Families Matter: Reforming the Family Law Process

It is hard to believe it already has been almost six months since CFCC and the ABA Section of Family Law co-sponsored the Families Matter Symposium. We at CFCC are excited about the work that has been done since the symposium to expand the Families Matter initiative. Because of the partnerships that this initiative created – among CFCC, the ABA, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), to name a few – we are able to tackle the issue of family law reform from every angle, something that has been a struggle in the past.

In the coming months and years, we will work together with our partners to ensure that therapeutic reform touches legal and court structures, relevant service providers from across disciplines, and the lawyers and other legal actors who work so closely with families. It is our hope that family law horror stories – from cutthroat attorneys who seemingly care nothing for the havoc wreaked on their clients’ lives to disjointed, overtaxed systems that extend the time, agony, and unpredictability of already explosive situations – will dwindle and eventually become a thing of the past as this comprehensive, nationwide effort takes its hold.

CFCC currently is involved in many projects relating to the Families Matter initiative:

• In the coming months, CFCC plans to publish and share a final report from the Families Matter Symposium – complete with insights into the problems underlying family justice system dysfunction across the country, proposed solutions, and concrete action steps that interested parties can take to help ensure that the reform vision becomes a reality.
• In a similar vein, CFCC has devoted an entire issue (forthcoming in January) of its Unified Family Court Connection newsletter to the Families Matter Symposium, with select symposium participants writing in-depth about their involvement in and reflections about the symposium.
• CFCC will support the ABA Families Matter Committee in preparing a presentation for all state bar presidents on the goals of Families Matter and the steps they can take to support the initiative and be catalysts for change at the local level.
• CFCC will work with the ABA Section of Family Law to plan and prepare for its national Continuing Legal Education (CLE) conference in Amelia Island in April, 2011, which will approach each of its topics from the Families Matter perspective, training attorneys on how each aspect of family law practice can be handled in a manner that supports the resilience and well-being of families.
• CFCC will chair a working group with members from the ABA, AFCC, and NCJFCJ to generate and compile “best practices” in family law.
• CFCC is working with the ABA to explore funding streams for the creation of a national clearinghouse for family justice reform information.
• CFCC and the ABA will spearhead a national public awareness and education campaign centered on the need for and types of family justice system reform.

We at CFCC are always looking for new ways to support meaningful family justice system reform at the local, state, and national levels, and we encourage all of our readers to join us in this process. What changes would you like to see in the family justice system?

CFCC Sets the Stage for “Kids and Theater:” A Student Fellow’s Personal Reflection on Arts Education

Attention actors, writers, stage managers, and directors. The Center for Families, Children and the Courts is proud to announce the première of the “Kids and Theater” project!! This project is part of CFCC’s broader initiative to promote arts education in the Baltimore City Public Schools. Currently, CFCC runs a “Kids and Cameras” project which has been very successful. “Kids and Theater” will be piloted in one lucky school next spring. The program will be a ten week course where students will learn how to write and perform their own plays. CFCC will be hiring a professional acting coach to direct the program, and I will be helping with producing the plays.

Our goal is to help students in our Truancy Court Program (TCP) become more engaged in their school through the arts. This program will help our TCP students develop their writing and acting skills and their team-working skills. These skills will enable our TCP students to become more confident with themselves and their academic abilities.

For me, the arts played a vital and integral part of my education and character development. When I first began school, my grades were terrible. I had trouble paying attention in class and learning basic concepts. When my parents got me involved in band and acting, my grades began to drastically improve. I moved from the Chapter I, a program helping slower students, to an honor roll student in the advanced class.

My problems in school stemmed from a lack of engagement. The arts allowed me to tap into my creativity which I was able to use in other subjects. For example, music involves rhythms and time signatures which are useful to mathematics calculation. Acting involves memorization and comprehending a character and storyline which are useful for reading comprehension.

The arts changed my life, but I'm not the only one. According to recent studies from the Dana Consortium , students who are engaged in arts education have enhanced brain cognition¹. Students in the arts score higher on IQ tests than non-arts students. Tests also show that arts students have enhanced attention spans, greater aptitudes with language and mathematics, and are more empathetic than non-arts students.

The highlight of my artistic career was in my senior year of high school. I was a member of the DeMatha Wind Ensemble which had just won the WGMS “Young Artist in the Community Award.” As part of the award, we got to perform at the Kennedy Center. When I walked on that stage, I was in awe and disbelief. How did I get here? When I started school, I was a failure and now I was standing at the Kennedy Center – weeks before my graduation and about to go to college. Then, I realized something – I may never perform at the Kennedy Center, but the arts helped me realize that I can do anything I want.

