Kin-First Courtrooms: Legal & Policy Resources

Bench Cards

Right from the Start, Preliminary Protective Hearing Bench card

NCJFCJ

Summary
This bench card was the first bench card published while the Enhanced Resource Guidelines were being developed. It is intended to assist judicial officers with this most important hearing by including reminders about who should be present at this hearing (both maternal and paternal relatives, parents, including fathers, half siblings and non-related extended family known as fictive kin). It also includes self-reflective questions the judge can ask to ensure that the findings and orders made are based upon the facts presented while taking into account the family’s culture and unique circumstances. It is intended to prevent biased findings and orders.

The Court’s Role in Improving Permanency Outcomes for Children & Youth in Foster Care

California Judicial Council

Summary
These were developed for California Judicial Officers and intended to be a tool to assist courts on the critical issue of ensuring that foster children remain or are placed with a permanent, committed family. These bench cards and appendices can be used by all dependency court stakeholders and include probing questions the court can ask at critical hearings including disposition, status reviews, permanency and post-permanency to ensure agency and social worker compliance and understanding of what evidence is necessary for the court to make these critical findings and ensure youth do not languish in foster care and are engaged in case planning, hearings and permanency decisions.

Dependency Docket Bench Cards for Ohio Juvenile and Family Court Judges and Magistrates

Ohio Supreme Court

Summary
This practice manual was designed to assist attorneys who practice or desire to practice in the court’s child abuse, neglect and dependency docket. It provides an introduction, the philosophy that underlies it and the specific hearing process of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court. “This manual is not intended to serve as an authoritative legal source, but rather, a resource to practitioners. See: Page 9 – “If the court determines that the child must be removed willing relatives may be available to take the child into their home. Placement with relatives often reduces the trauma to a child caused by removing a child from the home by allowing the child to live with a familiar person rather than a stranger.”

Child Welfare Attorneys Toolkit for Quality Representation

Ohio Supreme Court

Summary
Skilled, competent attorneys are necessary for all legal processes and court settings, but they are particularly important in juvenile and child protection settings. The purpose of this toolkit is to provide juvenile courts with practical suggestions for recruiting and retaining a competent, committed pool of attorneys. Ohio is a non-unified court system and thus each county has their own local practices, and some are featured in this toolkit. The appendix features a multitude of newly developed resources for attorneys practicing child protection law. Several of the resources include ideas for forms in which courts can compile phone numbers and contact names for local services. temporary custody of the child, and, if so, appoint that relative [Juv.R. 7(F)(3); R.C. 2151.314(B)(2)

Legal Guidance

Memo: Achieving Permanency for the Well-being of Children and Youth

HHS Administration for Children & Families

Summary
This Informational Memorandum provides best practices, resources, and recommendation for achieving permanency for children and youth in a way that prioritizes the child’s or youth’s wellbeing, including a continued focus on the importance of preserving family connections as a fundamental child welfare practice. The Children’s Bureau believes efforts to achieve permanency must include a safe and deliberate preservation of familial connections in order to successfully ensure positive outcomes.

Youth Attendance at Dependency Hearings

American Bar Association, Policy 613

Summary
ABA urges federal, state, local, territorial and tribal legislatures to enact and courts to enforce laws establishing a presumption of child presence in all dependency proceedings to ensure that legal decisions respect a child’s unique identity, their racial, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, sexual orientation and gender identified, and that a child can express their individual needs and interests and meaningfully engage in their plan.

Practice Manual: Ohio Abuse, Neglect & Dependency Law

Ohio Supreme Court Pratice Manual for Attorneys in Hamilton County

Summary
This practice manual was designed to assist attorneys who practice or desire to practice in the court’s child abuse, neglect and dependency docket. It provides an introduction, the philosophy that underlies it and the specific hearing process of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court. “This manual is not intended to serve as an authoritative legal source, but rather, a resource to practitioners. See: Page 9 – “If the court determines that the child must be removed willing relatives may be available to take the child into their home. Placement with relatives often reduces the trauma to a child caused by removing a child from the home by allowing the child to live with a familiar person rather than a stranger.”

Quality Hearings

Child Welfare Hearing Quality Research: What Legal Professionals Should Know

HHS Administration for Children & Families

Summary
This short brief includes activities and behaviors that are associated with high quality hearings. These include judicial inquiry and discussions of key topics, parental and child attendance at hearings, and meaningful engagement. It includes quality legal representation for parents and children as well.

Conceptual Model of Judicial Decision-Making and Hearing Quality in Child Welfare

HHS Administration for Children & Families

Summary
This brief presents a conceptual model that describes how judicial decision-making and hearing quality relate to case process and case outcomes for children and families. The model is meant to help researchers, practitioners and court decision-makers better understand the child welfare court process to provide practice improvements.

Quality Hearing Toolkit for Judicial Use

Ohio Supreme Court Pratice Manual for Attorneys in Hamilton County

Summary
This practice manual was designed to assist attorneys who practice or desire to practice in the court’s child abuse, neglect and dependency docket. It provides an introduction, the philosophy that underlies it and the specific hearing process of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court. “This manual is not intended to serve as an authoritative legal source, but rather, a resource to practitioners. See: Page 9 – “If the court determines that the child must be removed willing relatives may be available to take the child into their home. Placement with relatives often reduces the trauma to a child caused by removing a child from the home by allowing the child to live with a familiar person rather than a stranger.”

Reasonable Efforts

Reasonable Efforts, A Judicial Perspective 2nd Edition

Judge Leonard Edwards (Ret.)

Summary
This 2nd edition highlights how for the first time in 40 years, the federal Health & Human Services is emphasizing the importance of reasonable efforts findings and is urging judges and attorneys to address this issue at court hearings. This publication addresses whether the reasonable efforts mandate applies to finding fathers and relatives, the federal relative placement preference required by the courts, and how relative placement can be dramatically increased by the use of upfront family finding. It concludes that the child welfare system should take aggressive steps to increase relative placements and that the judge must be prepared to hold the agency accountable by insisting that the agency use due diligence to identify and notice relatives and by using reasonable efforts to prevent removal and facilitate reunification tool.

Unlocking Reasonable Efforts, Kinship is Key

Journal of Poverty Law and Policy

Summary
This brief provides insight into how kinship caregivers help preserve family ties and provides children with a sense of family support and how their care also saves society more than $6.5 billion each year in formal foster care costs. The study seeks to determine the needs of these kinship care providers and how policy and practice can help meet these financial and other needs.

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Sign up here to receive e-mail updates about this project and even join a committee if you'd like. If you have any questions, please contact Alyse Almadani at alyse.almadani@kinnectohio.org.