NCJ Number
157142
Date Published
1995
Length
88 pages
Annotation
This report describes and analyzes existing court-based child care programs and the current status of children in the courts.
Abstract
A survey of court administrators at every level received responses from 42 States, including 39 responses from the office of the State's chief court administrator and 53 from court administrators with more limited jurisdiction. Results clearly revealed that the presence of children interferes with courts' daily operations and the ability of court employees to perform their jobs efficiently. In addition, their presence in the courtroom subjects children to testimony that might be disturbing to them. Moreover, the presence of children affects a substantial proportion of courts. A related survey of personnel in four courts, two with child care centers and two similar courts without such programs, suggested that a child care program can improve court decorum, employee working conditions, and the well-being of children who come to court. Among the crucial features of court-based children's programs are the capacity to serve as few as six children and as many as 150 at a time, staffing by one or more paid employees, and reliance on volunteers to fill out the program's staff roster. Funding comes from both public and private sources. Centers are exempt from some or all of the licensing regulations for child care programs. Based on these and additional findings, the National Court Care Demonstration Project has developed a set of recommendations for designing and implementing good drop-in, court-based child care programs. Tables, footnotes, descriptions and contact information for individual programs, footnotes, and 113 reference notes