NCJ Number
75966
Date Published
1979
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This handbook provides suggestions for starting a legal representation program in child abuse and neglect.
Abstract
A successful advocacy project in child abuse and neglect cases includes identification of legal needs, training of lawyers and nonlawyers, recruitment, funding, and interdisciplinary support and cooperation. The major areas where additional child advocates may be required are abuse and dependency proceedings, foster care, custody, mental health cases, status offenders, termination of parental rights, and special education advocay. Bar association newsletters and general legal newspapers should be heavily used to recruit attorneys to represent children. Because child abuse and neglect is the result of disfunctioning in family relationships, leaders of each project must establish a nonlegal arm to provide the human services component (social services, and medical and mental health intervention) of abuse and neglect cases. Ideally, this component would be through paid full-time or part-time staff. In order to develop effective treatment plans, the project should establish formal agreements with the major hospitals, social service agencies, courts, public welfare department, legal aid programs representing parents, and schools in order to formalize procedures on obtaining information about a child and to make referrals for services. Project personnel should know what specific agencies are effective in working with abused children and abusing families. Local projects may also address concerns of payment of counsel, since children are usually unable to compensate their attorneys. However, several problems will remain: the conflict of attorneys representing children as both guardian and counsel, the friction between lawyers and nonlawyers, coordination with other advocacy programs, and quality control. Nine references and a list of regional centers are included.