham, MA
  http://adoptioncommunityofne.org/pages/annual-ne-adoption-conference.php
• 17th Annual Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
  Focusing on the Future: Strengthening Families and Communities
  Children's Bureau, Office on Child Abuse and Neglect
  March 30–April 4, Atlanta, GA
  www.pal-tech.com/cbconference/index.cfm

April 2009

• 27th Annual Protecting Our Children National American Indian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
  National Indian Child Welfare Association
  April 19–22, Reno, NV
  www.nicwa.org/conference/
• American Adoption Conference 30th Annual Conference
  April 22–26, Cleveland, OH
  www.americanadoptioncongress.org/national_conferences.php

May 2009

• NFPA 39th Annual Education Conference
  Focus on the Future . . . Love a Child
  National Foster Parent Association
  May 4–8, Reno, NV
  https://secure3.convio.net/wmh1/site/SPageServer?pagename=Conference2009
• Eighth Annual National Citizen Review Panel Conference
  May 20–22, Jackson Hole, WY
  www.wycrp.org/Resources/2009NCRPConference.pdf

(MIF 02-06-2009)