"There's No Place Like Home": Preventing the Intergenerational Cycle of Foster Care
Overview
In this Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar, Maria Griglio will discuss the reasons for and benefits of a preventative legal program for parents whose children are at risk of child welfare involvement. Griglio will provide historical context and statistics showing that there is a disproportionate number of Black children in the child welfare system, and that Black families are traditionally subject to over surveillance. She will also show how the majority of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) investigations are due to general neglect allegations, which are most often not substantiated, yet could result in the trauma of a DCFS investigation. The presentation will then discuss the benefit of preventative legal advocacy for these families and will focus on the Children’s Law Center’s Family Support and Advocacy Center, which provides preventative legal advocacy and social services support for parents who had prior child welfare involvement as children.
Learning objectives
- Explain how Black children are overrepresented in the child welfare system
- Identify potential ways that undergoing a DCFS investigation can have harmful effects on a family
- Assess a fact pattern to determine whether it qualifies as general neglect
- Describe how preventative legal services can benefit a family by outfitting families with legal knowledge
Professional credit
- This activity offers the following types of credit: APA
- 1.0 CEs are available.
- Additional details can be found in the activity document for this resource.