Session: Serving Foster Children in Partnership with Dependency Courts (Research that Promotes Sustainability and (re)Builds Strengths (January 15 - 18, 2009))

This symposium brings together papers focusing on dependency courts, exploring their role in several contemporary challenges facing social workers who work with foster children. These courts have traditionally played a central role in supervising child welfare cases and—beginning with the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980—have been charged with a set of evolving federal mandates to ensure the safety, timely permanence, and well-being of foster children. The four papers here use qualitative and quantitative methods to address three critical questions involving social workers working today in dependency courts: 1) Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated the centrality of the court in fulfilling the goals of the child welfare system in the face of crisis. How can those working in the court ensure the safety, permanence, and well-being of foster children in the face of natural disaster? 2) States often end services before foster youth may be ready to be on their own. What role do courts play to ensure that foster youth benefit from services and remain in care, when possible, beyond the age of 18? 3) Current child welfare policy places an emphasis on terminating the rights of uncooperative parents so that foster children may be adopted. How can social workers ensure that termination of parental rights decisions are based on relevant and appropriate information? The lessons presented by these four studies highlight the critical role that courts play and the need for a high degree of cooperation between child welfare social workers and court personnel.