The Support Center for Child Advocates engages in several special service initiatives, targeting areas of particular need to improve outcomes in our community.
Kids 'N Kin: The Caregiving Program
Joint venture with the Philadelphia Society for Services to Children that provides in-home legal and social services to relative caregivers. Download ourKids ’N Kin booklet.
Volunteer Attorneys for Medically Needy Children
Advanced volunteer program targeted at children under five with serious medical needs.
Outcomes in Behavioral Health Project
In 2007, the Support Center for Child Advocates commenced the Outcomes in Behavioral Health Project to improve access to and participation in behavioral health treatment services for child victims of abuse and neglect, including children in the foster care system. The OBH Project focuses on developing relationships with the children, family members and professionals responsible for their well being by utilizing client engagement, direct representation, advocacy and specially-designed training sessions. Additionally, the OBH Project targets similarly situated lay and professional caregivers serving hundreds of other children in the five-county Delaware Valley by working with established public and private county agency collaborations. This project is supported by grants from the Pew Fund for Health and Human Services, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, North Penn Community Health Foundation, Phoenixville Community Health Foundation and Chestnut Hill Health Care Foundation.
Stoneleigh Fellowship on Child Well Being and “Whole Child” Representation Staff Attorney Christine Trinkl Dougherty's fellowship project, Child Well-Being and "Whole Child" Representation will develop an advocacy model that focuses on the well-being of children involved with the Philadelphia Dependency Court system and singles out two critical components of well-being: physical and behavioral health. On both the individual case level and at the level of public systems, Ms. Dougherty's project will make child well-being a component of system concern and court review for every child in every case. She will create a case-planning method for internal multidisciplinary (lawyer-social worker team) strategy setting and external consultation across disciplines and systems. Advancing a model of child advocacy that seeks to integrate representation and services for the "whole child," Ms. Dougherty's project will bring form, method, and study to this emerging approach. Sponsored by the Stoneleigh Center (www.stoneleighcenter.org)
National Children’s Law Network
Child Advocates serves as lead agency in the National Children’s Law Network (NCLN), which seeks to advance the understanding of the practice of representing children in dependency and delinquency cases. In keeping with our long-range goal to expand our presence beyond the region, NCLN engages child-advocacy organizations throughout the country in program development, outcomes measurement and evaluation, practice decisions and strategic planning, and provides other forms of mutual support. NCLN is comprised of eight nonprofit children’s law centers that have created a sustainable network to promote their effectiveness and growth, improve the quality of counsel and representation provided to children, and deliver a coordinated message for effective change on vital national issues of policy and practice for children. As part of a Common Policy Initiative to improve educational opportunities and achievement for court-involved youth, Network partners have been active in presenting In School, the Right School, Finish School to professional audiences all over the country.
In Summer 2007, NCLN launched the Legal Services Outcomes Database through its new website www.NCLNetwork.org. The NCLN Legal Services Outcomes Database will allow the NCLN Partners to input case data and allow “guests” to explore the model for their own use. The NCLN model is structured as a retrospective study of strategies employed by lawyers for children. Through intensive design activities addressing the range of issues from confidentiality to definition of terminology, the initiative is demonstrating the process of legal outcomes development while simultaneously creating a useful tool. The tool is also available for study by the national and international community of child advocates NCLN Partners will continue to work to improve their data collection and assessment methods and document their experiences with the model.
Look Out for Child Abuse
http://lookoutforchildabuse.org/
