Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Guardian Ad Litem, Legal Clinic Program

Course Descriptions and Information

GUARDIAN AD LITEM (GAL): This clinic focuses on legal advocacy on behalf of children, while providing students with a strong foundation in lawyering skills and values. This clinic addresses constitutional, statutory, and common laws impacting children, the legal interests of parents, and the government and the law’s evolving conception of children’s rights.

Homelessness And Legal Advocacy Clinic, Legal Clinic Program

Clinical Programs Brochures

The goals of the Homelessness and Legal Advocacy Clinic are to educate students in homelessness related issues, such as housing, public benefits, family law, and consumer law. In addition to interviewing clients at the Clinic's office, Clinic students interview homeless individuals at the Coalition for the Homeless, the Women's Residential Counseling Center, and potential clients who contact the Clinic.

Detoxing The Child Welfare System, Allison E. Korn

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers the varying reasons why drug policies informing child welfare interventions are not evolving as part of the drug policy reform movement, which has successfully advocated for initiatives that decrease mass incarceration, end mandatory minimums, and decriminalize or legalize marijuana use and possession. Many existing child welfare laws and policies that address parental drug use rely on the premise that prenatal exposure to a controlled substance causes inevitable harm to a child. Furthermore, they presume that any amount of drug use by a parent places a child in imminent danger, or is indicative of future risk of harm. …

On The "Poverty Of Responsibility": A Study Of The History Of Child Protection Law And Jurisprudence In Nova Scotia, Ilana Luther

PhD Dissertations

This thesis presents a history of child protection law and jurisprudence in Nova Scotia. The thesis begins by examining the development of the first child protection statute in Canada, the Nova Scotia Prevention and Punishment of Wrongs to Children Act in 1882. The Act was developed amidst a climate of reform in late-19th century Halifax, at the urging of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Act, along with a number of other pieces of “domestic relations” legislation at the time, was focused on protecting children in poverty. With the passing of the Act, the legislature not …

Differential Response: A Dangerous Experiment In Child Welfare, Elizabeth Bartholet

Florida State University Law Review

Differential Response represents the most important child welfare initiative of the day, with Differential Response programs rapidly expanding throughout the country. It is designed to radically change our child welfare system, diverting the great majority of Child Protective Services cases to an entirely voluntary system. This Article describes the serious risks Differential Response poses for children and the flawed research being used to promote it as “evidence based.” It puts the Differential Response movement in historical context as one of a series of extreme family preservation movements supported by a corrupt merger of advocacy with research. It argues for reform …

State-To-State Child Adoption Variations: A Political Culture Perspective, Erica Trabing

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The domestic adoption system throughout the United States has been complex yet crucial in starting millions of families over the years. About 7 million Americans are considered adopted persons, and as many as 100 million Americans have adoption in their immediate families. Though these numbers seem impressive, there are still 130,000 children in the U.S. foster care system waiting to be adopted. Adoptions in the US fall into one of three main categories. The first is adoption of children from the public foster care system, the second is adoption through private adoption agencies or independently, and the final category is …

Next Generation Tanf: Reconceptualizing Public Assistance As A Vehicle For Financial Inclusion, Aleta Sprague

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Fifty years into the War on Poverty, the ability to fully participate in American economic life is predicated on access to basic financial services and mechanisms; yet, public programs designed to support the economic advancement of people in poverty often explicitly excludeinte nded beneficiaries from meaningful engagement with financial institutions. To promote economic opportunity for families accessing public assistance, we need policy reforms that both remove access barriers and create entry points to the financial mainstream. Safe and affordable financial products are foundational to financial inclusion. Unbanked and "underbanked" households-the vast majority of which are low-income---often rely on high-cost credit, …

Revisiting The War On Poverty: How Policy Can Better Shape The Income And Wages Of Families With Children, Joy Moses

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched a "War on Poverty" while delivering his first State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. His language conveyed ambitious plans to recreate American society:This budget, and this year's legislative program, are designed to help each and every American citizen fulfill his basic hopes-his hopes for a fair chance to make good; his hopes for fair play from the law; his hopes for a full-time job on full-time pay; his hopes for a decent home for his family in a decent community; his hopes for a good school for his children …

The Real Marriage Penalty: How Welfare Law Discourages Marriage Despite Public Policy Statements To The Contrary - And What Can Be Done About It, Spencer Rand

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Couples regularly complain about marriage penalties,' discovering that the tax consequences of marrying make the cost of marriage prohibitive.2 Although attempts were made in the last decade to reduce those penalties for the middle class,3 the poor were not helped by these changes. 4 Along with tax penalties, including low-income wage earners facing severe decreases or becoming entirely ineligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) when they marry, the most common penalties reduce or eliminate government benefits upon marriage.

