Center on Children and the Law, The American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is the largest professional association in the United States, including more than 400,000 attorneys, judges, court administrators and other allied professionals. Since its inception more than one hundred years ago, the ABA has taken an active interest in the improvement of the administration of justice and the judicial process. In recent years, it has focused intensively on the handling of child maltreatment cases by the courts.
The ABA Center on Children and the Law, located in Washington, D.C., provides technical assistance, education, training, and policy analysis regarding the performance of the legal system in the lives of children. A principal mission of the Center is the improvement of court proceedings affecting child abuse and neglect and children in foster care. The Center originated the concept of grants to state courts to improve foster care litigation and played a leading role in the development of the legislation that created the grants.
The ABA Center on Children and the Law can provide assistance in the implementation of the new grants to state courts in a number of ways. It can assist state courts to develop new policies and rules, draft legislation, implement the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, provide training, and serve as liaison with bar organizations. It can also provide a wide range of technical advice, such as helping to evaluate the progress of court improvement, determining caseload and workload needs, analyzing court staffing requirements, and developing and refining state-specific outcome measures for courts.
The Center can assist child welfare agencies, state advocacy organizations, citizen reviewers, legislators, and others in their court improvement efforts. It can help them to: (a) identify and articulate court performance issues, (b) document the financial impact of court practices, (c) identify and provide data to assist with court self-evaluations, (d) provide constructive suggestions for court self-improvement plans, and (e) support the courts' efforts at self-improvement including through legislation. In addition, the Center can help states consider the impact of court performance on children themselves.
The Center has led the effort toward court reform in child abuse and neglect and foster care cases. Members of the Center staff have visited every state and are familiar with the variations of state law and practice throughout the country. In addition to numerous legal projects on a wide range of issues related to foster care, the Center conducted nationwide studies of judicial involvement in foster care cases in 1983-1984 and 1985-1986; prepared a series of monographs and articles on the topic from 1983 through 1994; prepared a book of sample court rules in 1985; conducted the first in-depth state and local studies of court performance in child abuse and neglect cases in 1988, 1992, 1994; and published a book on court-agency relations in 1993. Since then it has helped plan national and regional court improvement conferences, provided extensive technical assistance throughout the United States, and published numerous papers, manuals, and guides on court improvement.
For further information, contact:
Mark Hardin
Director, Child Welfare
ABA Center on Children and the Law
740 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20005-1022
Telephone: (202) 662-1750
Fax: (202) 662-1755
Mimi Laver (Technical Assistance)
(202) 662-1736
Eva J. Klain (Non-Government Organizations)
(202) 662-1681
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment
A: Program Instruction ACYF-PI-94-12
Attachment B: Estimated State Court Allotments
for FYs 1999-2001
Attachment
C: Standard Forms 424 and 424-A
Attachment
D: List of State Child Welfare
Administrators
Attachment
E: List of ACF Regional Administrators
Resources:
National Center for State Courts, National Council for Juvenile and
Family Court Judges
Permanency
Planning for Children Department
National Center for
Juvenile Justice
