Reflecting on the Urban Child Symposium and the Future of Child Welfare System Reform in Baltimore

Over two hundred people attended the University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Families, Children and the Courts’ 3rd annual Urban Child Symposium, and the day was a passionate and intensely informative exchange. The topic was “The Urban Child in the Child Welfare System: From Fracture to Fix”, with speakers including experts from the court system, the social services system, academia, and real life – from a former foster child to a parent who voluntarily terminated her parental rights. Our audience, which included lawyers, social workers, educators, community activists, the general public, students, and policymakers, was diverse and involved. If you missed any or all of the symposium, you can watch a podcast of the powerful discussion here.

Throughout the day, the burning questions seemed to be: After many years of reform, have we actually improved the lives of children? Have we complicated rather than streamlined the system, and should we have second thoughts about our path? How can we move the system forward, introduce more research-based “best practices,” and better protect the interests of children in this complex social structure? How can we make sure that this symposium is not just a one-day event filled with good ideas and information, but is actually a springboard for reform? Former DHR Secretary Brenda Donald implored the audience to take an active role in the selection of her successor, and other panelists echoed this suggestion. We would like to encourage our readers to get involved in this process, as it will have a major impact on the future of system reform.

Further, we at CFCC want to ask you to share your thoughts, insights, and perhaps personal experiences. What do you think can be done to improve the child welfare system? How do we turn ideas into concrete reform?

Many of the Urban Child Symposium audience members requested more time to network and discuss practical steps, so we would urge you to do so, both on this blog and in your communities. Let us agree to move Baltimore’s children forward into a more therapeutic child welfare system that better meets their needs in the most difficult of circumstances.

CFCC’s Urban Child Symposium: The Urban Child in the Child Welfare System: From Fracture to Fix

We at CFCC are excited to announce that Thursday, April 7, we continue our tradition of hosting an annual "Urban Child Symposium," which brings together national experts on the cutting edge of the most pressing issues in the lives of children in urban environments. This year, we consider the plight of urban children in the child welfare system. The symposium's title, "The Urban Child in the Child Welfare System: From Fracture to Fix," describes both the experience of children in the system, who enter it with a fractured family and are meant to exit it with a loving, supportive and stable family structure, and the system itself, which too often destroys the lives it is charged with rebuilding. We know that state intervention in families' lives touches the most profound human relationships, and sometimes trauma is magnified rather than lessened. On the other hand, failure to act can mean a child never makes it to healthy adulthood. Issues of poverty, class, race, and culture further compound this extremely complex issue. The good news is that advocates from a variety of disciplines and professions have devoted their careers to improve this system and make it work for children and families. We are delighted to have many of the leading experts on the cutting edge of this most important issue speaking on panels at the symposium.

The symposium will open with a keynote discussion by Shay Bilchik about what children in the child welfare system need, along with an exploration of the future of child welfare reform. Three interdisciplinary panel discussions will follow Mr. Bilchik’s address. The symposium's first panel will consider the "Appropriate Scope and Process of the Child Welfare System,” followed by a discussion of "Making the Child Welfare System Work,” and culminating with "Straight Talk about the Child Welfare System: A Facilitated Discussion," which provides insiders' views of what really goes on in the system.

The event, scheduled Thursday, April 7, from 9am to 5pm in the Venable Baetjer Howard Moot Court Room of UB's School of Law, is free and open to the public. We encourage you to read more about the symposium, register to attend, and bring your perspective and/or questions to this important event. You also can remain involved before and after the event by keeping up with this blog and posting comments regarding your own thoughts about the child welfare system.

Up to five questions posted on the blog before the event will be answered by panelists throughout the day, and a link to the podcast of the event will be posted on this blog shortly after the symposium.

New Evidence Highlights the Importance of Early, Targeted, Holistic Intervention for "At-Risk" Youth

We at CFCC believe strongly in the importance of studying social issues, like truancy and dropout, to determine risk factors and address problems at their root causes, thereby preventing them from escalating and potentially destroying lives. In fact, one of the reasons for our starting the Truancy Court Program (TCP) is the research that shows that truancy is a predictor of a number of social problems, from delinquency to dropout to teenage pregnancy.

The Baltimore Education Research Coalition (BERC) recently published a report about early warning indicators of dropout in Baltimore City Schools that highlights the importance of holistic, early intervention approaches such as the TCP in order to prevent dropout and improve our city’s dismal graduation rates. The researchers studied the cohort of students who were set to graduate citywide in 2007 and identified indicators from sixth grade (school year 2000-2001) that were strong predictors of future non-graduation. They were able to identify four sixth grade indicators that accounted for over two-thirds of the city’s non-graduates, and all four of them are issues that the TCP encounters on a regular basis.

Not surprisingly, chronic truancy was the most prevalent predictor of non-graduation, but the BERC results reflected a deeper truth: truancy often interacted with other risk factors to seal a student’s fate. The BERC study focused on absenteeism, not tardiness, when analyzing truancy. It categorized students based on sixth grade figures. The findings made clear the importance of middle school attendance. Seventy percent of city students who missed less than 10 days of school in sixth grade went on to graduate. In comparison, only 51.4% of students who missed 10-20 days during sixth grade graduated within one year of their expected graduation date. This was a huge drop, and it still did not include those student defined as “chronic truants.” For the chronic truants (those who missed twenty or more days in sixth grade), their eventual graduation rate was even dimmer – 28.6% of the students graduated within a year of their expected graduation date.

