Seven Avoidable Legal Mistakes CPS Investigators Make
Seven attorneys give their observations and understandings of the avoidable legal missteps that child protective services investigators take:
CPS interviewers sometimes view a child's anti-social or hurtful behavior as evidence that the child is not a trustworthy reporter of abuse.
Assuming that the CPS investigator will be allowed to testify in place of the child at a criminal trial is an avoidable legal mistake.
Even though CPS investigators are invariably well-meaning, they tend to form an opinion quickly as they investigate a case and to neglect alterna...
Psycho-legal Considerations of Placing Children in Foster Care
When a child is placed in a foster home it is the responsibility of the placing agency to evaluate the prospective home by considering its environmental, physical, emotional, medical, and educational benefits and hazards. Finding a compatible foster home is not just a question of finding the right foster parents. If there are other children in the home they are also crucial to the selection process.
Children’s Law Center 2014 Helping Children Soar Benefit
Wednesday, September 17, 2014Kennedy Center Roof Terrace RestaurantBenefit Co-chairs: Jessica Abrahams and Ted SegalJoin Children’s Law Center as we celebrate with supporters who have helped us make a lasting difference in the lives of DC’s most vulnerable children. We believe that with a quality education, good health, and a permanent, loving home, all children can reach their full potential. Last year, we helped 5,000 District children and families soar to new heights. Come to the 2014 Helping Children Soar Benefit and help us find solutions for even more childre...
Revisiting the Presumption of Jointly Placing Siblings in Foster Care
Until fairly recently, it was assumed that when parents divorced and custody was being assigned, it was in the child’s best interest to be placed with the mother. It took time and some tragic and avoidable situations to inform policy makers that this blanket assumption should be rebuttable—if a presumption at all. We have now come to a similar crossroad involving the placement of children in foster care.
There is a presumption in law and policy that it is in the best interest of children going into foster care that they be placed together with their siblings. We ...
Writing for Teenagers in Foster Care about their Legal Rights
Teenagers in foster care need to know what rights they have. Writing for teenagers in foster care about those rights is, to say the least, challenging. The writer must be thoroughly familiar with the law, be succinct, and be deeply in touch with the gamut of emotional aspects of the lives of their audience. The successful writer cannot be judgmental or patronizing and must be keenly aware that teenagers are in constant motion – alternating between feeling vulnerable and invincible, inconsequential and essential. The perspective needs to be honest and real-life. It is ...
Supervised Visitation and the Role of Human Service Departments
Supervised child visitation can be indicated in cases involving custody; shared parenting; grandparent custody or visitation; divorce; legal separation; post-decree matters; emergency custody situations; abuse/neglect/dependency cases; concerns about parental abduction; and, reintroduction of a parent after a long absence.
Child visitation can be restricted or denied if a court finds that allowing regular visitation would endanger a child's physical or emotional health. In numerous situations, courts may order child visitation by stipulating how often visits are to occur, with whom, and whether the visits are to be supervised by a human services employee or some other responsible adult. If there are protection and safety concerns the visits are supervised.
Such supervised visits also provide an opportunity for workers to observe and document parent-child interactions.
...Child Pornography Resources
Documents of Interest
Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online:A contribution of ECPAT International to the World Congress III against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents
Federal Child Pornography Offenses - United States Sentencing Commission
Child Pornography: First Report of the Dutch National Rapporteur
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography - Periodic Report of the United States of ...