To move cases through the court system and make timely decisions, court hearings provide the opportunity for judges and court professionals to maintain oversight of the case. ITs important that these hearing events be scheduled in order to meet established federal and state timeframes.

• Court hearings provide an opportunity to maintain oversight of the case.
• Ensures adherence to federal and state timelines in a/n cases.
• Ensures due process by appointing attorneys and assigning GALs. advocates…
• Courts and justice should be accessible to all and put the needs of children and families first.
• Allows us to engage children and families in a trauma responsive environment to learn more about their needs and respond with appropriate services.
• Hold our courts accountable by collecting data and monitoring our performance.

Preliminary Protective Hearing

he preliminary protective hearing (PPH) is the first court hearing in a child abuse or neglect case. The hearing is referred to in some jurisdictions as a “shelter care hearing,” “detention hearing,” “emergency removal hearing,” or “temporary custody hearing”. This initial hearing occurs either immediately before or between 24-72 hours after a child is removed from home. This initial hearing may be preceded by an ex parte order directing placement of the child. In some cases, a child may have been removed from home without prior court approval, and the initial hearing is the first placement review by the court.

Adjudication Hearing

The adjudication hearing resembles a traditional trial under rules of civil procedure and evidence. The adjudication is a hearing at which the court determines whether allegations of abuse or neglect are sustained by the evidence, and provides the basis for state intervention. The adjudication hearing is also the hearing at which parents or legal custodians may enter admissions to the petition alleging abuse or neglect or an amended petition based on an agreement.

Disposition Hearing

Disposition is the stage of the dependency court process that follows the adjudication of abuse or neglect. At disposition, the court determines who shall have custody and control of the child and how the case will proceed to achieve reunification or some other permanency plan for the child.

Review Hearing

In review hearings,the court comprehensively reviews the status of the case. Review hearings examine progress made by the parties since the conclusion of the disposition hearing, and provide an opportunity for correction and revision of the case plan. Review hearings ensure that cases progress and children spend as short a time as possible in temporary placements.

Permanency Hearing

Permanency planning focuses on locating and supporting a lifetime family and connections for children and youth. Permanence can be the result of preservation of the family, reunification with the birth family, or legal guardianship or adoption by kin, fictive kin, or other caring and committed adults. The permanency hearing represents a deadline for the court to determine the final plan in a neglect or abuse case wherein the judge makes a determination about the plan for the child. The permanency hearing is a crucial means of implementing ASFA’s mandate of achieving expeditious permanency for children, ending foster care drift, and ensuring compliance with federal requirements.

Hearings Diagram and bench cards

Child Well-Being

• Has the court fully considered well-being issues including education, physical and dental health, and mental/emotional/developmental health?
• Does the placement facilitate a sense of “normalcy” by supporting the child’s participation in developmentally appropriate activities and events? (P.L. 113-183)
• If the child has been missing from placement(s), why did the child leave? How will the agency address those factors in current/subsequent placements? What experiences did the child have while absent? Was the child exposed to traumatic events? How will the current/subsequent placements address any needs resulting from that trauma? (P.L. 113-183)

Juvenile and family courts play an important role in our communities towards improving the lives of children and families. Courts work with our nation’s most vulnerable children and families and are uniquely positioned to help identify individuals who have experienced trauma, ensure provision of appropriate intervention services, and promote healing and prevent additional trauma for youth, families and staff. Trauma responsive courts recognize the adversities and challenges that families endure including mental health, substance use, family violence, educational disengagement, and trauma or adverse experiences. The focus for courts, then, becomes ensuring that the physical and social environments are sensitive to reducing stress, practices reflect an understanding of trauma triggers (e.g., well-designed security procedures), and policies are designed to help promote healing (e.g., screening and treatment).They should also have the capacity to respond effectively to victims of trauma by creating a healing environment that promotes safety, agency, and meaningful social connections.

Approaching individuals through this holistic and contextual lens encourages responsiveness to the needs of children and families, versus processing based on the needs of institutions (e.g., hearing schedule preferences). Responding in a developmentally informed, and thus trauma-responsive manner, has also been hypothesized to enhance a sense of procedural justice by putting in place supports and interventions that are tailored to the needs of children, youth, and families, which ultimately improves case outcomes in general.

Judges should be setting the expectation early on in child abuse and neglect cases that children, youth, and families should be treated in a trauma-informed manner.

Trauma responsive courts should strive to:

Create a shared understanding with stakeholders regarding trauma and how it affects the behavior of the youth and families involved in the system.

Authentically engage parents and children in the court process, including in dependency hearings.

Ensure parents and children have voice and choice.

Asking trauma-informed questions can help judges identify children and families who need or could benefit from trauma-informed services from a mental health professional.

Ensure that treatment is gender-specific and uses the principles of trauma-informed care.

Juvenile and family courts are tasked with ensuring

Monitoring of the effectiveness of the system through the development of data information systems specifically focused on dependency case processing and performance measurement

Juvenile and family courts must focus not only on the timeliness of case processing and decisionmaking, but also on the quality of the process and the outcomes resulting from the court’s efforts. Performance measurement makes it possible for courts to diagnose and assess areas in need of improvement and review progress in those areas.

Developing objective and qualitative measurements of practice is essential to a court’s capacity to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its operations and to sustain those improvements. Like child welfare agencies, juvenile and family courts must focus not only on the timeliness of case processing and decisionmaking, but also on the quality of the process and the outcomes resulting from the court’s efforts. Courts must focus on child safety by assessing their safety performance data and developing plans for improving the safety of children under their jurisdiction. Courts also must focus on ensuring secure, permanent homes for children in foster care and must improve their effectiveness in achieving permanency. In addition, courts need to determine how well they are protecting the rights of the children and adults who come before them. Finally, courts need to set aspirational performance goals in each of these areas—goals designed to focus efforts, motivate staff, evaluate achievements, and lead to better outcomes for children and families.without this essential information, courts with jurisdiction over abuse and neglect cases cannot know what types of improvements they need to make and whether their efforts to improve are working. Performance measurement makes it possible for courts to diagnose and assess areas in need of improvement and review progress in those areas.

In addition, court staff should operate a computerized data system capable of spotting cases that have been seriously delayed and measuring court progress in case flow management.

The information system should be capable of capturing the key dependency court performance measures outlined by OJJDP and HHS, Children’s Bureau, as well as those used in the federal Child and Family 38 II. General Issues Services Reviews (CFSRs).25 The court’s information system should be able, for example, to maintain and report statistics on the length of time from case filing to each major court event and to case closure, as well as report on process and outcomes as they relate to key case demographic features (e.g., age, gender, and race and ethnicity of children and families involved in the court’s cases). These statistics should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of case flow management as well as in the design of interventions to improve the case process and safety, timeliness, and permanency outcomes. Court and agency information systems should be linked and able to share information.