Category: Recent News

Civil Legal Advocacy to Promote Child and Family Well-being, Address the Social Determinants of Health, and Enhance Community Resilience.

FJI Executive Team member, Mimi Laver, and FJI Communications Work Group Co-Chair, Cathy Krebs, recently published a new article “The Case for a Centralized Office for Legal Representation in Child Welfare Cases.”

An evaluation Colorado Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel finds that when parents are represented by an interdisciplinary team that includes a social worker, children return home and stay safely with family at higher rates.

Colorado’s Office of the Child’s Representative (OCR)  completed an evaluation focused on engaging and empowering youth in child welfare court proceedings. The paper and an executive summary make recommendations based on data from nearly 300 youth surveys, 12 youth focus groups, youth-centered data from OCR court observations, and thousands of youth-centered GAL entries into OCR’s online case management system. 

Read Children’s Bureau Express call to action to chart a different course to strengthen families through primary prevention and create a more just and equitable system focused on child and family well-being. This article series consensus statement that stresses how we must all value and invest in families and communities. 

FJI Communications Workgroup Co-Chair Kathleen Creamer writes about the importance of investing in families and supporting kinship caregivers.

Kim Dvorechak, National Association of Counsel for Children executive director and FJI Communications Workgroup member describes how children’s lawyers can examine and improve their practice.

 Judge William Thorne writes about keeping families safe through community: After Years of Doing It Wrong as a Judge…l Know We Can Do Better!

 FJI Executive Team Member Prudence Beidler Carr co-authors an article about ways to improve the child welfare legal system to safeguard family integrity.