Newsletter
A Child Advocacy Company
Bringing Support to Parents
Building Strength to Children
Bringing Support to Parents
Building Strength to Children
Disclaimer: BS Kids LLC legal research and information has been prepared for educational and informational purposes only. This material is not legal
advice or legal opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create and receipt does not constitute a
lawyer-client relationship between BS Kids LLC , the author of the information and any other legal publisher. Customers of BS Kids should not act upon
this information without seeking professional counsel. The opinions expressed in the material presented to BS Kids clientele is based on information
found in legal publications. BS Kids LLC, 78 Canterberry Court, Hudson, NH 03051 781-756-1214.
advice or legal opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create and receipt does not constitute a
lawyer-client relationship between BS Kids LLC , the author of the information and any other legal publisher. Customers of BS Kids should not act upon
this information without seeking professional counsel. The opinions expressed in the material presented to BS Kids clientele is based on information
found in legal publications. BS Kids LLC, 78 Canterberry Court, Hudson, NH 03051 781-756-1214.
BS KIDS BEAT VOLUME 3 SUMMER 2008 BS KIDS The summer is almost complete and fall is right around the corner with tons of activities and opportunities. First and foremost are the local State elections and then the introduction of new Legislative Service Requests (LSR’s) to fix some of our current laws. Second, we have the Presidential election and with this change, most are hopeful that current issues we are facing will be addressed (gas prices, the economy, etc). Lastly, there is some great news regarding the hiring of an economist to study the Child Support Guidelines in New Hampshire. WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH FAMILY LAW Finally a committee is going to study the child support guidelines in New Hampshire! It was recently announced that UNH Cooperative Extension is going to lead the Child Support Economic Analysis. This contract is a federally mandated review of economic and policy guidelines used to establish child support payments for children. BS KIDS has been asked to participate in the initial stages of this projects development, along with Dr. Malcolm Smith and Dr. Michael Kalinowski. There will be public sessions held, where individuals can go and share their stories. The UNH project team hopes to have its initial report to DCSS in March of 2009. Any reforms or changes to the current policy made by the research team to DCSS will be reviewed by the New Hampshire legislature in the fall of 2009. This is very exciting news establishing what it costs to raise a child in New Hampshire has been in *study* mode since 2004. Finally, the child support guidelines are going to be reviewed and hopefully revamped to reflect exactly what it costs to raise a child! As soon as BS KIDS learns of the public sessions, we will post them on our website. Also, BS KIDS found an interesting review of what to ask and look for when seeking an attorney who specializes in Family Law. If you go to: http://www.massachusettsfamilylawgroup.com/documents/A%20ALL%20MFLG%20HireLawyerChecklist. pdf, you can see the types of questions you should be asking and how to prepare for hiring an attorney to represent you. We hope that you find this chart helpful, but remember you have a responsibility to educate yourself on the laws in your state. An attorney will only litigate what you tell them to, but if they don’t know what you want, they can’t effectively represent you! LEGISLATIVE UPDATES The end of the current term is fast approaching with elections right around the corner. You should start seeing election signs on the highways soon! But the real issue is: Do you know who your State House or Senate representatives are? Do you know how they voted on recent bills? Do you agree with their votes? Or, are you like most people; you go into the polling place, recognize a name and elect them? Many people have no idea who their elected officials are, how they voted and if they even show up for public sessions. It’s your job, as a voter in your state to get educated about who’s running in your town, what their stand is on issues that are important to you and support the candidates that you agree with. It’s very easy to find out who your elected officials are. In NH, you can go to: http://www.gencourt.state.nh. us/ie/rollcall/rollcallsearch.asp and check in your town to find out. In Massachusetts, you can go to: http://www.mass. gov/legis/journal/main.htm or http://www.mass.gov/legis/journal/index.htm. A big complaint we hear about the Legislature is that they don’t pass any good laws. Well, if you keep re-electing these individuals, the same results will continue. We urge you to get involved and elect those candidates that support your concerns! Additionally, two bills from this past session are worth noting; HB 1488 and HB 1188. HB 1488: An Act Establishing A Committee To Study The Feasibility of Establishing Pro Se Law Libraries has become law and was signed by the Governor. The committee will study the feasibility of creating law libraries focusing on what a pro se litigant would need inorder to represent themselves. The Committee is to make their recommendation by November 1, 2008. HB 1188: An Act Relative To Grounds For Modification Of Parental Rights and Responsibilities was certainly