Family Defense Council

We are working to ensure excellent legal representation for every child and family navigating the child welfare system in all 50 states.

The Family Defense Council helps courts, public defender offices and legal aid organizations build the proven hallmarks of high-quality parent and child legal representation.

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5 pillars of high-quality child and parent representation

We've identified five hallmarks of high-quality parent and child representation, each backed by field evidence and eligible, in whole or part, for Title IV-E support. (Click each card to learn how we help.)

Statewide offices of family representation

A statewide office brings consistency, training standards and balanced caseloads to parent and child representation.

How we help:

Build your case for a statewide office.
Support design of the governance and funding structure.
Help you plan the transition.

Interdisciplinary teams

The strongest representation model pairs an attorney with an independent social worker and a trained peer-parent advocate, backed by manageable caseloads.

How we help:

Build the staffing plan, training pipeline and caseload standards.
Make the Title IV-E case for funding social work and peer roles alongside the legal ones.

Law clinics

Law-school clinics dedicated to family defense accomplish two things at once: 1) they represent parents and children today; and 2) they train the next generation of attorneys who will carry this work forward.

How we help:

Build a national network of law-school clinics that can learn from and support one another by sharing resources, expertise and proven approaches to preparing practice-ready advocates, while expanding representation capacity in communities where the need is greatest.

Pre-petition legal services

Most families who come into contact with the child welfare system are not there because of abuse, but due to poverty-related impacts.

How we help:

Design pre-petition intervention initiatives.
Connect families with family resource centers and community supports.
Build the funding case for early, preventive counsel.

Note: our ACF-affiliated white paper, A Home for Every Child Begins With the One They Already Have, lays out the full evidence base and funding pathway for pre-petition representation.

Prevention services

Keeping families together works best when the work begins before a case reaches the courtroom.

How we help:

Connect your legal representation strategy with the broader prevention infrastructure including family resource centers, kinship navigation and family-finding resources.

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Program overview

Who we work with:

Judges and court officials

Public defender and assigned counsel programs

Legal aid organizations

Law clinics

Court improvement programs

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Title IV-E Funding and Sustainability

Turn capacity into funding opportunities.

Title IV-E funding can help sustain and expand legal representation for parents and children. FDC helps legal providers connect with the right partners and expertise to explore IV-E reimbursement and build a path to implementation.

We can help you:

Identify potential IV-E funding opportunities

Connect with reimbursement and cost-allocation experts.

Draft MOUs and cost-tracking and invoice systems.

Explore what IV-E Funding can make possible for your program.

Ready to get started?

Child welfare-involved parents and children deserve counsel with deep experience in the system -- a team that understands their case and has the time and training to zealously advocate for them. If your organization is ready to build toward that future, we're ready to help.

Talk with Family Defense Council