Impact

The Family Justice Initiative would like to thank our founding organizations and partners for their dedication and collaborative efforts toward our important mission. We are proud of the progress that has been made since inception of the initiative.

Since its launch in 2016, the FJI has:

• Built a national collaborative with representatives from around the country who advocate for children and parents’ right to counsel in child welfare proceedings.
• Developed consensus around replicable FJI models of high-quality legal representation for children and parents among a diverse range of child welfare and legal stakeholders.
• Collected existing research on the impact of legal representation on child welfare outcomes.
• Identified jurisdictions throughout the country seeking to make and evaluate needed reforms in child and parent representation where the FJI models can be implemented and evaluated.
• Begun to design a communication campaign targeting key audiences within and outside the child welfare field to build public support for the essential role of high-quality legal representation in ensuring families are treated fairly under the law.
• Contributed to an Information Memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau that emphasizes the importance of representation for all parties in child welfare proceedings.
• What Have We learned