NCJ Number
152284
Journal
Family Law Quarterly Volume: 27 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1993) Pages: 433-446
Editor(s)
L Elrod
Date Published
1993
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article summarizes the report of the American Bar Association Presidential Working Group on the Unmet Legal Needs of Children and Their Families, including recommendations for addressing children's unmet legal needs.
Abstract
Overall, the report concludes that American society is failing to protect its children, especially children in crisis. One broad recommendation is that the American Bar Association lead a national effort to recruit lawyers to provide free legal assistance to children before they end up in the court system. A second broad recommendation is that Federal, State, and local governments enforce the many strong laws and regulations that have already been adopted to assist families and children, including the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, the Fair Housing Act, the McKinney Act (designed to aid the homeless), laws intended to enhance educational opportunity for all children, and child labor laws. A third recommendation is the enactment of new legislation at the Federal and State levels to ensure that all families with children have incomes sufficient to provide them with the basic essentials of life, including safe, affordable housing and health care. A fourth recommendation is that the States improve the justice system's ability to meet the needs of children by ensuring that all children who are entitled to counsel receive competent counsel, reorganizing and funding the courts that handle cases involving children so that they can respond more adequately to children's needs, including alternative forms of dispute resolution such as mediation, and improving conditions of detention and confinement for juveniles. A fifth recommendation is that the Nation devote more resources to preventive services that are offered on a voluntary basis before families are diagnosed as in need of State intervention. Twenty recommendations are summarized.