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    Judge's Action Alerts

    judge action alert

    The Center is developing a series of action alerts for judges on timely issues in the child welfare system in collaboration with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

    Introducing JCAMP: A New Tool to Measure Your Court Performance

    This alert highlights how judges can use the Judicial, Court, and Attorney Measures of Performance (JCAMP), a new tool for measuring court practices and performance in child welfare dependency courts.

    Download - Introducing JCAMP

    Using the Family First Prevention Services Act to Strengthen Reasonable Efforts Determinations

    This alert highlights how judges can use the Family First Act to strengthen reasonable efforts determinations in child welfare cases.

     Download - Family First Act/Reasonable Efforts

    Judges' Roles in Supporting Youth-Centered Permanency

    This judge’s action alert highlights how legal permanency options for youth are changing to be more youth-centered, and explains how judges can support youth-centered legal permanency by partnering with youth and meaningfully engaging them in placement decisions.

    Download - youth-centered permanency

    The Future of Remote/Virtual Hearings: Considerations for Judges

    This judge’s action alert shares considerations for judges for sustaining remote/virtual hearing approaches and ensuring they are conducted in a high-quality way. These considerations address: laying the groundwork for combining remote/virtual and in-person court hearings; ensuring access and procedural justice for parties; meaningfully engaging parents and youth; and developing a technology game plan.

    Involving Parents When Psychotropic Medications are Prescribed to Children in Foster Care

    This alert explains how judges can engage parents in decisions when their children are prescribed psychotropic medication while in the child welfare system.

    Normalcy during abnormal times judge's action alert

    Normalcy During Abnormal Times: How Judges Can Promote Child Health and Well-being

    This judge's action alert highlights how judges can promote the health and well-being of children in the child welfare system during challenging times. It examines the impact of disruptive events like the COVID-19 pandemic on normalcy for children and youth, legal requirements for promoting normalcy, judges' roles, and resources that show how courts are promoting normalcy.
    ensuring high quality legal representation judge's action alert

    Ensuring High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents and Children

    This alert highlights key aspects of high-quality legal representation relevant to judges and courts and how judges can promote quality representation. It explores funding considerations, challenges to providing high-quality representation and how judges can help address them; and how multidisciplinary representation offers high-quality representation.

    How Judges Can Support Family Reunification through Parent–Resource Parent Partnerships

    This alert highlights how parent–resource parent partnerships support family reunification. It explores key elements of successful parent–resource parent partnerships, how parent partners bridge the gap between parents and resource parents, how judges can support these partnerships; and practical resources to help you understand and implement this approach.

    Learn - More
    remote family time judge's action alert

    Supporting Remote Family Time during the Pandemic and Beyond: The Judge's Role

    This alert highlights how the legal community is using remote family time during the pandemic, its benefits and drawbacks, how judge's can support its use, and how it can be used to help maintain family connections in the future.

    Supporting School Stability for Children in Foster Care during COVID-19 and Beyond

    This alert explains why prioritizing education is important for children in foster care, critical education issues for children in foster care, who is involved in advocating for the education of children in foster care, judges’ roles in keeping children in care on track in school, and how courts can collaborate with schools and child welfare agencies to help children in care succeed in school.

    Supporting Early Legal Advocacy before Court Involvement in Child Welfare Cases

    This judicial action alert highlights the reasons for providing legal advocacy early in a child welfare case before court involvement. It explains legal advocates' roles, benefits of this advocacy, how it supports judges’ roles, how judges can support it, and how communities are using it in child welfare cases.

    Leveraging Federal IV-E Funding to Support Child and Parent Representation

    This alert highlights judges’ roles in leveraging IV-E funding for children’s and parent’s counsel. It shares practical considerations for accessing IV-E funding to improve parent and child representation.