Courting Disaster: Permanency Planning for Children

The decisions made by those who work in our Nation’s juvenile and family courts are inestimably difficult. During a recent lecture at the National College of Juvenile and Family Law in Reno, Nevada, the speaker asked if any of the judges present could recall rendering a decision in a case in which a dependent child had suffered injury or died in foster care. Nearly half of the men and women in the audience raised their hands. The speaker then asked who could recall a case in which they had ruled against substitute placement of an allegedly abused or ne- glected child, and the child had been further victimized or died while remaining in the care of his or her parents. Again, hands went up.