Now, I am in my last year of law school enrolled as a CFCC Student Fellow. At our CFCC team meetings, I hear about students struggling in school and can't help but think that I was like they are a few years ago. With this new program, I hope the TCP students will be able to overcome their problems in school like I did. Perhaps one day, some of our students will go on to become actors, directors, producers, set designers, or writers. Perhaps some of our students will get the extraordinary experience like I had to perform at the Kennedy Center. What is certain is that this program will help every student realize that anything is possible and with hard work they can reach their dreams. “Kids and Theater” break a leg!

1 See Gazzangia, Michael, Learning, Arts, and the Brain: The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition, The Dana Foundation Press 2008. www.dana.org.

Breaking the Cycle – Poverty, Truancy and Crime, Oh My

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released a report entitled The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts in 2006. The report begins by stating

There is a high school dropout epidemic in America. Each year, almost one third of all public high school students – and nearly one half of all blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans – fail to graduate from public high school with their class....The decision to drop out is a dangerous one for the student. Dropouts are much more likely than their peers who graduate to be unemployed, living in poverty, receiving public assistance, in prison, on death row, unhealthy, divorced, and single parents with children who drop out from high school themselves.

Last week, shortly after arriving at the Baltimore City elementary/middle school where I serve as the Truancy Court Program's Student Fellow, I learned that three of our students had transferred to other schools. One of the students was a 7^th grade girl who had allegedly disrupted a class and verbally threatened a classmate. This young lady had our attention from the first day of TCP. She began the first 45 minutes of orientation with her head down for no apparent reason other than disinterest in what was going on. But there's always a reason. We later learned that she doesn't eat regular meals during the day, usually only breakfast. The lack of nutrition and energy causes her to drag and get regular headaches. She's more mature than many of her classmates and often feels like an outsider among her peers. She's had opportunities to be in modeling and accelerated programs, but either wasn't ready for the responsibility or failed to show up. She consistently comes to school out of uniform, because it's not clean or she doesn't feel like following the rules. She does well in school when she puts in the effort, but would rather do nothing. She wants to be a model, but that goal seems so far away that taking steps in that direction at this point seem futile. It appears as though most of these instances of acting out are this young lady's means of exercising control over her life, while living in an environment where she might feel she has none. From our conversations with this student, I was not under the impression that she desired to transfer. Now she finds herself in yet another unfamiliar situation in which she has no control. Was this the right answer?

The other students who transferred were siblings; a girl in kindergarten and a boy in 2^nd grade. Apparently, the boy got into an altercation with another male classmate and ended up beating him up to the point of blood being drawn. As a result, our TCP student and his sister both had to leave the school. He's 7 years old! He was always very shy and quiet at the table. Where did this aggression come from, and why wasn't he given a second chance? How will changing schools resolve this child's emotional and anger-management problems? It seems as though the action taken sends the message that while his behavior will not be tolerated, no one cares enough about this child to help him – just as the criminal justice system removes “problems” from the street, locking them away without attempting to solve or fix them, this little boy was removed from the environment he was accustomed to in order to “protect the rest of the student population.” There is absolutely no way to guarantee that he will not run into the same problems at his new school, and ultimately in life.

All of the TCP students at my school are living in poverty. The link between truancy, poverty, and crime is a vicious cycle: children living in poverty, due to a number of external factors, are more likely than other children to exhibit truant behavior. Some causes of truancy are directly related to living in poverty, including inability to pay for transportation to school, not having enough school uniforms or money to wash clothes, children working to help feed their families, and homelessness, to name a few. Unfortunately, a common result of truancy and dropping out of school is that children will likely live in poverty as adults. And that’s not the worst-case scenario. Often, when students are not in school, there is a greater potential for substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and involvement in gangs. In his October 2009 NY Times Article, Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts, Sam Dillon reminded us that “[o]n any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging.”

Moreover, truancy can potentially serve as a gateway to the juvenile justice system. In her 2006 article about CFCC and the Truancy Court Program, Professor Barbara Babb elaborates, “[R]esearch has demonstrated that truancy is an early indicator of more serious potential delinquent behavior, social isolation, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, educational failure, and school dropout.”¹ School provides structure and consistency for students; they go to classes at particular times, see the same classmates and teachers every day, and are presumably in an environment that fosters learning and growth. Truant students are more likely to get into trouble while they are skipping school, and inability to find employment forces youth to resort to illegal activities and crime including dealing drugs and burglary, among others.² The more school they miss, the further students fall behind. It becomes harder to pay attention, grades drop, and then they no longer even see a reason to come to school. The cycle of poverty has a detrimental effect on self-esteem and forces students to look for alternative options to school. As a result, habitually truant students and high school dropouts are unable to become productive members of society.³ Is this what the future looks like for our TCP students? Hopefully not.


