School: Emory University School of Law

Getting Started

This Summer I interned with the Fulton County Office of Child Advocate. Every day, I reported to the Juvenile Justice Center, located just south of downtown Atlanta. This was my first job in the legal field, so entering into my first day, I had no idea what to expect. Fortunately, the attorneys working in the office made the transition easy for me. The attorneys were very friendly and supportive of their colleagues and me. In fact, I can recall very few instances of one attorney speaking negatively about another attorney in our office.

I had an awkward learning experience on my first day, when one of the new attorneys requested that I update a child's file. Of course I had never seen a file before, and the case was a very difficult one, involving international (and multilingual) custody disputes. Although the one week training at Emory was very helpful, I still had very little knowledge of how the actual deprivation system worked in terms of "who to contact for what information." Although my ineptitude at updating the case-file was somewhat discouraging, the experience did lead me to ask more questions about where to access information and to work harder at studying case files so I could retrieve information more quickly. Soon I knew exactly where to look for the most updated facts in each case file and who to contact for up-to-the-minute details.

Research

Being able to quickly retrieve and understand the facts of each case soon became very important, as my initial research projects were given to me by attorneys who often needed answers or arguments for their court appearances the next day. My first research assignment dealt with a fourteen year old child whom DFCS was attempting to remove from her current foster family to another family that wished to adopt the child. The child adamantly wished to remain in her current placement and to not be adopted by the other family. However, a Georgia Statute states that if a family wishes to adopt a child over the age of 14, the family must first obtain the child's written consent to the adoption. I used this statute and some other relevant case law to argue that the child should remain in the current placement, since she would not consent to adoption. The next day I was able to sit in court and observe the child advocate use the argument I had put together. Although the judge was convinced by our argument, case law indicated that the Juvenile Court could not control DFCS's discretion in placing the child, and so the judge's hands were tied. Just recently I found out that this same child did end up consenting to the adoption with the new family.

I was also able to draft a Notice of Objection and Motion for Declaratory Judgment which argued that a Georgia Statute controlling the termination of temporary guardianship violated the fundamental due process rights of parents to care and custody of their children. Although the attorney who I drafted the notice for represented the children, he still wanted to contest the statute because the children in this case wished to be returned to the mother and the judge ruled that it was in the children's best interest to remain with their grandmother (the temporary guardian). This project enabled to me to increase my understanding of substantive due process and equal protection, as well as the standing of a parties to appeal a case.

I was also given a long list of issues to research from an attorney in my office regarding a child advocate's standing, appellate rights, and privileges in deprivation cases. The research topics given to me were very broad and often frustrating, because there were very few answers in case law to the questions posed. The child advocate's duties had not been spelled out clearly in statute or case law, and children's rights have largely been overlooked, which limits the amount of written material out there to be found. On the positive side, it did force me to be more creative in my research methods and in developing hypothetical and public policy arguments.

Juvenile Deprivation System

After working at this internship, my experiences in the court room and my conversations with child advocates and SAAG's lead me to believe that a lot of energy is being spent on bureaucratic power struggles, rather then on the children caught up in this system. There are often disagreements between DFCS/SAAG and the Child Attorney which seem to go beyond a conflict of "best interest" and "wishes of the child." I was given an assignment to research and construct an argument on why Child Advocates should be allowed in the Family Team Meetings after DFCS policy recently kicked them out. The claims were that some Child Advocates were being too assertive in the meetings, and the SAAG's requested that no Child Advocate would be allowed to attend. I believe this action and other recent policy changes that disconnect the Social Workers from the Child Advocate will only serve to make the court proceedings more adversarial, and lead to the SAAG's and Child Advocates holding firm to opposite extremes of the placement spectrum, where a more sensible compromise exists.

I am not convinced that the adversarial system is the best way to deal with family conflicts in light of the multitude of issues the parties involved in the deprivation hearing are dealing with (not that I have a better solution just yet). There is a constant theme of inescapable poverty, drug addiction, lack of education, poor foster care, incarceration and generational violence that plagues the families involved in the Juvenile Justice System. It can be discouraging and overwhelming at times, and I have great respect and admiration for those attorneys and social workers who have dedicated their careers to this emotionally taxing field.

Other Experiences

In addition to research, writing and court observation, I was able to attend several client visits and sit in on one Family Team Meeting. I was able to learn a great deal from my supervising attorney about interviewing and how to get the answers needed to effectively represent a child's wishes. Although I was told that I would conduct an interview on my own, scheduling conflicts did not permit this, which is unfortunate, as it would have been a great experience for me and hopefully helpful to the child and the case as well.

Just recently I was able to see how unpredictable child welfare work can be. Two weeks ago I observed a probable-cause hearing where the mother was accused of underfeeding her premature newborn baby. It seemed to be a close case, with the question being: "should the mother lose custody of her baby because she did not use the proper ratio of formula to water?" The judge ended up placing the child in temporary DFCS custody, but at the disposition, he sent the child home with the mother. Two weeks later the baby was in the hospital, apparently suffering from "shaken baby syndrome." Our office had done a very thorough job of keeping tabs on the mother and child, but no one could have predicted that physical violence would ensue. For me, this case typified the issue of child advocacy with which I have struggled the most: the conflict between "best interest of the child" and parental-rights. It also shows the type of vigilant advocacy needed to protect those children who live with the constant threat of harm in their own homes.