debated many times this past session. It was determined that it needed to go to interim study, to determine if the content of the bill was worth further review. At the end of the interim study committee, it was unanimously passed and will become a new LSR for the 2009 Legislative session. Thank you to all who shared your stories and testimony with the committee. These were helpful in persuading the committee to see exactly what happens when an individual tries to file a modification of parental rights and responsibilities. NEWS Some interesting news articles are posted below. To read more news stories go to www.bskids.net and click on Today’s Headlines: Michigan Settles Child Welfare Reform Lawsuit, Agrees to Comprehensive Overhaul of Long-Failing Child Welfare System Court-enforceable agreement establishes plan for reforming entire Department of Human Services child welfare system and improving outcomes for abused and neglected children in state custody DETROIT, MI. A settlement agreement mandating top-to-bottom reform and federal court oversight of Michigan’s long-failing child welfare system has been reached in the federal class action brought against the state by the national advocacy group Children’s Rights and a team of attorneys from Michigan and across the country. The settlement, to be submitted for preliminary court approval, would resolve the lawsuit known as Dwayne B. v. Granholm, filed in 2006 on behalf of the approximately 19,000 abused and neglected children in the custody of Michigan’s Department of Human Services (DHS). The court-enforceable agreement requires DHS to establish a Children’s Services Administration dedicated exclusively to providing protection, treatment, and services to children in state custody and those who have been reported for abuse or neglect. The agency must take aggressive action to move more than 6,000 children who cannot return home into safe, stable, permanent homes; improve investigations of reported child abuse and neglect; reduce the occurrence of maltreatment in foster care placements; recruit and retain an adequate group of potential foster and adoptive parents; and provide adequate medical, mental health, and dental care to children in state custody. The state’s progress in complying with the agreement will be overseen by a monitor who will report to the federal court. “After years of looking the other way as its child welfare system failed and children suffered and died needlessly as a result, Michigan has finally made a court-enforceable commitment to begin fixing its problems and producing better results for the children who depend on it,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, founder and executive director of Children’s Rights. “The required reforms will take considerable time and effort to implement, but they are both achievable and necessary, and Children’s Rights will remain involved as long as necessary to ensure that they take hold.” Among the specific requirements of the agreement: • DHS must improve its investigations of alleged child abuse and neglect and keep the children in its custody safer. • DHS will establish a statewide child protective services (CPS) hotline, create dedicated CPS units to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect, increase caseworker visits to foster homes and facilities, and initiate regular safety reviews to ensure that children taken into state custody do not suffer further maltreatment. • DHS must take aggressive action to move children out of custody and into safe, stable, permanent homes. • DHS will hire, train, and deploy a dedicated workforce of 200 new permanency specialists to address the needs of the more than 6,000 legal orphans who have languished in foster care for long periods of time. Additionally, the agency will begin planning simultaneously for children’s reunification with their birth families and for their adoption in case reunification proves not to be possible. • DHS must provide adequate financial support and safety measures for children placed in foster homes with relatives. • DHS will engage 40 new licensing specialists to secure licenses for the approximately 7,000 unlicensed relative foster homes in Michigan. Without licenses, relatives who provide foster homes for abused and neglected children are not eligible for the financial support available to other foster families to help them provide for the basic needs of the children in their care, and they are not subject to the safety assessments that other foster homes undergo. • DHS must provide adequate medical, mental health, and dental services for the children in its custody. • DHS will be required to meet the benchmarks for these services established by the American Academy of Pediatrics, undertaking a system wide assessment to determine what it must do to meet the standards of the settlement agreement. • DHS must improve recruitment of foster and adoptive families. • DHS will undertake a system wide assessment to determine where and how many additional foster care and adoptive placements are needed, and will design and implement a recruitment plan to meet these needs. • DHS must fix longstanding organizational problems. • DHS will establish a Children’s Services Administration dedicated exclusively to child welfare functions, headed by a director at the rank of deputy director of DHS or higher. The agency will also create a dedicated child welfare quality assurance unit in its central office to monitor the care it provides. • DHS must provide better training for child