Sarah H. Ramsey

Using lay volunteers to represent children in child protection court proceedings

Despite a widespread conviction that children ought to be independently represented in child protection court proceedings in the United States, there is little consensus as to what the role of that independent child advocate ought to be or, indeed, who should fulfill that role. This study accomplished three purposes: articulated an aggressive, ambitious and continuous role for the childs representative which encompassed a broad range of the childs interests, both legal and nonlegal; provided training in this role to demonstration groups of attorneys, law students and lay volunteers; and compared the effectiveness of each of the three demonstration groups in representing children to one another and to a control group of attorneys who received no special training from the research team. The findings indicate that carefully selected and trained lay people representing children in child abuse and neglect legal proceedings under lawyer supervision performed similarly to trained lawyers and law students in the way they approached their duties and in case outcomes achieved and significantly different from attorneys who, consistent with the practice in nearly all the United States, received no special training in child advocacy.

Poverty, Children, and Public Policies: The Need for Diversity in Programs and Research

The articles in the special issue on Families, Poverty, and Public Policies focus on poor families with children and develop a central theme: that current policies are not sufficiently responsive to the emerging reality of large numbers of children living in poverty. This article first provides a context for considering the results reported in these articles by noting recent public policy, demographic, and socioeconomic trends that will influence these families in the future. Second, the articles are briefly reviewed and compared with an emphasis on demonstrating the need for diversity in programs to respond to the diverse needs of these families. Third, a research agenda related to the articles is discussed. The conclusion of the article addresses the role of research in the policy process.

Stepparent Support of Stepchildren: The Changing Legal Context and the Need for Empirical Policy Research:

Because of the increase in the number of stepfamilies, it is likely that new laws explicitly related to stepfamilies will be adopted. Unfortunately, there is little empirical research to guide the content of these laws. This article reviews federal and state law on one issue-stepparent support of stepchildren-and outlines the areas in which social science research is needed for policy development.

Courts, kin, and children: Determinants of court-ordered kin involvement in child protection proceedings

Abstract Researchers such as Stack (1983–1984) have suggested that social service providers and administrators such as courts are generally unaware of the existence of extended kinship resources among poor families and, as a consequence, that they are unlikely to use these resources in efforts to treat problems such as alleged child maltreatment. Partially as a response to these suggestions, policy analysts and researchers have become interested in the use of kin in the treatment of child maltreatment. This interest is also the result of suggestions that kin may offer social support for troubled families and that placement of children with kin may be less traumatic to them and more cost-effective than alternative placements. For child protection cases that reach the judicial system, it is the courts that sanction the utilization of kin and other resources in the treatment of child maltreatment cases. Yet, little is known about either the extent to which the courts currently use kin resources or the determinants of utilization. Using data from a representative sample ( N =210) of North Carolina child protection cases, estimates were made of the degree to which kin were utilized by the courts. Next, a multivariate predictive model of the determinants of kin utilization was developed. In this context, two hypotheses related to kin utilization were tested. It was found that the courts ordered kin involvement in the disposition of 62% of all cases. Eleven variables were found to significantly influence the use of kinship resources in these cases. Several of the independent variables in the model are policy relevant and their implications are discussed in the papers conclusion.