1.Barbara Babb, “A Truancy Court Program to Keep Children in School,” 39-JUN MDBJ 45, 45-49 (2006).
2.Id.
3.Id.

The Rising Issue of Cyber-Bullying

Due to the rise in popularity of social networks over the past ten years, cyber-bullying has been on the increase, and some social scientists believe bullying may be one of the most prevalent causes of teen suicide. As a result of cyber-bullying, teens’ personal, private situations are becoming public for the world to see, and some teens see no other way out. Imagine being a fifteen years old and your friends have been collecting pictures of you on the weekends. One evening the pictures are posted to Facebook and every picture displays you making intimate physical contact with male classmates. Each friend comments under the pictures making references about your sexual reputation. At fifteen this would be extremely embarrassing. The thought of showing your face in school Monday morning would be impossible. Your private, extra-curricular conduct is now the talk of the school. Seemingly, the only way out at such a vulnerable age is suicide.

Recently, Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University, took his own life after his roommate streamed a video on the internet revealing an intimate encounter between Tyler and another man. As a result of the video being leaked onto the internet, Clementi took his own life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River. This story, sadly, is one of many.

In a recent class discussion, one of the CFCC Student Fellows mentioned that one of the Truancy Court Program participants was being bullied by her fellow peers, and the school seemed to brush off the situation. When situations like this occur, the school needs to play an active role in extinguishing the problem as soon as it is presented. The bully needs to be reprimanded for his or her actions, because if the problem persists, the bully will soon realize he or she can continue to bully his or her peers, fulfilling a sense of power and entitlement.

Bullying has been around for ages. It is nothing new; however, with the rise of social networks, the scope of bullying has broadened from merely in-school, to out of school, and children and young adults are being affected in a whole new way. This reaction may be due to a lag between school policies and new technology. Education begins with the students. Teens need to be educated on what is and what is not appropriate for the internet. The internet is a very powerful tool. Teen girls might not think the consequences a Myspace hoax played on their thirteen year old friend would ultimately lead to her taking her own life. Teenagers need to be supervised both at home, in the neighborhood, and at school. Parents need to get involved and speak to their children about both how to deal with a bully and the consequences of bullying. Schools need to implement strict policies on how to deal with bullying, including counseling sessions, providing protection for the victims of bullying, and providing for sanctions for bullies, whether or not their conduct falls within the scope of their education.

Empowering Our Youth to be Agents for Change in their Home, School and Communities

I am also a CFCC Student Fellow this fall participating in the Truancy Court Program at Violetville elementary/middle school. I agree with the previous blogger that it is important that we all work together to see that our students our successful. I wanted to focus my blog on ways community members can reach out to empower youth to be more proactive about their education, their school and their community, especially where the youth lack sufficient encouragement and motivation at home.

Schools and community organizations must reach out to these youth and provide them with

opportunities for youth leadership and community involvement. Schools can provide student leadership opportunities by having a student government and other student clubs where the students are put in leadership positions. Community Groups can promote youth leadership by having youth led groups in religious communities, YMCAs, community associations, neighborhood watch groups and other similarly situated groups in the community.

By getting youth more involved in leadership positions in the school and larger community they will be empowered to act as positive agents for change. For this to be effective the positions must come with actual responsibilities, accountability and be set up in a way that the students feel that their peers and adults are listening to them. This framework will give youth greater incentives to continue to do well because they will want to hold their positions and they will not want to disappoint their peers, teachers and other community members. Personal accountability and an understanding of consequences for bad actions is one area where poor parenting has left many youth lacking, but leadership opportunities for youth that incentivize good behavior and hold them accountable could supplement the inadequate training at home.

I recently researched Youth Courts for our CFCC class. Youth Courts are an excellent example of a structure in place that empowers youth to address the problem of juvenile crime in their community.[1] Youth Courts are diversion courts that are led primarily by youth who have been trained as judges, lawyers, clerks, bailiffs and jurors to hear cases about delinquent conduct committed by their peers. There are various Youth Court models but in all programs the youth are actively involved in the process and are given the responsibility of deciding the best way of holding the delinquent offender accountable for his or her conduct. The program focuses on restorative justice requiring the offender to make amends for their actions and getting them involved in the community. The Youth Court participants serve as positive role models for the young offenders, who see young people their own age who are responsible, socially engaged and respected by the community.

