Category: News And Announcements

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau, on average over 400,000 abused and neglected children live in foster care in the U.S. and foster care systems serve over 600,000 children and youth every year.[1]  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in 2020, 34% of child maltreatment victims were under age 3, more than half were female (51%), 44% were white, and the majority (61%) experienced neglect, and American Indian/Alaskan Natives, Black, multiple race, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic youth were more likely to be victimized than white youth.[2]  State courts play a pivotal role in the lives of these children and families.  Every day judges are faced with difficult decisions affecting children and youth with foster care system involvement, continually challenged to find the right solutions in each of their cases. 

Through a special Request for Applications (RFA) process earlier in FY 2023, SJI awarded grants to further improve state court efforts in addressing child abuse and neglect.  Over $1.3 million in grant application were received in response to this RFA.  SJI awarded a total of five grants:

• ○ The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) to: 1) standardize three existing dependency court evaluation research databases; 2) analyze variables with strong relationships to improved outcomes, such as the time required to reach final permanency; and 3) translate these findings into model case management reports.

• ○ The University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work to further develop and refine a multilevel Family Recovery Court that promotes recovery, reunification, and well-being among families with substance use disorder in child welfare. Using a three-pronged approach and community partnership, the FRC’s principles include: 1) keeping families together; 2) ensuring child safety, permanency, and well-being; and 3) advancing the development of adequate resources.
• ○ The Fifth Judicial District Court of Pennsylvania to develop an implementation plan to establish a multi-disciplinary legal representation office for indigent parents involved in the dependency system who, because of a conflict of interest, cannot be represented by the primary multidisciplinary legal office that handles such matters.

• ○ The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to develop a supplemental guide that provides courts with virtual hearing guidance specifically related to child welfare proceedings. This supplemental guide will provide policy, practice, and technological recommendations to help courts ensure that virtual dependency proceedings are fair, accessible, and adhere to best practices.  The project will build on the NCSC’s Remote Proceedings Toolkit.

• ○ The National Association of Women Judges to partner with the NCJFCJ to develop special podcasts for judges on the best practices in handling child abuse and neglect cases.

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[1] Children’s Bureau Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) Report #9.Online. Available:  https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/afcarsreport28.pdf.  Released on November 1, 2022.

[2] OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. Online. Available: https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/victims/qa02107.asp?qaDate=2020. Released on April 18, 2022

SJI received 16 grant applications requesting a total of $2,321,097 for the 3rd quarter of FY 2023. The Board met on June 5, 2023, at the Wyoming Supreme Court to make decisions on those applications.

During its meeting, the Board awarded 6 Strategic Initiatives Grants: the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to develop guidelines for the ethnical and evidence-based use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in the state courts, and an AI impact assessment tool; the NCSC to develop, pilot, and disseminate a new strategic planning framework and interactive web application tool that courts can use to address key areas of vulnerability; the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) for Phase II of an Initiative to continue to assist state court judges understand and address the needs of military families in the juvenile and family court system; the Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice to conduct a Probation and Youth Justice System Review Project in three selected jurisdictions and implement the recommendations from the analysis and review; the NCSC, in coordination with the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators for Phase II of the Blueprint for Racial Justice Initiative; and the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) to partner with NCJFCJ to produce podcasts for judges on best practices in child abuse and neglect cases. 

Nine (9) Technical Assistance Grant applications were awarded: the Hamilton County, Tennessee, Court to partner with the Judicial Innovation Fellowship (JIF) program at the Institute of Technology, Law, and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center to audit and improve how the court and information technology departments across the county share data to better understand court user experiences across the civil and criminal justice systems; the Kansas Judiciary to partner with the JIF program to assess the filing needs of self-represented litigants in Kansas; the NCSC, in collaboration with the CCJ/COSCA Midwest Region, to focus on the issue of “legal deserts” in states where there are areas with few or no lawyers; the Ventura County, California, Superior Court to support a new strategic planning process; the 16^th Judicial Circuit of Michigan to develop and strategic plan and priorities for improving access to justice; the Maine Administrative Office of the Courts to assess the organization and operations of the AOC; the Oregon Judicial Department to create a four-year strategic plan; the Kansas Supreme Court to review and update the vision, mission, and strategic goals set forth in the strategic plan; and the Delaware Court of Common Pleas for a caseflow management project.

One (1) Curriculum Adaptation and Training Grant to the National Association of State Judicial Educators (NASJE) to support educational sessions during the 2023 NASJE annual meeting.

While courts are making strides to effectively respond to the needs of court-involved individuals with serious mental illness, it’s also important to focus on the well-being of judges and staff.

Mindfulness can help.

“Building a mindfulness capacity is one strategy many in the public and private sectors are embracing to build thoughtful, creative, and resilient workforces ready to respond to ongoing demands,” said Pam Casey, project director and NCSC Vice President for Research. “Mindfulness involves paying attention in an open and curious way to the experiences of the present moment.”

Last year, NCSC offered an eight-week mindfulness education program to help promote well-being and resilience for judges, court professionals, and others who work with courts. Participants were given access to a free, app-based mindfulness program and invited to 30-minute weekly webinars with a mindfulness instructor. The study, which was funded by the State Justice Institute, found that a hybrid mobile app/webinar program can be an effective way to deliver training to a broader court community but warrants additional research.