Abolish Anonymous Reporting To Child Abuse Hotlines, Dale Margolin Cecka

Catholic University Law Review

All states allow the public to anonymously report suspicions of child abuse or neglect to a toll free central phone number. An extensive examination of the policy and practices behind anonymous reporting hotlines indicates that they are widely unregulated and susceptible to abuse. The possible repercussions of an anonymous phone call create costs to the family and society which do not outweigh the potential benefit of allowing anonymous public reports. Under the guise of protecting children, the law has developed in such a way that it infringes on the fundamental rights of parents and children. At the same time, anonymous …

Changing Course In The Anti-Domestic Violence Legal Movement: From Safety To Security, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Little Emperors And An Army Of Orphans: The Government’S Control Over The Idea Of Family In An Overpopulated World, Corinna L. Miller

Honors College Theses

This research elaborates on the connection between governmental policies for population control and the psychological effects felt by its citizens. Governments enact laws to form and shape their country, but when plans to benefit society as a whole overspill into the personal rights of families, there can be unforeseen consequences that span across cultural, economic and physiological wellbeing. These side effects can have debilitating outcomes for countless generations to come, even after the policy has been abolished. In an age where exponential population growth is a severe problem, this study attempts to understand what happens when governmental policies influence the …

Legal Inconsistencies After Astrue V. Caputo: When Children Are Conceived Postmortem, Does Society Have An Obligation To Support Those Children?, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1101 (2014), Catherine Durkin Stewart

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Using Preventive Legal Advocacy To Keep Children From Entering Foster Care, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

Children may unnecessarily enter foster care because their parents are unable to resolve legal issues that affect their safety and well-being in their home.[...] Yet these kinds of legal needs for poor families are rarely met. On average, poor families experience at least one civil legal need per year, but only a small portion of those needs are satisfied. For about every six thousand people in poverty, there exists only one legal aid lawyer. So legal aid programs are forced to reject close to a million cases each year. This lack of legal services threatens the well-being of children[...] who …

The Child-Welfare System And The Limits Of Determinacy, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Robert Mnookin’s article, Child-Custody Adjudication: Judicial Functions in the Face of Indeterminacy, is a classic. His insights into the substance and process of family law have influenced scholars for nearly four decades. This essay, written for a symposium marking the upcoming anniversary of the article, demonstrates that Congress adopted many of Mnookin’s proposals to introduce greater determinacy into the child welfare system. And yet the problems he described nearly forty years ago sound all too familiar today. After engaging in a detailed analysis of the reforms, I argue that with the evidence on determinacy now in hand, it is time …

Development And Initial Findings Of An Implementation Process Measure For Child Welfare System Change, Mary I. Armstrong, Julie S. Mccrae, Michelle Graef, Tammy Richards, David Lambert, Charlotte Lyn Bright, Cathy Sowell

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

This article describes a new measure designed to examine the process of implementation of child welfare systems change. The measure was developed to document the status of the interventions and strategies that are being implemented and the drivers that are being installed to achieve sustainable changes in systems. The measure was used in a Children’s Bureau-supported national effort to assess the ongoing implementation of 24 systems-change projects in child welfare jurisdictions across the country. The article describes the process for measure development, method of administration and data collection, and quantitative and qualitative findings.

A Home With Dignity: Domestic Violence And Property Rights, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the legal system should do more to address intimate partner violence and each party's need for a home for several reasons. First, domestic violence is a leading cause of individual and family homelessness. Second, the struggle over rights to a shared home can increase the violence to which the woman is subjected. And third, a woman who decides to continue to live with the person who abused her receives little or no legal support, despite the evidence that this decision could most effectively reduce the violence. The legal system's current failings result from its limited goals-achieving …

The Child-Welfare System And The Limits Of Determinacy, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

To read Robert Mnookin’s seminal 1975 article, Child-Custody Adjudication: Judicial Functions in the Face of Indeterminacy, is to see a blueprint for legislative action. To a remarkable degree, the reforms Mnookin proposed to the child-welfare system are what Congress and the states adopted in the following two decades. And yet reading Mnookin’s article is also a Groundhog Day experience. The problems he described with the child-welfare system nearly forty years ago sound all too familiar today.

Mnookin famously argued that the best-interests standard was indeterminate in the context of the child-welfare system. According to Mnookin, this open-ended standard created …

The Undersigned Attorney Hereby Certifies -- The Washington Supreme Court Rule On Standards And Its Implications, Justice Sheryl Gordon Mccloud, Justice Susan Owens, Marc Boman, Joanne Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

G Forces: Gideon V. Wainwright And Matthew Adler's Move Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis, Janet Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Dark Medicine: How The National Research Act Has Failed To Address Racist Practices In Biomedical Experiments Targeting The African-American Community, Anietie Maureen-Ann Akpan

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Do We Have It Right This Time? An Analysis Of The Accomplishments And Shortcomings Of Washington's Indian Child Welfare Act, Karen Gray Young

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Securing Food Justice, Sovereignty & Sustainability In The Face Of The Food Safety Modernization Act (Fsma), Eve Kerber

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Driving While License Suspended - Third Degree, A Framework For Requesting Alternative Sentences, Sahar Fathi

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

About The Authors

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Jacqueline Mcmurtrie

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Gideon At Fifty -- Golden Anniversary Or Mid Life Crisis, Kim Taylor-Thompson

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Fifty Years After Gideon: It Is Long Past Time To Provide Lawyers For Misdemeanor Defendants Who Cannot Afford To Hire Their Own, Robert C. Boruchowitz

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.