    |
       |
Caregivers and the Courts
Introduction
The Caregivers and the Courts Program of the Center for Families, Children & the Courts is aimed at ensuring that information from caregivers about dependent children's needs is made available to judicial officers for the court decision-making process.
Caregivers and the Courts Services
CFCC has developed an educational booklet, Caregivers and the Courts: A Primer on Juvenile Dependency Proceedings for California Foster Parents and Relative Caregivers in English and Spanish languages, to assist caregivers who wish to participate in juvenile court hearings. The booklet gives information about the dependency court process, the law relating to caregiver participation in court hearings, information the court may consider helpful, how to decide whether written reports or court attendance is more effective, tips for caregivers who are called to testify in court, de facto parent status, and local court culture.
Caregivers and the Courts Research
Caregivers and the Courts: Improving Court Decisions Affecting Children in Foster Care
This report presents findings from a collaborative project of the Center for Families, Children & the Courts (CFCC), Administrative Office of the Courts, and the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL). CFCC and NCYL conducted this research study for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in order to better understand how training caregivers within the child welfare system (i.e., foster parents, fost-adopt parents, and kin caregivers) impacts caregiver participation in juvenile court hearings and outcomes for children in care.
The 1997 passage of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) greatly expanded opportunities throughout the country for foster parents and relatives caring for dependent children to participate in juvenile court hearings regarding the children in their homes. As a requirement of receiving federal foster care funds, ASFA requires that states provide foster parents, including fost-adopt parents and kin caregivers, with notice and an opportunity to be heard in any review or hearing to be held with respect to the child in their care.
The primary purpose of this study was to examine how training in the dependency court process affects caregivers' knowledge and attitudes about participating in court hearings and the likelihood that they will participate. In addition, the study began to explore in a qualitative way what factors determine how information from caregivers is or could be used in decision making, and what effects might caregiver participation have on the well being of children in care. Click below to read the report.
Please contact CFCC@jud.ca.gov for more information.