Read more at: Mindfulness | NCSC

New Resource! The Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice (RFKNRCJJ)’s Probation and Youth Justice System Review Guidebook. We are pleased to announce the release of the new Probation and Youth Justice System Review (System Review) Guidebook, developed for probation departments, courts, and youth justice systems seeking to improve outcomes for the young people they serve, thereby achieving shared goals for reducing risk for future delinquent behavior, holding youth accountable, supporting sustainable positive behavior change, and improving community safety.

This new resource builds upon the RFK National Resource Center’s seminal System Review framework used in partnership with 32 state and local jurisdictions throughout the country to achieve substantial improvements in youth outcomes and system performance. The System Review Guidebook aligns with the most up-to-date and relevant research on adolescent development, risk-needs-responsivity approaches, comprehensive behavioral health screening and assessment (including trauma), graduated responses, family engagement, implementation and change management science, and data-driven management and reporting. It also features current jurisdictional examples to illustrate different aspects of the System Review process, as well as on-the-ground perspectives from jurisdictional leaders who can provide firsthand insight on the challenges and successes experienced within their respective communities.

Access here: Probation and Youth Justice System Reform | Robert F. Kennedy National Resource Center for Juvenile Justice (rfknrcjj.org)

More than two-dozen state court leaders and academics met Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia, to celebrate—and put the final exclamation point on—the work of the Community Engagement in the State Courts Initiative.

First launched as a response to the U.S. Department of Justice investigation of Ferguson, Missouri, the goal of the project has been to get “proximate” to socioeconomically disadvantaged, underserved communities, in order to help advance understanding of how courts can best engage these communities to address structural, institutional, and other problems which undermine trust and confidence in the courts.

“The twin pandemics of COVID-19 and renewed racial unrest around the world made these community engagement projects all the more important,” said Chief Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, who served as one of the chairs of the effort, and who currently serves as co-chair of CCJ-COSCA’s Public Engagement, Trust and Confidence committee.

Participants reflected on the long arc of the project, which included a multi-city, PBS-broadcast “Listening Tour” in 2017, but more recently, pilot projects across six jurisdictions, each of which tried a slightly different approach to engaging with their communities. Reports from the six pilot jurisdictions, as well as an online “how to” community engagement toolkit, are available on the NCSC website.

Funding for the multi-year effort came from NCSC, the State Justice Institute, the California Endowment, and the Public Welfare Foundation.

Policy Research Associates, in partnership with the State Justice Institute, is pleased to announce the release of a new publication, A National Compendium of Court Navigation Programs. This Compendium provides an overview of 18 court navigation programs operating in 22 states across the United States. A court navigation program provides guidance and information about court processes and procedures to people in contact with the court system. In addition, the programs can link people to resources related to their behavioral health, economic, and social service-related needs.

The Compendium provides an overview of each program’s funding source, its core components, and its implementation. Each program overview is accompanied by a checklist showing where the program’s navigators provide support across the legal system. Program overviews also have checklists outlining specific services each program offers related to a person’s behavioral health, economic, social, and legal needs.

The Compendium can serve as a tool for courts to develop their own court navigation program or to expand an existing program’s services. It can also assist court administrators, treatment and service providers, families, and community members with foundational knowledge to ensure that people in contact with the court system can have their needs met and navigate the court system successfully.

This Compendium is available for free download. 

Download the Compendium here: https://www.prainc.com/resources/compendium-court-navigation-programs/.

IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, announced today that it released its new The Past and Future of State Court Civil Filings report. This report provides important new insights into long-term filing trends and areas where courts may need resource shifts, like declining tort and small claims cases and increasing debt-collection cases. Building off a review of historical events, IAALS also developed a framework around the numerous factors that may influence filings, which can further guide analysis.

In 2022, the World Justice Index ranked the United States 115 out of 140 countries as to whether people can access and afford civil justice. With 66 percent of the population experiencing at least one legal issue over a four-year period, according to IAALS’ US Justice Needs study, there is significant work to do to improve access to justice. Court systems are among those sources of help that improve the chances of resolution. By focusing on state court filings over time, The Past and Future of State Court Civil Filings aims to provide additional insights into the specific role that courts have played in resolving cases, how that role might be changing, and the factors that are expected to continue to influence the filing of cases in our courts going forward.

“Historically, it’s been accepted that state court case filings climb over time in step with population growth, which has informed court planning for buildings, staff, judges, and other resources. More recently, however, courts saw a decline in filings, now followed by fluctuation stemming from the pandemic,” says IAALS CEO Brittany Kauffman. “Courts need a better understanding of what types of cases are being brought before them—and in what numbers—so that planning and policymaking can respond accordingly.”

To bring more clarity and guidance, this report presents a multifaceted study that explores civil case filings over a long timeframe—16 to 41 years—in four states: California, Minnesota, Ohio, and Texas. While it is critical to look at filings in the short term given the current recent challenges of the pandemic, this longer view of filings challenges us to think more deeply about changes over time, influencing factors, and takeaways for planning, policymaking, and reform efforts.

Read the full article here: New IAALS Report on State Court Civil Filings: The Trends, Drivers of Change, and Importance of Data | IAALS (du.edu)