The other three predictors for dropout identified by the study were being over-age for the grade, failing core classes, and having multiple suspensions. The researchers noted that these predictors interacted for many students, and the more sixth grade predictors one applied to a student, the less likely it was that he or she would graduate. To illustrate, over one-third of students who were chronically absent in sixth grade also had failed a core course. For students like those, with two or more indicators, only 20.4% went on to graduate. Most devastating of all was the combination of chronic absence and being over-age for grade – only about one in ten of those sixth graders went on to graduate.

The challenge, then, calls for a multifaceted, holistic approach to truancy that addresses all of these factors so that we can provide the education that Maryland’s Constitution promises to our children and can lead them toward graduation.

Join us to celebrate CFCC’s 10th anniversary!

We at CFCC cannot believe that it has been ten years since CFCC’s launching, thereby implementing our vision to create a center to identify opportunities for family justice system reform. Beginning our work with a staff of three, we currently have a staff of eleven, including two senior fellows, six Truancy Court Program consultants, and more. Over the last ten years, we have been involved in a number of programs and reform initiatives, including:

• Planning and implementing statewide and national conferences on a wide range of issues and programs, including unified family courts, substance abuse and addiction, truancy, the child welfare system, and the practice of family law;
• Designing and operating the Truancy Court Program, which has served about 900 students in 28 schools over six years;
• Creating and teaching the CFCC Student Fellows Program, an experiential course for 2nd and 3rd year law students focused on cutting edge issues in family justice reform and therapeutic jurisprudence;
• Developing a comprehensive public outreach campaign that features media appearances and placements; publication of a national newsletter; creation of two e-newsletters, two DVDs, a website, and this blog; and production of nearly thirty reports, evaluations, and articles;
• Conducting over 29 trainings and workshops in a variety of areas related to court reform, truancy, substance abuse, and more;
• Consulting and technical assistance focused on the implementation and evaluation of family justice system reform in 10 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada.

On Thursday, March 3, CFCC will celebrate our tenth anniversary with a two-part special event at the UB Law School. Beginning at noon in the Moot Court Room, the law school with feature a joint “Lunchtime Law” lecture, “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: A Family-Friendly Approach,” by two of our most valued colleagues and leaders in the therapeutic jurisprudence movement, Judge Peggy Hora and Professor David Wexler. There also will be an evening celebration in the Moot Court Room from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. with distinguished speakers, followed by drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the law school lobby from 6:30 p.m. until 8 p.m..

Both events are free and open to the public, but we do request an RSVP for the evening portion. You can read more about the programs and RSVP for the evening festivities here.

A Troubling New Practice: For-Profit Businesses that Fund Divorce Cases

The New York Times recently published an article about a new trend in family law: for-profit businesses that invest money to support one party’s legal case in a divorce proceeding and then are paid on a contingent basis from the party’s recovery in the case. I am disturbed by this new development, as it seems to skirt long-established ethical rules in family law practice.

While some attorneys ethically are permitted to charge their fees on a contingent basis (think of the classic personal injury attorney), matrimonial lawyers cannot. The public policy reason for this is that a lawyer has a first duty to advocate for the client’s interests, and there is so much more at stake in a family law case than just money. Sometimes, the best decision for the parties in what begins as a divorce case is reconciliation. Further, there may be times when a smaller total monetary recovery for one party may be used as a bargaining chip for other interests, like obtaining sentimental property. There also are times where litigating for the top recovery possible would require the parties to engage in a very contentious process that would cause more pain for the family than the monetary recovery would be worth. Thus, if an attorney has a stake in the monetary recovery, she could encounter a conflict of interest and could influence a client to make decisions that would harm the client because of the attorney’s desire to profit.

The problem with these new for-profit businesses investing in divorce is that they can have the same harmful influence on a client, resulting in many of the same problems and concerns that undergird the ethical rule preventing attorneys from charging contingent fees in matrimonial cases. Unfortunately, however, the conduct of these businesses is not regulated in the same way as a lawyer’s. The for-profit business’ offer of assistance comes at a person’s most vulnerable and helpless time and can influence that person to make very bad decisions—for example, dissipating assets that rightfully belong to the recently split family or even pursuing a divorce more aggressively instead of considering reconciliation or other options. With no professional ethics governing this kind of for-profit business, there is no end to the damage it can do in a person’s life while seeking to increase the business’ contingent fee recovery. From both a public policy and a moral perspective, then, it is imprudent to allow these businesses to influence individuals in pain who are experiencing a family breakup and are enduring an extremely difficult time.

As the article points out, this kind of business does allow a person to secure counsel to recover assets that may not be recovered without immediate funding to pay an attorney, and it could potentially help the individual to avoid being disadvantaged by a former spouse. The family justice system, however, already has a way to address this problem without resorting to for-profit businesses that are founded on such questionable ethical grounds. The justice system allows a party to ask for attorney’s fees from the person with money, which is done routinely and granted frequently.

I know that new practices like the for-profit businesses raise complex issues, and I am interested to hear how others perceive this new trend. Do you share my concerns? Are there other considerations you would address? Are these for-profit businesses more justifiable than I believe they are?

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.