My internship at the Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic was my first experience working in the legal field, and it has taught me a great deal about child advocacy work in Georgia. At the initial training week in May, all of the summer interns received basic information about child welfare laws and child advocacy practice in both the United States and in Georgia. Over the course of the training week, we also visited Fulton County Juvenile Court to witness court proceedings first hand, and we received a training manual as a resource on Georgia child welfare laws and practice.

During my ten-week internship, I worked on four projects at the Barton Clinic. My first project involved researching recent federal legislation affecting unaccompanied alien children for a training conference on refugees in Georgia. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 changed the law in regard to undocumented immigrant children and juveniles who are unaccompanied by parents or guardians. Formerly, these children were under the "care" of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but the recent legislation shifted their care to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. In the past, the INS often inappropriately detained unaccompanied alien children in juvenile detention centers or detention camps under questionable circumstances. The Office of Refugee Resettlement should provide better care for these children both nationally and in Georgia. However, further legislation was introduced in the spring, which, if passed, would implement greater protections for unaccompanied alien children.

In my second project, I worked with another student intern to research the child fatality review teams in Georgia and other states. A series of articles, by an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter in 1989 about the deplorable state of the child welfare system in Georgia, sparked the creation of Georgia's Child Fatality Review Panel. Since the creation of child fatality review, the legislation has been amended repeated times, and although the Panel's goal is to reduce preventable child deaths in Georgia, child deaths statewide have not yet decreased. However, by researching Georgia's Child Fatality Review along with the review teams in California, Illinois, Florida, and North Carolina, I learned that Georgia does have a fairly successful system in place. Since 1996, Child Fatality Review in Georgia has improved in death investigations, in reporting compliance by local review committees, and in reporting accuracy. Though there is room for much improvement, Georgia's Child Fatality Review appears to be working toward its long-term goal of reducing preventable child deaths.

My third project involved research on the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA). To begin this project, however, I compiled a list of social science and legal journals relevant to child advocates for use at the Clinic. I also compiled a bibliography of the numerous articles written about ASFA. From this list, I chose articles that were related specifically to permanence and adoption. I read these articles and began researching whether the passage of ASFA has increased the number of adoptions of children in foster care (nationwide and in Georgia). It appears that adoptions have increased as a permanency option for children. However, it is probably still too soon to tell whether ASFA is the reason for the increase. It may have played some role, but many states were already increasing the number of foster child adoptions pre-ASFA. Thus, this project was only a beginning, and the numbers will need to be reassessed when that becomes possible. However, I did learn that, although ASFA has encouraged adoptions, it may have played a large role in creating or exacerbating other problems associated with the child welfare system.

Finally, I worked with staff members at the Barton Clinic on re-establishing the Child Advocacy at Emory Network, an interdisciplinary group of individuals at Emory University committed child welfare and advocacy. I compiled a list of persons potentially interested in the Network (and their email addresses). I then created an email group list with these names and helped draft an email to these potential Network members. I also helped brainstorm for ideas on how to make the Network effective and useful to its members. As individuals responded to the email, their names were added to a list serv, which will operate to inform individuals of Network meetings, other campus events, child advocacy legislative updates, and possible one-day seminars.

I believe that the project on Child Fatality Review was successful because I worked with another student intern on it. Drafting a memo together, while challenging, was also very rewarding. It was helpful to have another student with whom to discuss research tactics and ideas. In the past, I have worked largely by myself, and I was surprised that I found sharing the research and writing so beneficial.

Though the research experience has been very beneficial and interesting, I was often frustrated that it took me so long to research and draft memorandum. Although I wrote one memo and co-wrote another, I was not able to complete my project on ASFA.

However, I did enjoy the chance to attend many different meetings over the summer. I attended a Department of Human Resources Budget Meeting, a Division of Children and Family Services Three-Year Report Meeting, and a Prevent Child Abuse Georgia Coalition Meeting. At all of these meetings, I learned more about how the legislative and policy-making processes work. I also attended the Prevent Child Abuse Georgia Conference in July, and I was able to attend a couple interesting sessions about how to work toward prevention of child abuse.

Furthermore, I joined the other summer interns for several special intern meetings. Early in the summer, we met to discuss our experiences at our placements. We also volunteered at the Celebration of Excellence, toured Grady Hospital's Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit, toured the Georgia Center for Children, and visited Dekalb County Juvenile Court. These visits and tours were important because they offered a glimpse at the non-legal side of child welfare, and the visits to court offered me my only chance to actually see some of the children involved in the child welfare system.

I enjoyed my summer work at the Barton Clinic because it allowed me to learn a great deal about child advocacy over a very short period of time. I had the chance to meet some of the key players in the local child advocacy field and learn from some of them about how the child welfare system in this state works. Although I entered law school knowing that I would practice in the public interest field, I was not sure of the specific direction I wanted to take after law school. This internship has shown me that a career in child advocacy could be very personally and professionally rewarding, and I hope to learn more about its legislative component in the near future.