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, so 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, Reflections on 2016: Making Great Strides for Children and Families by Candi Mayes, JD, MJM, CWLS.

 

 

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

The December edition of NACCs law journal,The Guardian , is online now.  This monthly publication is a membership benefit and includes child welfare and juvenile justice articles, case reviews, policy updates and more.  Members log in to read.

 

 

Chronicle of Social Change
The Administration for Children and Families has released a new report titled "Benefits of Early Care and Education for Children in the Child Welfare System." The report suggests that early childhood care and education can improve safety and well-being for children in the child welfare system.

Huffington Post
In the 2013-2014 school year, more than 110,000 students were struck, paddled, or flogged in the classroom. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education John King Jr. sent a letter to state governors and school officers urging them to eliminate corporal punishment in schools.

Youth Today
Drug Court, a treatment option for parents under investigation by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for reports of substance-related abuse or neglect, is seeing positive results using a wraparound-type treatment model. Parents who lose custody for drug- or alcohol-related offenses are typically court ordered to a six-month treatment program, but the Drug Court, one of more than 600 publicly funded treatment programs in the county, is a voluntary, more intensive 12-month option that boasts a higher success rate than the court-ordered option.

Bowling Green Daily News
The Kentucky Department for Community Based Services has implemented new policies to better track and serve victims of child human trafficking.

NCJRS
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) released a report on the role of technology in youth harassment victimization. The brief highlights findings from the Technology Harassment Victimization Study, sponsored by NIJ.

JJIE
In the wake of Supreme Court decisions that have limited extreme sentences for juveniles, states are relying on parole boards to put those rulings into effect. But those boards operate with little transparency, rarely focus on how a prisoner has changed while serving their time and ultimately seldom grant parole to serious offenders, the ACLU researchers said.

Don M. Hodgdon, JD, CWLS    

Don retired from active military service from the United States Navy as a commissioned officer in 2001 having served in the aviation community and nuclear submarine service.  He established his law practice in southeastern Connecticut in 2006.  For the past decade he has represented over eight hundred children and parents as a panel attorney for the Office of the Chief Public Defender.  In 2012, Don represented an out-of-state, non-custodial Father before the Connecticut Appellate and Supreme Courts regarding the applicability of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), In Re. Emoni W. et. al., 305 Conn. 723 (2012).  The Supreme Court held that the ICPC did not apply to out-of-state parents, sustained father’s appeal, and remanded the case to the trial court with the direction to reverse the judgment. Read more about Don 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

Under the NACC’s by-laws, members of the Board of Directors are elected and re-elected by the membership. In this election cycle, there are two Board members up for re-election:

• H.D. ("De") Kirkpatrick, Ph.D
• Stephanie Ledesma, MA, JD, CWLS

Ballots close December 31, 2016. Members may log in and
vote online here. While login is required to verify only members are voting, your ballot is still anonymously cast.