Josephine Vanderhorst

Josephine Vanderhorst is driven by the belief in a better child welfare system for children and families. She states, “I’m inspired by the youth and kids we serve. They've seen more in their young lives than a lot of adults but are still able to try each day.” Josephine received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Tuskegee University, Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology from Argosy University, and Juris Doctor from Tulane Law School. Prior to doing children’s representation, she worked at an all-girl’s group home. But in 2016 the opportunity to join the Southeast Louisiana Legal Services—one of three service providers for children’s representation in Louisiana—as a Lutz Fellow and represent children fulltime in dependency cases presented itself, and she fell in love with the work and could not imagine doing anything else. Josephine now leads the organization’s Child in Need of Care.

She also recently completed the Minority Professional Leadership Development Fellowship sponsored by Adopt Us Kids and was the first ever attorney to complete the fellowship. Josephine focused her research action plan on effectively engaging youth to ensure that their voices are heard and that they are involved with their cases, leading to positive outcomes being achieved.

If Josephine could make one change in the system, it would be to “treat the families and children with respect and listen to their needs, not taking a cookie cutter approach but really spending time to create community.” She constantly seeks innovative ways to help positively impact the overall system and is not afraid to explore new opportunities to make changes. She believes that collaboration, including building rapport with partners to help benefit the advocacy on behalf of clients, is essential to providing full representation on behalf of clients.

“Always be ready to pivot and master the art of negotiating” is the advice that Josephine offers lawyers starting their careers in children’s rights law. A defining situation in her career was

“six months in as a licensed attorney, my direct supervisor and senior staff attorney both went out on maternity leave, and I was responsible for coordinating the case assignments for about 600 cases between 3 attorneys with conflicting court schedules. I had to become creative with approaches to cover cases, recruit attorneys so that no child was left without an attorney and representation.”

Josephine’s fearless nature does not allow challenges or roadblocks to get in her way, and she remains committed to her work in the child welfare system. Her motto is a quote by Brené Brown: “Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”

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