48 Fam. L.Q. 597 (2014-2015)
The Importance of Family Defense

handle is hein.journals/famlq48 and id is 631 raw text is: The Importance of Family Defense MARTIN GUGGENHEIM* I. Introduction Over the past decade, there has been a growing national movement to advance the rights of parents and families in child welfare proceedings. Spearheaded by the National Parent Representation Steering Committee at the American Bar Association's Center on Children and the Law, the movement's purpose is to achieve procedural and social justice for all families involved with child welfare systems, through legal, legislative, and policy advocacy. Above all else, we seek to ensure that every parent who is in jeopardy of having a child removed from his or her care by a child welfare agency is able to secure excellent legal representation dur- ing the entire length of the court process. We are in the midst of creating a new field-the field of family defense. Family defenders are lawyers and other advocates working with par- ents in court or administrative proceedings brought against them by the local child protection services agency. These proceedings are variously known as dependency, child neglect, child abuse, or a child protec- tion, depending on the locality. In some of these cases, the local agency may be seeking nothing more than a protective order of some kind, direct- ing that a caregiver do or refrain from doing something. In other cases, the agency may be seeking a child's removal from his or her family or the child's continued placement in foster care. In still other proceedings, the agency may be seeking permanent termination of parental rights. In all these proceedings, the state, through the exercise of its parens patriae or police powers, charges parents or other caretakers with being inadequate in the rearing of children. * Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law, Co-director Family Defense Clinic, New York University School of Law. This article is adapted from a chapter to be published in REPRESENTING PARENTS IN CILD PROTECTION PROCEEDINGS (Martin Guggenheim & Vivek Sankarin, eds., forthcoming 2015).

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