Article
Infants and toddlers in foster care look to juvenile and
family court judges to make sure their special needs are met
through appropriate reasonable efforts services for themselves
and their parents. Do you hear their cries for help at your
bench?
The science of early childhood development informs us that a
child’s first three years of life are the most formative
for cognitive and emotional development. This is the
unparalleled time an infant or toddler brain “hard wires” for
speech, self-esteem, motor skills and social relationships.
Babies must have at least one parent or caregiver who provides
consistent love and care.
Sadly, one-of-five foster care placements is an infant. Once in
foster care, infants remain twice as long as older children.
Babies under the age of one make up 25% of children in the child
welfare system; 76% of child abuse fatalities occur to children
under four years old (Dicker, S., Gordon, E., Kmitzer, J. [2001]
Improving the Odds for the Healthy Development of Young
Children in Foster Care. New York: National Center for
Children in Poverty). Babies experience foster care
drift—multiple foster care placements, sometimes eight or ten in
a single year. They have many foster parents who provide safe
homes and food. But, they do not experience the emotional
attachment that only comes from one foster placement with a
caregiver who is trained and willing to shower love and
affection on the baby. Without that single, stable, emotionally
and intellectually nurturing relationship, infants and toddlers
suffer brain damage and developmental delays.
So, what reasonable efforts services can help these infants and
toddlers? Can a judge do anything to improve the lives of these
most vulnerable children?
First, judges must train themselves and others about
infant and toddler well-being. Invite early childhood
intervention specialists to meet with you about training and
best practices. Plan a systems-wide cross training. Have the
court and stakeholders assess the system and what can be done to
implement improvements. A new DVD
Helping Babies
from the Bench: Using the Science of Early Childhood Development
in Court is an informative call to action.
Second, convene a meeting with Health and Human Services,
prosecution, parents’ defense attorneys, guardians ad litem,
CASA volunteers, your foster care review board and other
stakeholders to develop a training for appropriate parenting
time (“visitation”) for parents with their infants and toddlers.
Many courts have had such collaborative meetings and developed a
parenting time policies, protocols and standards. (See articles
in
The Judges’ Page newsletter, June 2006.)
Standard supervised biweekly, one-or-two hour visitation is
inadequate, inappropriate and unacceptable. Reasonable efforts
in this context means meaningful daily or near daily parenting
time to build the infant/parent relationship and achieve
permanency. A judge can rule earlier on whether a parent is
making progress toward becoming a proper parent when the parent
is given a fair opportunity to learn skills and apply them. If
Health and Human Services is unwilling to provide such services,
the judge could rule that a negative reasonable efforts finding
will be issued in 30 days. If so ruled, Health and Human
Services will not receive its foster care matching dollars under
Federal Title IV-E Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Program.
But, Health and Human Services must still provide the services
as ordered.
Third, order a developmental evaluation under the Early
Intervention Program for children under the age of three years,
also known as Part C of the IDEA (Individual Disability
Education Act) [20 U.S.C. Section 1431 (2000)]. After
assessment, a trained clinician in infant mental health can
address any developmental delays as well as train the parent to
learn a baby’s developmental signals and how to respond. Our
court, its infants and toddlers and their parents are fortunate
to have clinicians trained by Joy Osofsky, Ph.D. (Louisiana
State University Health Sciences Center, 1542 Tulane Avenue,
Room 315F, New Orleans, LA 70112) who can now provide
therapeutic assessments and dyadic interventions and parenting
time for babies and their parents.
Fourth, consider starting an infant and toddler family
drug treatment court. Ours started May 5, 2005 (now a
zero-to-five family drug treatment court). Parents will have an
excellent opportunity to improve their ability to parent an
infant or toddler while in recovery through holistic intensive
services and court oversight. Our reunification rate is 80%
within 12 months. Stability of care and permanency for infants
and toddlers in a supportive, affirmative and accountable
environment has helped these parents succeed. Timely mental
health and substance abuse evaluations and treatment, Part C
evaluations, parenting assessments and daily parenting time are
essential. The heart of our treatment court is building the
relationship between infant and parent. (See also: “Zero-to-Three Family
Drug Treatment Court,”
The Judges’ Page newsletter, October 2005)
A judge working with all the stakeholders involved in the
juvenile and family court system can change practices in order
to meet the special needs of babies. Cycles of substance abuse,
mental health issues, domestic violence and other issues of
abuse and neglect can be broken. Permanency and infant
well-being are achieved by preventing foster care drift,
providing a single foster/adoptive placement as the first
placement and providing early parenting skills assessment and
appropriate parenting time to build and clarify the parent-child
relationship.
The science of early childhood development informs us that
business as usual is unacceptable and harmful to infants and
toddlers. Judges, you can prevent this through your leadership
in convening stakeholders, training, findings and rulings on
reasonable efforts. Treat infants and toddlers like your own.
Demand no less of yourself and others than you would for your
own child.
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Additional Resources:
ABA Center on Children and the Law Practice & Policy Brief,
Healing the Youngest Children: Model Court—Community
Partnerships, March 2007.
In this issue, our zero-to-five family drug treatment court
is one of the courts featured.
ABA Center on Children and the Law Practice & Policy Brief,
Visitation with Infants and Toddlers in Foster Care: What Judges
and Attorneys Need to Know, July 2007. Can also be
viewed at
the ABA
website.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges,
Juvenile and Family Court Journal Spring 2004, Volume 55
No. 2. This is a special issue regarding infants and toddlers in
court provides numerous in-depth articles regarding this topic.
Shonkoff, J., & Phillips, D. (eds.) (2000) From Neurons to
Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
The Urban Institute
Vulnerable Infants and Toddlers in Four Service Systems
September 2007.
This brief compiles the best available data on
the characteristics of vulnerable young children in four service
systems: Early Head Start, the Special Supplemental Nutrition
Program for Women, Infants, and Children, the child welfare
system and Part C Early Intervention Programs.
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Summary