Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Spring 2014, Vol. 40, No. 1 | Page 44
The Children’s Corner
came a top student.
These are difficult cases where clients
have multiple needs, most of which are interwoven with poverty. At a time when affordable housing is scarce or non-existent
and there are huge waiting lists for treatment services, family support workers have
been remarkably successful in helping. In
fiscal year 2012-2013, the Project supported seventy-seven families involving over
120 children. Here are some of the recent
successes:
• Sixty-two clients (80%) obtained substance abuse and/or mental health
treatment
• Thirty-five clients (45%) obtained safe
and stable housing
• Clients and their children in at least
seventy-three instances accessed essential services such as food, transportation, benefits, medical care, daycare, and community support
• Sixteen clients (21%) obtained and
maintain jobs
Family support workers have improved
case outcomes! 74% of the families in these
cases have been reunited or are on track
for reunification.
• Eighteen families have been reunited
• Thirty-four families are on track for reunification and are actively receiving
support
• Five truancy cases have been successfully closed, and the children are back
in school
• Six parents were supported in voluntarily relinquishing their parental
rights—at least two of them so that
family members could adopt their
children
• Fourteen parents had their parental
rights terminated
44
The project needs to grow so that we
have dedicated family support workers in
every county to provide assistance to these
families at the earliest possible time. We
and the other programs around the country have demonstrated that the improved
outcomes for families and the ultimate savings in costs: “Results from regional evaluations of parent representation programs
indicate that providing parents with highquality representation helps achieve the
dual mandates of federal child welfare policy—keeping children safely at home when
possible and helping children exit foster
care to permanency as quickly and safely
as possible.”4 Currently, we have kept our
costs very low, spending $68,238 in hours
billed by the family support workers in
2012-2013, which breaks down to a cost of
$886 per case; but we need to add more
workers who can get involved in these cases in the very early stages. With the rise of
drug addiction in Vermont, getting parents
the necessary substance abuse treatment
will be a priority.
____________________
Anna Saxman, Esq., is the Deputy Defender General for the State of Vermont.
She is also an adjunct professor at Vermont Law School where she teaches Criminal Practice and Procedure and is one of
the professors teaching in the Criminal Law
Clinic.
____________________
AFCARS data submitted by the states for
2009, available at http://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.
gov/data.
2
E.Thornton & B. Gwin, High Quality Legal
Representation for Parents in Child Welfare
Cases Results in Improved Outcomes for Families and Potential Cost Savings, 46 Fam. L.Q.
139 (2012).
3
Id. at 147.
4
Id. at 154.
1
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SPRING 2014
IN
MEMORIAM
Judith Goldstein Joseph
Born in Philadelphia, August 16, 1943,
Judith Goldstein Joseph, 70, of North
Hero, died February 21, 2014. She graduated from the College of the University of
Pennsylvania (B.A.) and received a graduate degree from Drexel University before
earning her J.D. at the Rutgers School of
Law. She worked as a librarian at the Library of Congress and LaSalle University
and worked as an attorney in private practice with her husband in Philadelphia. She
helped to found Women Aga [