November 2010

The Next 20 Years? by Frank P. Cervone, Esquire

Adapted from symposium remarks on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, October 8, 2010.

As we consider the next 20 years of “whole child representation,” I’d like us to be self-reflective while focusing on the representation we deliver to children and families. 

If the first 50 years of our work were about being there, the next decades may be about the quality of our presence and the quality of our outcomes.  The right to counsel in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case in re Gault was satisfied by having a lawyer in the room.  Just showing up used to be good enough.  In whatever way we now meet the child in the justice system, in whatever way we get into their lives, I suggest that we recognize that we are called to serve the whole of that child and to serve that child well.  Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education, recently observed that “a well-rounded curriculum is a necessity, not a luxury.”  So too is well-rounded lawyering a necessity.

So, what does it mean to “see a child as whole?”  I am reminded that ‘the more you look, the more you see.’  In child protection work, we get into kids’ lives because of an abusive incident or a situation suggesting neglect.  That’s our entrance point.  But the more you look at the child in all of her needs and experiences, the more you see other dimensions that might need attention and other rights that need to be addressed, including the right to be in school and in an education program that is best for her.  The right to graduate.  The right to treatment that is effective, targeted and grounded in sound science.  The right to be safe and free from harm. The right to have someone in her life who she can trust.  The right to family. 

Of course she has a right to say no.  But if she’s my daughter - your daughter - that “no” is not the end of the conversation!

We might responsibly ask the self-evaluative question: How are we doing for our kids? What do we hear, even from ourselves at times?  “We’re just his school.”  Or, “We’re just his detention program.”  “I have 600 kids on my caseload – what do you want from me?”  Or, “I’m not his parent, I’m just his lawyer … I can’t be responsible for how he is doing and whether he succeeds.” 

When we step in to care for a kid, we are implicitly saying that we will do it better than the child’s parent or family has done:  “You’re not caring for Suzy well enough.” Or, “You can’t handle Johnny with all his needs and issues, so we’re going to take over parenting him.” 

Who is that “we?”  I mean the “we” that is all of us.  That is, in terms of who is responsible, it’s not just the detention center or the children and youth agency or the social worker or the judge or the Court or the District Attorney’s Office or the advocate.  No, we are all responsible in some way for that young person.  We saw the flip of that recently in Luzerne County, Pa when no one felt responsible enough to stop the injustice or even to talk about it.

Surely there is a role for specialization in our professional approach.  We need teachers, social workers, physicians and defense lawyers who each know their field. But, when we justify by role definition the failure to see the whole child, we leave that child underserved.

So, what is coming in the next decades? 

We must focus on solutions to problems we name and know. Long-term data on the well-being of adults who were once kids in the system reveals low high school graduation rates, incarceration, recidivism and teen pregnancies. Are we doing well for these kids?

To represent the whole child, we will need caseload reform for court-appointed lawyers representing children and parents in dependency and delinquency proceedings.  Our colleague Shari Shink of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center has been talking about caseload reform for 20 years, but in most communities it remains the elephant in the room.  At Child Advocates, we work hard to maintain relatively low caseloads, but this is very expensive.  Our public interest and law school programs are wonderful, but a bit rarefied.  I work with many attorneys and guardians at litem around the country, and most don’t have it so good. The need and opportunity to engage the voice of the child and to represent all of the child’s needs and wishes are frustrated when we ask guardians ad litem and other children’s lawyers to represent 500, 600, 800 foster children per year, or dozens of juvenile offenders each and every day – as many, many jurisdictions do.  So meaningful caseload review, and funding that makes it real, must be a primary goal. 

We can change the story.  Certainly children have the human right to have their needs advanced by their lawyers, provided for by the governments who act on their behalf and addressed by their state caregivers.

When you represent the whole child, ‘the more you look, the more you see.’