Dear NACC members,

A board election is now open. We have two new board candidates under consideration. Voting and full bios are available a here. The potential new board candidates are:

• Whitney Untiedt, JD
• Mickey Aberman, JD

The election will close May 15. Please note that you must be logged in to vote – if you have any issues please contact Sara Whalen at membership@naccchildlaw.org or (303) 864-5326. Thank you for your participation!

The brochure for the 40th National Child Welfare, Juvenile and Family Law Conference is out. Look for a leaner, greener version in your mailbox or view the full brochure online here. We hope you will join us August 10-12, 2017 in New Orleans! Register here now!
The conference will be held at the Roosevelt New Orleans, in the heart of the French Quarter. Attendees can secure the $179/night room rate by making reservations here.

The Chronicle of Social Change
When Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced earlier this year that so-called Sanctuary jurisdictions would lose Justice Department grants, Youth Services Insider wondered how far-reaching the penalty would be.

JJIE
Texas state Rep. Gene Wu is getting frustrated. Legislatures around the country are voting to treat 17-year-old offenders as juveniles while his own state remains in a shrinking — and he says wrongheaded — club that charges them as adults, no matter the crime.

Youth Today
Community members and youth-serving professionals bear some responsibility for creating safe and developmentally appropriate environments for transgender youth. Individuals and organizations are spearheading policy and advocacy efforts to educate families and communities, limit discrimination and improve outcomes for transgender kids through supportive family and education environments.

NCJFCJ
For more than 22 years the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ (NCJFCJ) publication, the Resource Guidelines for Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases, has been a touchstone for courts challenged with the complex task of confronting child abuse and neglect in their own communities. The new Enhanced Resource Guidelines (ERGs) published in 2016, have improved upon the original version by providing key recommendations for courts, which reflect the direct relationship between domestic violence and child abuse.

Miami Herald
Keishan Ross, a Broward County teen who has spent years ping-ponging between the Fort Lauderdale lockup, where psychologists say he is not competent to stand trial, and a Panhandle mental health facility, which says he is, will be released — for now — from the cycle that has claimed much of his childhood.

JJIE
Journalist Daryl M. Khan is suing New York state court officers on charges of false arrest and malicious prosecution. Khan, the chief of the New York bureau for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange and Youth Today, was covering a sentencing hearing in June, the latest chapter in a saga about rival Harlem gangs he had been covering for more than two years.