The Minnesota Lawyer (Minneapolis, MN) October 3, 2005 National foster-care summit is held in Minnesota Barbara L. Jones As a big windstorm swept through part of the state on Sept 21, chief justices and human services leaders from 49 states and several U.S. territories were in Minnesota to discuss the winds of change in foster care. The three-day summit, entitled "Changing Lives by Changing Systems: National Judicial Leadership Summit for the Protection of Children," was held in Bloomington from Sept. 20-23. In the spirit of the occasion, Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz, the host of the event, called it a "tornado" of a conference. By the summit's end, each team had formed the beginning of an action plan for its state or territory, the chief justice told Minnesota Lawyer. Hurricane-ravaged Louisiana was the only state not represented at the conference. The Louisiana delegation had to cancel at the last minute. Action plans The individual action plans developed at the summit will be compiled into a National Action Plan to be published by the National Center for State Courts before the end of the year. A progress report will follow by the end of next year. In her closing address, Blatz advised the participants to return home and "implement, implement, implement." Continued monitoring and dedication will be important, Blatz said. "From my own experience, I predict that one of your greatest impediments to change in the child-protection system when you return home will be the perspective - the notion - that [your] own courts, [your] own agencies or systems, 'Are really doing a terrific job,'" the chief justice stated. The summit was funded by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, which has other Minnesota connections. The commission is chaired by former Rep. Bill Frenzel, who left Congress in 1991 after representing Minnesota for two decades. Blatz has testified before the commission to call for leadership from the courts in solving the problems of delay and ineffectiveness that plague the juvenile court system. The summit occurred at nearly the same time federal bipartisan legislation was introduced that incorporates the Pew Commission's recommendations to strengthen and improve state courts that oversee foster-care cases. Senators Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, introduced S. 1679, "WE CARE Kids: Working to Enhance Courts for At-risk and Endangered Kids Act of 2005."
The Pew Commission's recommendations include: * the adoption of court performance measures by every child protection court; * incentives and requirements for effective collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies; * a strong voice for children and parents in court and effective representation by better trained attorneys and volunteer advocates; and * leadership from chief justices and state court leaders in organizing court systems to better serve children, train judges and promote more effective standards for all court personnel. A model state Minnesota was chosen as a site for the conference because of the good work on the topic of children's justice that has been done here in the past few years, Blatz said. The summit comes in the wake of Minnesota's Children's Justice Initiative (CJI), an effort that has been underway since 2000 under the leadership of the chief justice and 7th Judicial District Court Judge Wally Senyk to reform child-protection practices in Minnesota. It started as a pilot project but by June 2004 it was up and running in all Minnesota counties. The team approach utilized in the conference followed the model of the CJI, said Blatz. The goal of the CJI is for court processes to succeed as seen "through the eyes of a child," meaning not only are children cared for and kept safe, but that these results are produced in a timely way that suits their physical and emotional needs, including a permanent home. CJI is working in Minnesota, said Blatz. "We've been at this for a long time. "We're changing the culture in this state, seeing the system through the eyes of a child. It's not just resources, it's attitudes. We have little pockets that need improvement but it's a different state." The next step for the CJI is to develop ways to measure its success and the well-being of the youth who are involved, said Blatz. The goal is to develop several indicators of success, such as the amount of time that elapses between a termination of parental rights and a child's adoption, the chief justice said. Other issues of concern are making sure the troubled families have the right resources and also that children are represented in court, said Blatz, noting that the number of children who have guardians ad litem has increased markedly in the past few years to more than 95 percent of the cases. According to the Pew Commission, in fiscal year 2003 Minnesota ranked 24th in the country for the number of children in foster care - 7,338, or 1.4 percent of its children.