welfare caseworkers and reduce their caseloads to manageable levels. Caseloads for all child welfare workers at DHS will be lowered to meet the standards recommended by the Child Welfare League of America, and new and improved training regimens will be mandated for workers at all levels. • DHS must fully implement a statewide system for collecting and analyzing child welfare data. Through regular reports on children’s outcomes, management issues, and other key measures, DHS will improve its ability to monitor its own performance and correct problems when they arise. “We have reached a critical milestone in this campaign to correct the injustices that abused and neglected children in Michigan’s custody have lived with for too long,” said Sara Bartosz, senior staff attorney for Children’s Rights and lead counsel on the case. “The reforms required by this settlement will ensure that they receive at last the care and protection that all children are guaranteed under the Constitution and under the law.” The Dwayne B. federal class action, brought against Michigan by Children’s Rights, the international law firm McDermott Will & Emery, and local counsel Kienbaum Opperwall Hardy & Pelton, charged the state with violating the constitutional rights of the approximately 19,000 children in its custody by failing to protect their safety and well-being and find them permanent homes. An earlier proposed settlement negotiated in early 2007 was abandoned by the state in May of that year, sending plaintiffs into preparations for trial. The settlement agreement is must be presented to the federal judge for approval at a fairness hearing to be scheduled. "This is a major victory for the abused and neglected children of Michigan, who will now stand a much better chance of receiving the care and protection they deserve and desperately need,” said Edward P. Leibensperger, partner in McDermott Will & Emery. UNH Cooperative Extension to Lead Child-Support Economic Analysis July 9, 2008 An interdisciplinary team of UNH policy analysts and researchers received a $120,489 contract to conduct a comprehensive analysis of New Hampshire’s child-support guidelines. The contract will fund a federally-mandated review of economic and policy guidelines used to establish child-support payments for children. The project is funded by the N.H Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Support Services (DCSS). According to Malcolm Smith, project director and UNH Cooperative Extension’s family life education and policy specialist, the study will have great importance to children and families in New Hampshire who depend upon child support payments. “Our task is to assist the division in assuring that child support payments fully reflect the cost of raising a child in New Hampshire,” said Smith. Michael Kalinowski, associate professor of family studies, will join Smith as primary co-investigator. Reagan Baugman, assistant professor in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, will serve as economic analyst on the project. During the next year, the team will examine all existing policies related to child support in New Hampshire, conduct a thorough survey of similar state formulas throughout the United States, and make recommendations, if necessary, on revisions to current New Hampshire policy. During the process, Cooperative Extension will conduct forums and interviews with stakeholders throughout the state, including family members currently paying child support, legal system representatives, child and family advocates and state legislators. Any reforms or changes to the current policy made by the research team to DCSS will be reviewed by the New Hampshire legislature in the fall of 2009. “Cooperative Extension is a perfect fit for this project, because we have a friendly and unbiased presence in every New Hampshire county, we know how to use solid research to inform policy, and we are able to take advantage the extensive resources of UNH to insure that solid information backs any recommendations we might make,” said Smith. “This is evident in our team. Dr. Kalinowski is a proven researcher and exemplary educator in the child policy field, and Dr. Baughman, is a proven economist who was named the university’s outstanding assistant professor for 2008,” he added. The project team begins work immediately and hopes to have its initial report to DCSS in March of 2009. In addition to the primary research team, the project will employ a part-time research assistant to help gather and analyze demographic data. GET INVOLVED There are many ways to get involved, below is a small sample of opportunities. The most important thing you can do is to give back to your community. For more information, please go to; www.bskids.net and click on *Get Involved*. Big Brothers/Big Sisters Organization: www.bbbs.org Volunteer Match: www.volunteernh.org New Hampshire Citizen’s Voice Project: www.nhcvp.org Court Appointed Special Advocates: www.nationalcasa.org E-MAIL ALERTS If you are interested in getting alerts from BS KIDS regarding news, legislative activity or getting involved opportunities, please sign up on our website at www.bskids.net COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS BS KIDS is looking to include areas of interest to our readers. If there is a topic or area of concern that you would like to learn more about, please let us know. You can e-mail us at info@bskids.net or call 781-756-1214. |
Past Newsletters
Winter 2008
Winter 2008
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