School: John Marshall Law School

This summer has proved to be an amazing experience that broadened my knowledge of Georgia's child advocacy arena. I was a social worker with the Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) when I decided to go to law school. My background provided me with what I heard called more than once an "agency perspective" on child advocacy. My experience working with the Committee on Justice for Children has reshaped my "agency perspective" and left me with a more holistic view of child welfare.

During the first week of my internship I was given a copy of the annual report prepared by the Committee (for 2007). It outlined and explained all the projects that the Committee had undertaken during the previous year and goals for the upcoming year. I immediately realized that the Committee approached child welfare issues from multiple angles. Their projects range from analyzing data regarding kids in care to organizing summits by county (or by circuit in more rural areas) for all stakeholders in the local child welfare community.

I realized that having a diversified project approach enables the Committee to cover more issues simultaneous. This point was further emphasized when I was given several research projects to complete this summer. I did not focus all my energies on one child welfare issue. I researched DFCS policy to determine if volunteers could assist in transporting children in care to visitation centers (or their parents). When I was a social worker I was told that volunteers could not drive a child in care anywhere that it was "against policy". Needless to say when I found DFCS policy, enacted in 1993, that provided the procedure whereby volunteers could offer their services I was shocked. I even spoke with a representative in the policy department at DFCS's state office in Atlanta. She said that in a transportation situation, after completing a background check, finger printing, and getting the volunteers driving records the state office would assess the "risk" of the driver to determine coverage under the state's insurance policy. There has always been a method whereby volunteers can transport kids in care! So why is this information absent at the local county level? There is clearly a disconnect between what goes on policy wise at the state level and what is disseminated at the local level.

As far as I'm concerned this "disconnect" is a major problem in the child welfare system. Not only is there a disconnect regarding policy enactment there is a disconnect regarding policy positions. For example, the recent proposed changes to the Adoption Assistance for special needs children proposed by DFCS officials flew directly in the face of what the social workers on the front line knew - that such sweeping changes would were ill advised and had the potential to drastically slow the adoption of sibling sets and older African American children. I can remember when I was a social worker and new policy would come out, it was common for the social workers, the ones actually responsible for implementing the policy, to readily find the flaws or adverse consequences buried within the policy. I never saw any social workers interviewed regarding policy changes, social workers are treated like adolescent children. They are not included in any decisions made at the policy level. DFCS promotes mostly from within, many of the policy makers at the state level were once social workers, but what is worth noting is that they in the average situation that was over 10 years earlier. I do not think that I have to explain to anyone what a decade can mean regarding changes in child welfare. There is a problem with making policy decisions based on experience that is over a decade old.

Another project that the Committee is working on is visiting each county (or circuit in rural areas) to bring together juvenile judges, SAAG's, DFCS, CASA, foster parents, and service providers via summits. These summits are the mechanism that the Committee has chosen to disseminate, at the local level, the status of Georgia's child welfare data. Beth Locker, a staff member on the Committee, presents the data, providing an explanation of how that county (or circuit) compares to the state over all, and other states nationally. Some of the data presented includes the average length of time children in that county are spending in care before reunification or termination of parental rights. As the summit closes the stake holders present are asked to create a plan that their county can implement to address one or more of the problem areas identified by the data.

The stake holders' plan incorporates more than goals; they actually outline steps for implementation. Steps that they know are possible given each stake holder's policy/authority limitations. I think that these summits are one of the most efficient and productive projects that the Committee is working on. They are going directly to the front line to address child welfare issues. This is simply more efficient than addressing the state's data with DFCS officials in Atlanta. When issues are identified at the state level the most common reaction is new policy that is made applicable to all 159 of Georgia's counties. This is inappropriate, if there is a leak in the haul of a boat you don't waist time and energy welding every where but around the leak. This approach spreads resources too thin and often creates new/more hurdles for the other counties. In constitutional language DFCS's reaction is "over inclusive". It is simply too broad of a sweep. The summits are a catalyst for immediate change (even if the results of any change take longer to actualize). It eliminates the dead time, so to speak, between DFCS identifying an issue, deciding on policy, and then implementing it across the state.

This summer has made me realize how important it is to have independent organizations (independent from the state) involved in child advocacy. I am not speaking about charities; I mean organizations that are actively involved in child advocacy, like the One Child, One Lawyer organization or the Keenan Kids Foundation. It increases transparency of the child welfare system in Georgia. Considering we have a closed deprivation system, these independent organizations are who bring child welfare issues to the forefront. They shine a spotlight on the system. Now I would like to say that shining a spotlight is all that is needed but this is not so. Unfortunately, in is not rare for DFCS to tighten the reigns and close off communication between its self and outside agencies, especially if DFCS is currently encountering bad publicity. When this happens there is no doubt that DFCS is the final word in this state. Even the Office of the Child Advocate, created in part (large part) to monitor DFCS, has been and can be closed out of DFCS decisions. This is another major problem with Georgia's child welfare system.

I finished out my summer internship as an attendee of the National Association of Council for Children conference in Savannah, Georgia. It was a great experience. It lasted for four days and consisted of multiple sessions I could attend focused on different child welfare issues. The sessions run simultaneously and enable the attorneys in attendance to customize the conference to maximize the information that they receive. I attended one session on how an attorney can influence child welfare policy that was especially interesting. As a law student we learn early that good old fashioned litigation is the fasted way to change law and policy. Even with this well known principal it can get lost in practice. Attorneys can get tunnel vision, they can focus so entirely on the litigation in front of them that they miss the cases ability to effect policy. During this session children's and parents attorneys in the depravation system from around the country discussed cases that were most likely to influence the system if the attorneys followed the case through. The attorney cannot treat the case as "finished" just be cause the judge rules, if the judge's ruling is adverse to your client push forward. An attorney shouldn't be too quick to just throw in the towel; it could make your client feel that is the only true option when really they wanted you (or someone) to really fight for them.

This summer provided me with amazing experiences and greatly expanded my understanding of Georgia's (and on a national level) child welfare system. My perception of Georgia's system is more rounded and less DFCS driven.