A Note From the Chief Justice
The theme of the 2009 Nebraska Children's Summit was "Action to Impact" to reflect our goal of moving from agreeing on best practices and improving permanency of children in foster care to make sure that our efforts are having a real impact on the lives of children and families. It is clear that we need to become better at measuring what the courts are doing and what the outcomes are for children in our courts. The data reports on case progression timelines that teams received at the Children's Summit are a first step in better monitoring our outcomes. Teams will continue to receive data reports until the JUSTICE court data system can generate reports on a regular basis.
It must be remembered that we are not just counting numbers; we are providing information on what is happening to our children and how the court process may be affecting that. For example, the baseline data shows that judges having a median time to adjudication of less than 30 days had a median time to case closure of 15.5 months. This contrasts quite sharply with the judges that had a median time to adjudication of over 91 days where their median time to case closure was 34.3 months.
Accurate and useful data will also assist in ensuring progress on the three Priorities of the Through the Eyes of the Child Initiative, which are:
- Reduce the time to reunification (for reunified children)
- Improve systems effectiveness with parents with substance abuse issues, namely:
- Timely and appropriate treatment initiated within 30 days
- Court oversight and monitoring
- Improve the use of parenting time to improve permanency
These Priorities are the center of focus of teams across the state and in the activities developed on a statewide level. They are what team members selected as the most important issues to address. For children who can be reunified with their parents, it is important to hold timely and substantive court hearings, to have competent counsel for both children and parents, and to ensure that appropriate services are put in place as soon as possible to correct the conditions that led to out-of-home placement. As a large percentage of cases involve parents with substance abuse issues, courts have the responsibility to ensure appropriate treatment is provided to the parent on a timely basis, and that children do not languish in foster care while parents are placed on a waiting list. In addition, as the use of parenting time (formerly known as visitation) has been shown to improve the chances of reunification, courts must ensure that adequate, age-appropriate and meaningful parenting time is offered in every case where the child is in out-of-home care.
There is still a great deal of work to do to make a significant positive impact on the permanency of children in foster care. I truly appreciate the dedication of court professionals to improving the lives of children in our care.
A Letter from the Chief Justice, Fall 2008
A Letter from the Chief Justice, Spring 2008
