A Letter From the Chief Justice
A look back at five years and what we have accomplished
This fall marks the fifth anniversary of the Through the Eyes of the Child Initiative. The Initiative was launched in Nebraska City in September, 2006, when 200 Nebraska professionals gathered together to learn, talk, and plan about how we could do better as a court system in our work with children in our child welfare system. Those present at that first Children's Summit chose the name "Through the Eyes of the Child" to remind us that the child's perspective, needs, and developmental timeline should be front and center considerations as local multidisciplinary teams began their collaborative work in bringing best court and legal practices to their communities.
A great deal has been accomplished through the Initiative. In 2006, few courts around the state permitted or encouraged children to attend and participate in their hearings. In 2011, children's attendance is required or encouraged in almost all courts. In 2006, most temporary custody hearings were primarily focused on informing parents of their rights and appointing attorneys for them. In 2011, most courts utilize pre-hearing conferences involving represented parties prior to these hearings, resulting in more children quickly going home or to the homes of relatives, more parents getting started on needed services, and early identification of key legal issues at the start of the child's entry into the system. In 2006, no courts had information about how they were doing regarding the timeliness of hearings or the child welfare outcomes of children in their jurisdiction. Since 2009, the Initiative has provided annual data reports to teams, and those reports provide critical information about how each team is doing. The data reports are used by the teams to identify areas of concern, focus efforts, and measure progress. Last year I was able to report that in our first side-by-side comparison of court data, we found that the time to case closure dropped by 5 months between cases that closed in 2008 and cases that closed in 2009. The Initiative will soon make available the third year of data reports. I look forward to seeing the progress that has been made in the past year.
There have been far too many impressive accomplishments by individual teams to list them all in this space. For example, District 10-Team 1 (Clay, Nuckolls, and Webster Counties), led by Judge Michael Offner, has established a Master Progression Schedule to ensure that each case proceeds within best practice time frames and has also developed the use of Internet technology to allow long distance video access to those unable to attend court hearings. District 3 (Lancaster County), led by Judge Roger Heideman, has implemented practices to identify, locate, and verify fathers at the start of cases and has focused on shortening the time frame for adjudications. Several teams around the state have "experimented" with pre-hearing conferences several weeks prior to the permanency hearing. These conferences have contributed to more information and more focus at the permanency hearing, and consequently more children achieving permanency. The success of these permanency pre-hearing conferences has persuaded DHHS to fund them across the state.
The 5th anniversary of the Through the Eyes Initiative coincides with my 5th anniversary as Chief Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court. Former Chief Justice John Hendry invited me to participate in that first Summit a few days before I was sworn in. It has been my privilege to preside over this Initiative since those first days and to witness the commitment and accomplishments of so many judges, attorneys, and others involved in our system who have worked together to improve our court system for children.
Thank you for your hard work. I look forward to seeing what the next five years will bring.
Sincerely,
A Note from the Chief Justice, October 2010
A Note from the Chief Justice, June 2010
A Note from the Chief Justice, Fall 2009
A Letter from the Chief Justice, Fall 2008
A Letter from the Chief Justice, Spring 2008
