NEWS RELEASE

www.ncsconline.org

 

Contact: 
Lorri Montgomery, Communications Manager
The National Center for State Courts
300 Newport Avenue
Williamsburg, VA 23185-4147
757.259.1525
 lmontgomery@ncsc.dni.us 

NCSC Receives Grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts 
To Improve Court Results for Children

Williamsburg, VA (May 25, 2005) – The National Center for State Courts has received a $400,000 grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to bring a national focus to the need for judicial leadership in improving the system for protecting children who have been neglected or abused. Additional support for this project is also being provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, Fostering Results, and the State Justice Institute.

“We are deeply grateful to The Pew Charitable Trusts and our other funders,” said Mary Campbell McQueen, NCSC president. “The National Center can now move forward with our initiative to better protect endangered children who are the subject of court proceedings and to improve the handling of child welfare cases.”

 

Maureen Byrnes, director The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Policy Initiatives and Health and Human Services Program, said, “Thanks to the efforts of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care and many others, there exists a window of opportunity to achieve real, constructive foster care reform.”

With the grant, the Conference of Chief Justices, the Conference of State Court Administrators, the NCSC, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges are sponsoring a National Judicial Leadership Summit for the Protection of Children in Minneapolis in September 2005. The Summit will bring teams of court and child welfare agency leaders from each state and territory together to discuss the reforms needed to place abused and neglected children permanently and safely into homes. The Summit also will set the stage for a National Call to Action for state courts and launch a collaborative reform plan between the courts and child welfare agencies at state and local levels.

The NCSC has conducted extensive research in the area of family courts and child protection. Recently, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) – for which the NCSC serves as executive staff – identified the need to protect children who are in the court system as a priority. At the same time, other leadership groups, such as The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, were creating ways to support reform efforts in the foster care system. CCJ and COSCA endorsed the Pew Commission’s recommendations for strengthening courts, which call for courts to:  

  • adopt court performance measures to ensure they track cases, to increase accountability, and to inform decisions about the allocation of court resources;

  • create incentives and requirements to require effective collaboration between courts and child welfare agencies;

  • provide children and parents a strong voice in court and effective representation by trained attorneys and advocates; and

  • promote more effective standards for dependency court judges and attorneys.

These recommendations will serve as the Summit’s framework to help state court leaders identify the resources they need to make the necessary changes to improve court outcomes for children and families.

The Pew Charitable Trusts serves the public interest by providing information, policy solutions and support for civic life. Based in Philadelphia, with an office in Washington, D.C., the Trusts make investments to provide organizations and citizens with fact-based research and practical solutions for challenging issues. With approximately $4.1 billion in dedicated assets, in 2003 the Trusts committed more than $143 million to 151 nonprofit organizations.  

The National Center for State Courts, founded in 1971 by Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger, is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the administration of justice and provides leadership, research, technology, education, and training to the state courts. The National Center also is taking the lead on several key issues facing the justice system. For example, the National Center is working to improve citizens’ participation in the jury system, reform the judicial selection process, and develop a model policy on public access to court records. The National Center is headquartered in Williamsburg, Va., with offices in Washington, D.C. and Denver, Colo.

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