For over thirty years, Juvenile Law Center has developed and promoted policies and practices to ensure that the child welfare system responds in the best possible manner to the full array of needs of children and youth in foster care and to young adults who are “aging out” of the system. Juvenile Law Center approaches all aspects of youth involvement in the child welfare system from a holistic point of view; these children are not just foster children, they are young people who deserve the opportunity to grow and develop, to obtain an education and acquire job skills and to advance in their communities.
Fostering Connections to Success Act: A New Guide for Policymakers
Juvenile Law Center and Partners for Our Children have published a report on implementation of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. The report summarizes the proceedings of a national convening that Juvenile Law Center and POC hosted in Seattle in October, 2008. Focusing on youth in transition between 18 and 21, the report offers guidance to national and local policymakers.
JLC briefed the issue of a juvenile’s right to have his name removed from a statewide central register as a perpetrator of child abuse. Research reveals that juvenile sex offenders are less likely to commit future crimes than are adult offenders.
JLC’s brief argued that the PA Juvenile Act authorizes child welfare courts to retain jurisdiction over foster children aged 18 to 21 and to order agencies to continue to serve those youth in a course of treatment or instruction. The Superior Court agreed.
JLC’s brief supported class certification in a lawsuit brought on behalf of children in Philadelphia’s foster care system. Class certification was granted.
JLC’s brief surveyed statutes and social science literature in a lawsuit involving the interpretation of the “reasonable efforts” to preserve and reunite families provision of the Adoption and Assistance Child Welfare Act.