I think that the success of the youth courts demonstrates that youth are capable of acting as agents for positive change in their school and community when given the opportunity to assume leadership positions.

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[1] Goodwin, Tracy. Peer Justice and Youth Empowerment: An Implementation Guide for Teen Court Programs. Chapter 1 pg 3. U.S. Department of Transportation,1996.

Where are the parents?

I have been a volunteer and student fellow in the CFCC’s Truancy Court Program for over the last year. From my tutoring in math to my observations as the student fellow, I have been introduced to a world I did not know and it is nothing like the one I grew up in. I never had to worry about my clothes being clean in the morning or if I would have breakfast. My homework was done after school and my parents always made time to sit down and talk with me about my day. There was no one I was afraid of, no gangs, no bullies and no fighting. There was also no internet, no cell phones and news only traveled as fast as your neighbors could talk. The world was an easier place to grow up in.

Not going to school was never an option. My mom never kept me home because she had a disagreement with my dad. We didn’t move each year. There was consistency and a connection with my school, my teachers, my friends and my life. This is not the case today. As the economy fell apart, families split, communities broke down and the children have suffered almost silently. Parents are no longer at home, having to work 2 jobs or extra hours just to pay the bills. So, the kids can just stay at home if they feel like it. They skip their homework assignments with no one checking on them. The television or video game system has become the babysitter and they are falling behind. If they are having trouble with another student, there is no one to talk to so they keep it to themselves.

Today’s children have to worry about everything. Along with a lack of parental support and parental supervision, social media has exploded. Style is everything and reputations can change in an instant. Being the cool kid has replaced being the smart kid. I have been told on more than one occasion that, “I couldn’t come to school because my hair wasn’t done.” This came from a 7^th grader. In 7^th grade my biggest worry was getting from class to class in the 5 minutes we were given and remembering my lunch each morning. Style wasn’t much of a thought and my hair was a curly mess.

There were no web-pages dedicated to hating me, pictures of me half dressed being text to everyone in the school or an aunt driving up to me in a McDonald’s parking lot to threaten me for disrespecting their 13 year old niece. Yet, these are the stories I have been reading about and hearing from my students. Each story more horrific then the last and each with one glaring consistency, the parent never knew or the parent wasn’t there. Where were the parents?

We are so quick to blame others in our society. We can never accept that our own inaction could have been at fault. So we blame the school and the teachers. Why didn’t they know? Why didn’t they act? They should have known and they should have done something. It’s everyone else fault and could not have been my own. Then the media portrays the parents as the victims and rests the blame squarely on the schools. They should know better.

Parents need to get back to being parents. Their children need them, the schools need them and the communities need them. In a time of economic unrest and social change, we need to be better parents, active parents. Parents build the bridges between school and home, between the children and teachers. Parents are the only ones who can do this.

When we all work together, our children succeed and we all share in their success.

Law School and What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

I am a CFCC Student Fellow this fall, participating in the Truancy Court Program at a Baltimore City elementary/middle school. I returned to law school mid-life after working from home for my children’s younger years because I hoped to take my professional life into a new direction. I wanted to work with people, make a difference in my community, and try to harmonize my work and ideals.

During my first year of law school I often found myself crying and wondering what I had done to myself. The often inscrutable and abstract material of Contracts, Civil Procedure and Property was just not resonating with me. For Property class one day, I had to go to Baltimore City rent court; the gritty, mundane reality of that court seemed very far removed from my law school experience thus far. When I was finally able to choose my courses, I took Interviewing, Negotiating and Counseling, and was somewhat shocked to remember that lawyers deal with real human beings who are often struggling with emotional issues.

Academics often complain about the disconnect between the law and the everyday people the law affects. The bureaucratic institutions that craft laws and policy often don’t or can’t envision how their rules and regulations will play out in the day-to-day lives of everyday people. Legal scholars debate the question of how much social work should be required of legal institutions. Many believe the courts and judges aren’t social workers. But I think that’s wrong: social work’s focus on preventive, non-adversarial measures should take precedence in the practice of law, particularly in the area of family law.

At my Truancy Court Program orientation, the fifteen or so elementary and middle school participants were instructed to fill out fairly detailed forms asking for contact information and information about themselves. I spotted an adorable nine-year-old boy who looked a little lost. I bent down on my knees and guided him through the forms. When he got to “What career would you like to have after you graduate from college?” he looked up at me with blank eyes. I clarified by asking him, “What would you like to be when you grow up?” He blurted out, “How do you spell scientist?” I spelled the word for him and a hardness that has grown around my heart these past three years of law school softened a bit. That simple question has been the most humane moment of my law school career.