by Dori B. Jones, Esq.
THE CHILDREN’S CORNER
Why Would a Lawyer Choose to Practice in Family Court in Abuse, Neglect, and Delinquency Matters?
Having chosen that path, why would an at- torney stay with it for twenty years? For me, it has been about speaking truth to power. Judges in family court have huge amounts of power over the families who appear in front of them. They can remove children from fam- ilies, determine visitation schedules, and or- der programming. They can terminate pa- rental rights and release children for adop- tion. Prosecutors and social workers have only slightly less power.
Nearly all judges, social workers, and pros- ecutors are doing the best they can to pro- tect children and preserve families, but our legal system recognizes that, in order to make the best decisions, they need to listen to the children and the parents themselves. Giving families and children attorneys makes everyone else slow down and listen. Listen to the children’s truth. Hear the love in the family’s voices. Hear that they have strengths, not just weaknesses. Even if they lose, they will know that they have been heard. Here’s an example—the last case that kept me up at night. F.S. became my client when he was four years old. His mother’s paren- tal rights had been terminated due to men- tal illness, and he’d been adopted along with his older sisters by his grandmother. Unfor- tunately, grandma too became mentally un- stable and F.S. was the primary target of her rage. Finally, the extended family, unable to bear the way F.S. was being treated, called DCF. The family court removed the children from the home and terminated the grand- mother’s parental rights. The older sisters settled right in with an aunt and were adopt-
ed. F.S., however, had severe post-traumat- ic stress disorder and was so aggressive that he was rejected from several pre-adoptive foster homes. Finally, a distant cousin volun- teered to be a foster parent for F.S. F.S. was difficult in his new foster home too, but the cousin persevered. F.S., through her advocacy, got a full-time aide in school and a fine therapist. DCF, however, kept pressuring the cousin to adopt. The cousin refused. Four years passed. Then DCF decid- ed to place F.S. in a pre-adoptive home in Mississippi, where the boy had no relations, no friends, and a state with the worst schools and social services in the nation. Predictably, the placement imploded. F.S. was extremely violent and aggressive in his new home. DCF brought him back to Ver- mont and placed him in a residential insti- tution. DCF refused to consider placing him home with his cousin, even though this was what he, his guardian ad litem, his therapist, and his cousin wanted. DCF insisted that it would be best to send him back south. After extensive litigation, F.S. is now back home with his cousin here in Vermont. He is happy and loved. I helped F.S., his cous- in, and his therapist speak their truth to the judge who held power over their lives. The judge listened. That’s what makes this prac- tice worthwhile to me. ____________________ Dori B. Jones, Esq. has worked doing criminal appeals, legal aid and trial level pub- lic defense. She is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and received the 2011 Grego- ry Packen Outstanding Children’s Advocacy Award.
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THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • SPRING 2012
www.vtbar.org
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