The Advocate: NACC's Weekly Bulletin

What are you thankful for? If your answer involves family and friends, then it’s a great time to support those that are experiencing difficulties at home. It’s the holiday season. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday are all hitting your pocketbook. Give yourself a gift – make a donation to a great cause and have a chance to win an awesome prize. The NACC supports competent legal representation to children and families in child welfare cases. Your donation allows NACC to provide training, resources, and expert certification to this vital area.

 Read this week's blog post, Stand Up for Someone’s Rights on Human Rights Day by Candi Mayes, JD, MJM, CWLS.

 

 

The NACC Board of Directors is conducting a search for an Executive Director.

The Chronicle of Social Change
Strictly from a fiscal perspective, it is hard to imagine a political shift that will affect the child welfare system more than this during the first Trump term. The following is a look at a few of the ACA-inspired programs that relate to the child welfare field.

Youth Radio
"People assume that charging young people money will make them more accountable. It will somehow help them and it will help public safety. What was really interesting about the criminology research is that it showed the opposite. It showed that young people who had fees imposed and fines imposed – especially large ones – were more likely to offend again after their time was done in the juvenile justice system." –Jessica Feierman, author of "Debtor’s Prison for Kids? The High Cost of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System"

Youth Today
Attendees of the recent Council on Social Work Education conference developed a list of 12 grand challenges for the social work field. Among the 12 items in that list was the need to build financial capability among social workers and their clients. The conference participants also urged the widespread adoption of youth development practices known to reduce substance abuse, depression and other problems.

Psychology Today
Two recent studies strongly suggest that environmental influences on young children impact brain development and are associated with specific patterns of behavior. A recent article published by Joan Luby and colleagues in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" found that children with high maternal support had a two-fold increase in the growth of the hippocampal region of the brain, which correlates with better emotional development. Children with lower levels of maternal support did not have the same level of hippocampal growth or emotional development. A separate study published by Scott Mackey and colleagues in "Biological Psychiatry" found that childhood adversity influenced the growth patterns in regions of the brain thought to contribute to impulsivity, and these growth patterns were associated with the development of antisocial behaviors.

The Atlantic
One in 14 American children has a parent in prison. Researchers have given plenty of attention to parent-child relationships and the intense stress faced by children who have had their primary role model removed from their life. However, much less attention is given to the effects on children who have had a sibling placed in jail or prison. Children who have had a sibling placed in jail or prison face emotional stress from bullying at school, adjusting to new household rules and the trauma of being away from their sibling for an extended period of time.

Youth Today
We American taxpayers spend many, many millions of dollars on chemical restraints, also known as antipsychotic medications, that we administer to children in foster care. Why do we do this? How can we bring ourselves to do less of it?

M. Currey Cook, Esq.

Currey Cook is a Senior Attorney and National Director of the Youth in Out-of-Home Care Project at Lambda Legal. Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization whose mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work. View Currey’s NACC profile here.

Rebekah Bradley, JD, CWLS
Tennessee Court of Appeals
Knoxville, TN

Christopher Hempfling, JD, CWLS
Hempfling & Associates Law Firm, LLC
Covington, GA

Claire Terrebonne, JD, CWLS
Jackson County CASA
Kansas City, MO

Pamela Tripp, JD, CWLS
Pamela Rae Tripp, Attorney at Law
Burbank, CA