Juvenile and Family Court Journal最新文献

Analysis of in-depth interviews with eight district court judges in North Carolina revealed over 40 practices that judges can adopt to become more trauma-informed in their work. These practices map onto SAMHSA's framework for a trauma-informed approach, demonstrating that abstract principles can translate into concrete actions in the courtroom setting. Analysis revealed an additional core principle of trauma-informed judicial practice—Rehabilitation and Healing—and several areas where judges can deepen their commitment to trauma-informed care—engagement with peer support programming; greater attention to cultural, historical, and gender issues; and application of trauma-informed practice in adult criminal court.

Restorative justice practices are popular alternatives for youth conflict resolutions in the juvenile justice system and in schools. However, we do not know the extent to which states have formalized the use of restorative justice. This study reviews state legislation to identify whether restorative justice has been codified in juvenile justice and public education statutes. Through a content analysis of relevant statutory provisions, we find considerable variation in how restorative justice is defined and implemented in the juvenile justice and public-school systems. We conclude with policy implications aimed at standardizing the understanding and application of restorative justice.

To meet the challenge of advancing child welfare law, a field affecting millions of families a year, practicing attorneys have developed a wealth of guidance for best practices. The Judicial, Court, and Attorney Measures of Performance (JCAMP) provide a way to determine whether legal programs are following these recommended practices and to assess the strength of attorney–client relationships. After providing context around challenges to high quality legal representation, best practice guidance, and evaluation research findings, this article reviews the JCAMP measures of attorney practice. JCAMP may be used by legal programs to both assess their own practice and to elicit feedback from affected families to ensure consistent high quality representation. Boldly assessing attorney interactions, and the experiences of clients in the court process, is critical to guiding and empowering lawyers to achieve excellence.

Performance measurement is meant to help organizations to better understand current practices, processes, outputs, or outcomes. Yet, it is often limited in its use and usefulness, partly because it is not designed with the end user in mind. This article describes a process that integrates participatory design and design thinking methodologies to bring together a multidisciplinary group of systems professionals, researchers, and persons with lived experience to create meaningful child welfare court performance measures. The methods and process used to design the measures are described, including the resulting measures in one domain of measurement. Key lessons were learned throughout this process, including the value of lived experience in design and implementation.

State Court Improvement Programs (CIPs) are responsible for conducting assessments of their foster care and adoption laws and judicial processes, and developing and implementing projects that improve child welfare court practices and the delivery of legal services in child welfare. JCAMP, the Judicial, Court, and Attorney Measures of Performance, provides states with the tools to collect the data necessary to inform those projects and measure their success. This article walks CIPs, judges, child welfare agencies, attorneys, parents and youth with lived experience, and anyone else with an interest in improving the child welfare court system through the JCAMP implementation process while reflecting on lessons learned by jurisdictions currently using JCAMP to collect court data. Key takeaways from these states include the importance of diverse teams, strong project management, and long-term planning for data use and project sustainability.

This article features a set of court performance measures, the “Judicial, Court and Attorney Measures of Performance” or “JCAMP,” with a focus on JCAMP's permanency measures. The JCAMP permanency metrics are discussed in relation to court and judicial practices and the judge's role in achieving permanency for children and families. How data from the permanency measures can inform understandings of what judges are doing to promote safe and timely permanency for children and families in child welfare cases is addressed. Connections between the JCAMP permanency measures and recommendations for judicial best practices are also highlighted.

Upholding the fundamental rights of families during child welfare court cases is critical to ensuring equal access to justice. This article review research related to the due process measures in the Judicial, Court, and Attorney Measures of Performance (JCAMP). Studies of due process practices early in the case to avoid unnecessary involvement of families are presented. These represent divergent opinions on the role of the judge and arguments for the early appointment of parent attorneys. Future research is critical to understand practices which promote fairness and address the over-representation of families of color in the child welfare system.

Child safety is an ambiguous and transient construct within the child welfare court system. It being not statutorily defined yet is at the crux of the child welfare system. In this article, the measurement of child safety in the child welfare system is explored with a focus on how it has been measured within the context of the courts. Gaps in the current measurement structure are identified, focusing on how measurement might support a better understanding of a safety decision-making framework and its application into practice. The article also introduces the Capacity Building Center for Courts' Judicial, Court, and Attorney Measures of Performance as a new approach to a standardized performance metric of safety practices within the child welfare court system. Limitation of these measures is discussed along with recommendations for moving the field forward toward measuring safety decision-making.