Good Court Performance in Child Protection Court Proceedings: Perspectives from Multiple Courtroom Stakeholders in a Southeastern State

Background and Purpose: When a child at risk for maltreatment is removed from the home, court hearings must occur following prescribed timelines. Child welfare case managers are responsible for documenting service provision and presenting a permanent plan in court (Greeno et al., 2013). Therefore, the court relies heavily on the verbal testimony of child welfare case managers in its decision-making (Burry et al., 2011). Despite the critical role of child welfare case managers in the court, concerns about court performance are ubiquitous. Thus, we raised a fundamental question: What does good court performance in child protection court proceedings look like for child welfare case managers? The purpose of this study is to define child welfare case managers’ good court performance using qualitative data collected from multiple courtroom stakeholders in a Southeastern state.

Methods: Employing a purposive sampling method, we recruited 44 stakeholders who are involved in the child protection court proceedings in this study, including child welfare case managers (N=8) and their supervisors (N=4), child welfare agency county directors (N=1), child welfare agency attorneys (N=9), family court judges (N=6), parent attorneys (N=2), guardian ad litem attorneys (N=6), and court liaisons (N=8). A total of 44 one-on-one interviews were conducted via Zoom from September 2022 to December 2022, ranging from 30 min to 1.5 hours. We primarily asked participants to describe the good court performance of a case manager in a child protection court proceeding and describe what case managers did well and did not well. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis was performed on them by the research team through NVivo 12.0. Peer debriefing was utilized to enhance the rigor of the findings.

Results: The results from different stakeholders' perspectives suggest that good court performance included several key components: (1) presenting a professional appearance and behavior, such as dressing appropriately and being polite and punctual; (2) possessing in-depth knowledge of the case, including the case timeline, case history, and other details depending on the hearing type (e.g., treatment plans); (3) bringing relevant physical documents like case outlines, files, visitation records, or notes to the stand; (4) demonstrating strong testimony skills, such as speaking confidently, managing stress and nerves, remaining calm during cross-examination, staying true to the agency's position, not getting defensive, and stating facts clearly; and (5) participating in staffings, including communicating and consulting with agency’s legal and other professional teams prior to the court proceeding.

Conclusions and Implications: These results provide valuable insights into what constitutes good performance for child welfare case managers in child protection court proceedings. Measurable indicators of good court performance were identified by participants, which will be used to create a checklist to guide professional development efforts for case managers at the child welfare agency. This ongoing research can guide case managers and interprofessional teams to effectively prepare for testifying in court, for the ultimate goal of serving the well-being of the children involved in the child welfare system.