In 2016, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) developed the Enhanced Resource Guidelines (ERGs) to outline best practices for handling child abuse and neglect cases. To support implementation, NCJFCJ launched a project to train select jurisdictions in ERG-based practices.
The ERGs emphasize keeping families together, ensuring access to justice, cultural responsiveness, appropriate family time, and child safety. Research has shown that ERG implementation improves case outcomes, including faster permanency, better parental understanding in court, and increased family engagement.
Researchers from the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ), NCJFCJ’s research arm, analyzed data from three urban courts trained in ERG implementation. Their pre/post analysis found that ERG training positively impacts case processing and outcomes. Post-implementation, adoption rates increased, and hearings were less likely to be continued, reducing delays. Findings are under review for publication and will be presented this April at the 24th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in Rockville, Maryland.
Additionally, NCJJ has published a catalog of dependency case management reports to help courts track key data for assessing and improving permanency outcomes. This resource provides guidance on essential data collection, report creation, and information-sharing strategies to enhance child welfare case processing.
July 1, 2022
Juvenile court judges are the most important public figures in the juvenile justice system–their decisions impact whether hundreds of thousands of youth each year become court involved and for how long, whether they are involuntarily removed from their homes and communities, and the services they receive. Despite the importance of these judges, states and locales …
June 1, 2022
Each county in Mississippi contains its own Justice Court where community members bring legal actions to settle local, small-dollar disputes. Court regulations and policies vary in each county, and they can be incredibly confusing for Mississippians to navigate, almost all of which are pro se litigants. The COVID-19 pandemic created more variation as judges and …
May 2, 2022
Participating in the judicial system can be traumatic and stressful. Mediation is a tool used for resolving many judicial matters, thus mediators often encounter disputants experiencing the worst time of their lives. With this in mind, Texas Dispute Resolution System™ (TDRS) began a process to enhance their mediators’ skills and knowledge when engaging disputants during …
April 1, 2022
The State Justice Institute awarded a key grant to the District of Columbia Courts’ Office of Court Interpreting Services to launch the Courts’ Interpreter Registry and the first-ever Amharic Court Interpreter Certification Examination. These initiatives demonstrate the Courts’ commitment to increase access for Limited English Proficient (LEP) and deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals to the judicial …
March 1, 2022
In November 2020, the Family Center of the Conciliation Court (FCCC) within the Arizona Superior Court in Pima County, was awarded a Pandemic Response and Recovery grant from the State Justice Institute (SJI) to implement the Court’s vision of converting what was an employee-led, in-person parent education course to an on-demand, online, and self-paced e-Learning …
February 4, 2022
SJI awarded grant funding to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia (“Court”) to produce a jury orientation video for its unified court system. The video replaced a 30-year-old video featuring actor Raymond Burr. The Court drafted, produced, and disseminated a timeless video to be used during jury orientation to explain the basics of …