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Full-Text Articles in Law
(Re-)Grasping The Opportunity Interest: Lehr V. Robertson And The Terminated Parent, Lashanda Taylor Adams
(Re-)Grasping The Opportunity Interest: Lehr V. Robertson And The Terminated Parent, Lashanda Taylor Adams
Journal Articles
In 1997, an Ohio court terminated Peggy Fugate’s parental rights to her sixyear-old daughter, Selina. At the time, Ms. Fugate, an incarcerated drug abuser, did not fight the order, believing her daughter would be adopted into a clean, stable home.1 However, Selina was never adopted. For the next seven years, Selina had trouble with the police and ran away from her foster home numerous times. While Selina’s life was going downhill in many respects, her mother was rehabilitating. She entered recovery, married, obtained full-time employment and was living in stable housing with enough room for her daughter. Recognizing the strides …
Stories Told And Untold: Confidentiality Laws And The Master Narrative Of Child Welfare, Matthew I. Fraidin
Stories Told And Untold: Confidentiality Laws And The Master Narrative Of Child Welfare, Matthew I. Fraidin
Journal Articles
In most states, child welfare hearings and records are sealed or confidential. This means that by law, court hearings and records may not be observed. The same laws and court rules also preclude those who are authorized to enter and watch from discussing anything learned or observed in a closed courtroom or from a sealed court record with anyone not involved in the case. It is the restriction on speech—on telling stories about child welfare—with which this Article is concerned. I will argue in this Article that the insights of narrative theory and agenda-setting studies help us understand the damaging …