judges

Last week, NBC ran a troubling story involving Wisconsin doctor John Cox, who lost custody of his daughter after he accidentally fell asleep on top of her. He feared he broke her collarbone so he immediately called his wife, also a doctor.

A few weeks ago on a phone call discussing how systems can support keeping kids safely with their families, a judge abruptly interjected, “I don’t like this focus on the rights of parents.

A few weeks ago, a retired judge shared with me how he’d reform juvenile court. He remarked, “I’d tell judges they shouldn’t be umpires. They need to do more than call balls and strikes.

A recent policy change at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services now allows for child welfare systems to draw federal funds to help pay for the legal counsel of all children and birth parents involved in the child welfare systems.

The teenage boy stared at the judge, with a face struggling to hide its emotion but clearly displaying sadness. For weeks, he had been staying at a residential foster care facility and had been getting in trouble.

One of the busiest family courts in the nation occupies a hulking 32-story administrative tower in downtown Brooklyn. On a recent Thursday, I visited to observe the child abuse and neglect hearings on the eighth floor.

Last week, Chronicle of Social Change reporter Michael Fitzgerald reported on a tragic case out of New York City where a disabled teen was kept in an emergency shelter – with ill-fitting clothes and a broken wheelchair – for more than a year, even though a family friend had stepped up to take care of him.

Last week, we mentioned a new poll on Americans’ attitudes about juvenile justice, released by the Youth First Initiative as part of its official grand opening of sorts. We called it a “great resource for reform-minded juvenile justice advocates,” and that is true.