Social Workers and the Fourth Amendment
It should come as no surprise that social workers and other child welfare workers are covered by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. What might be surprising is that the most conservative federal district courts are taking the lead in defining this new and rapidly evolving constitutional mandate, most notably the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas).
Applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the Fourth Amendment provides: "The right of the people to be ...
Protections for Foster Children Enrolled in Clinical Trials
The following testimony was presented to the House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at a hearing on Protections for Foster Children Enrolled in Clinical Trials.
Alan Fleischman, M.D., Senior Advisor, The New York Academy of Medicine, New York, New York
Roberta Harris, Deputy Secretary, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Madison, Wisconsin
Marjorie Speers, Ph.D., Executive Director, Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, Inc.
Moira Szilagyi, M.D., Ph.D., Fellow of ...
Federal Regulation of International Adoption
Introduction
It has been over ten years since the United States signed the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. It has been nearly seven years since the White House transmitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification. It has been four years since the Senate ratified the treaty and President Clinton signed the enabling legislation, the Intercountry Adoption Act (IAA) into law. It has been over three years since the State Department held a series of public meetings to elicit information to inform the process of writing implementing regulations.
International ...
Foster Care Meets the Third Reich
Over one year ago, the Alliance for Human Research Protection in New York City alerted the federal Food and Drug Administration that they had “reason to believe that federal regulations for the protection of children as research subjects have been seriously violated in federally funded HIV research.”
Kudos also to Liam Scheff who in December 2003 broke the story of the drug trials in an online article entitled “The House That AIDS Built”.
AHRP’s letter to the FDA states that “a series of Phase I and Phase II drug experiments were ...
Social Work and the Courts
This book will give social workers a good introduction to the law as it affects the practice of social work and social work in general. The book is well designed for use by non-lawyers because its chapters are organized by subject matter rather than by legal principles. Therefore, for example, the reader can quickly go to those cases dealing with aging or income maintenance.
Other parts of the book are helpful to social workers interested in learning more about the laws and legal decisions that affect their profession. There is a brief section that explains 'how to use ...
Terminating Parental Rights when Visitation is Prohibited
In a matter of first impression anywhere (correct me if I'm wrong), the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently held that a statute which allowed termination of parental rights based on a judicial order which prohibited visitation was narrowly tailored to serve state's compelling interest of protecting children from unfit parents.
The Wisconsin law states that a "[continual] denial of periods of physical placement or visitation" is a ground for terminating parental rights. A finding under the provision requires that:
(a) the parent has been denied periods of physical placem...
Shared Custody Battle Goes Federal
Last week a federal lawsuit was filed against the state of Pennsylvania by the Indiana Civil Rights Council and like-minded groups such as the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. These and similar organizations plan to sue all 50 states and U.S. territories. At least 40 suits have already been filed, according to the Council.
The lawsuits use a wide range of constitutional grounds to argue that a child's parents both have an equal right to custody and directly challenge the commonly utilized legal standard known as "the best interest of the child."
The lawsuits ...