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Welcome
to
ChildWelfare net
the online home of the Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic,
a part of the Emory University School of Law.
What's New:
- 9/17/2008: The US House passed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (HR 6893).
- 9/16/2008: Barton Clinic Accepting Applications for New Law Fellows. Our two-year post graduate law fellowship will begin mid-August 2009 and continue through August 2011.
- 8/29/2008: Georgia's 2007 Child & Family Services Review (CFSR) website is up.
- 8/26/2008: Georgia's HHS Taskforce Interim Report released. The Task Force calls for a new Department of Behavioral Health, merging the Department of Community Health with the public health and health regulation programs of DHR to make up a reconstituted Department of Health. The remaining social services under DHR would become the Department of Human Services. Programs included in this department would include Developmental Disabilities, Aging, Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) and Child Support. Press Release.
- 8/21/2008: DHR's Proposed Budget Reduction Plan. All state agencies are required to submit budget reduction plans of 6%, 8% and 10% for both Amended SFY 2009 and SFY 2010.
- 8/19/2008: Kenny A: Plaintiffs File for Contempt Against State Defendants over Measures 9 & 10. "Importantly, the Consent Decree requires heightened efforts at finding these fixed groups of foster children permanent homes, but not perfection in performance. Recognizing that successful outcomes may not be attainable for all of the children who had already spent a number of years in state custody, the parties agreed to, and the Consent Decree requires, only partial success. But Defendants have not even made necessary efforts to achieve these modest goals."
- 8/1/2008: Kenny A: Fulton County Period II Monitoring Report Released. "Over the preceding six months, Fulton County has seen numerous internal changes in the CAA Office; and some external changes by DFCS and by the Fulton County Juvenile Court. While these changes have furthered the goal of Kenny A compliance, the pace of progress for implementing the Workload Study recommendations have been slow to materialize. ... Overall, the individual caseloads between CAAs range from a high of 193 cases to a low of 88 cases with the average caseload per CAA being 126 cases."
- 7/22/2008: Kenny A: DeKalb County CAC Period III Monitoring Report Released. "The DCCAC has continued its deliberate efforts to meet the spirit and language of the consent decree. ... Attorney case loads consistently average less than 100 cases per attorney, generally remaining within a 65 to 90 case range."
- 5/15/2008: Kenny A: Period IV Monitoring Report Released. "The Accountability Agents continue to be concerned about the State's performance in preventing maltreatment in care, meeting the service needs of children and their families, and moving children who have been in care a long time to permanency. We believe these areas should be priorities for State attention."
- 3/13/2008: JUSTGeorgia: The Juvenile Code Revision Project: A Model Code for Georgia. Thank you and congratulations to the State Bar of Georgia Young Lawyers Division Juvenile Law Committee and most especially the reporters on this proposed model code: Soledad McGrath, Judge Velma Tilley, and Professor Lucy McGough for 3 years of hard work.
- 8/2/2007: The 2006 Protective Services Data System Annual Report and other valuable DFCS publications are posted on the DFCS website.
- 1/10/2007: Georgia Governor's FY2008 Budget Proposal Released. We pulled out the table of contents and broke up this 369 page, 16MB, document.
- 12/7/2006: Fostering Court Improvement Launched. FCI uses existing AFCARS data to create reports on child outcomes from the time of removal to the time of discharge. Available free of charge to court-agency partnerships, the web reports can be reviewed at the micro level -- by county, judicial circuit or agency region -- or at the macro level - examining the performance of the entire state. FCI is a partnership of many state and national organizations, funded by the Barton Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the State Justice Institute.
- We built an index to the Georgia DFCS CPS Policy Manual and Foster Care Policy Manual on DHR's ODIS website.
- ... and, as always, our daily media updates.
Who We Are ...
The
Barton Clinic was established in March 2000 to address
the need in Georgia for an organization dedicated to effecting
systemic policy and process changes for the benefit of the
children in Georgia's child welfare system. The clinic helps
Georgia serve neglected and abused children by providing
multi-disciplinary, child-focused research, training, and
support for practitioners and policymakers charged with
protecting Georgia's children.
Located at Emory Law School, the clinic collaborates with
Emory's School of Public Health, School of Nursing, School of Medicine
and the Center for Violence Studies, as well as other Georgia
colleges and universities.
The
origins of the Barton clinic are in the School of Law's
Child Advocacy Project, which began in 1992 and provides
summer internships in the field. The establishment of the
year-round legal clinic with a full-time director was made
possible by a generous grant from the Barton Foundation.
The clinic's activities and priorities are directed by an
Advisory Board to ensure that a
broader spectrum of professions and organizations contribute
to and are informed about the work of the Clinic.
What We Think ...
The
mission of the clinic is to promote and protect the
well-being of neglected and abused children in the state
of Georgia and to inspire excellence among the adults
responsible for protecting and nurturing these children.
What We Do ...
The
clinic operates as a student legal clinic, accepting
students from Georgia law schools and other graduate programs
in fields related to child advocacy. Students in the clinic
do not provide direct representation of children, but instead
focus on research and advocacy projects that affect how
Georgia courts and agencies handle child welfare cases.
A main facet of the clinic's research-based approach is
operating as a statewide resource on child abuse and neglect
issues through its web site,
ChildWelfare.net.
The site contains diverse information including items on
Georgia's Office of Child Fatality Review, Georgia's
DHR Policies and Procedures manual, the child advocacy work
being completed by the Barton Clinic, and how to subscribe
to electronic mailing lists that discuss Child Protection
and Juvenile Justice issues.
Students
further their clinical education in a required
partner course,
Advocacy for Children in the 21st Century: An
Interdisciplinary Approach to Policy Development.
In the summer, the Barton Clinic joins forces with the
Department of Family and Children Services to
sponsor internships in the field of child advocacy,
which serves to assist those practicing in
the field as well as train future professionals.
If you would just like to ask a question or make a comment,
please send mail to
info@ChildWelfare.net.
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