Lawyers, judges, social workers and advocates will explore developments in the children’s law field during two conferences hosted by the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law starting on April 5.
The National Conference on Access to Justice for Children and Families includes two tracks: the impact and implications of COVID-19 for children and families, and racial equity in child welfare cases.
The National Conference on Parent Representation includes special emphasis on legal professionals sharing power with people with lived experience in the child welfare system.
The National Conference on Access to Justice for Children and Families, April 5-6, and the National Conference on Parent Representation, April 7-8, will take place at the Ritz Carlton Tysons Corner in Virginia.
Kimberly Waller, associate commissioner for the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will offer introductory remarks on Tuesday, April 5.
The National Parent Representation Conference will open on Thursday, April 7, at 9 a.m., with a talk by Andrea Elliott, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City.”
Following Elliott, NYU School of Law Professor Martin Guggenheim will receive the second Mark Hardin Award for Child Welfare Legal Scholarship and Systems Change.
Conference highlights include:
• “Keeping Families Together: Improving Outcomes for Relative Caregivers” —Understanding that racial disparity and disproportionality are prevalent in today’s child welfare system, this workshop will focus on the importance of relative placement and the need to address barriers that cause racial disparity in relative placements and negatively affect child welfare outcomes for children of color.
• “Away From Home: Eliminating the Unnecessary Use of Institutions in Foster Care and Placing Foster Youth with Their Soul Family” — This program will explore what young people are saying about institutions, and how to replace them by connecting foster youth with their soul family as well as strategies for focusing on both legal and relational permanency for all youth in care.
• “Engaging Those with Lived Experience as Partners and Collaborators” — Lived experience experts will guide participants on what effective Lived Experience Integration looks like. The session will include recommendations for how lawyers and advocates can partner to move up the “ladder of participation” and practice meaningful engagement.
• “Improving Educational Outcomes for Foster Children with Disabilities: What Dependency Attorneys Need to Know About Special Education” — This session will examine special education issues impacting children with disabilities, including disproportionate discipline, procedural protections and compensatory services, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
• “Working with Immigrant Families Involved in the Child Welfare System” — This session will offer guidance on protecting the due process rights of parents and children with unauthorized immigration status, with a focus on dependency cases involving a parent who is detained, deported or living outside the United States.
• “Creating a Trauma Informed and Inclusive Courtroom” — The workshop will address the impact of trauma on brains and behavior, explore how the pandemic and racial discrimination have created additional layers of stress and barriers for many families, and provide specific tools to create a trauma-responsive and equitable courtroom.
To register, visit www.americanbar.org/groups/ public_interest/child_law.
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