Monday, August 23, 2010

CFCC Student Fellows – the Next Generation of CFCC Bloggers

Where has the summer gone? The law school semester has begun! We at CFCC are looking forward to another great year; we take utmost pride in teaching the next generation of lawyers about family law and our major tenets, therapeutic jurisprudence and the ecology of human development. We also ensure that our students personally engage with the things they learn in the classroom through their enrollment in the CFCC Student Fellows Program.

Our Student Fellows engage in an in-depth examination of the policies and theories surrounding court reform and cutting edge issues in family law, including unified family courts. They also become involved with one of our projects, which can include research, writing, or field work. Last year, six Student Fellows supported the judges at CFCC’s Truancy Court Program (TCP) sessions by taking notes, distributed rewards for goal achievement, and discussed strategy with the TCP team. One Student Fellow led a “Kids and Cameras Program” class to teach children about photography, and three Student Fellows created and implemented workshops for TCP parents covering legal issues ranging from truancy to school discipline to schooling options for children with chronic health conditions.

We look forward to a wide variety of research and practice projects this year, including a research project on the impact of cultural factors on children of immigrants, experiential projects with the Truancy Court Program, and more. Additionally, because our instructional philosophy for the Student Fellows Program centers on reflection, application, and discussion, we plan to use this blog as a new element of the course. We are going to allow each Student Fellow an opportunity to write about the topics they are learning, both in the classroom and through their experiential component.  We believe that this web integration can be a valuable part of our Student Fellows’ learning experience, and we encourage our readers to join in this process by responding to our student posts.