Guest Editors’ Introduction to the 2020 Special Issue on Dependency Courts

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Author: Rebecca M. Stahl,Kelly Browe Olson,Philip M. Stahl
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12521
• Date: 01 October 2020

SPECIAL ISSUE: DEPENDENCY COURTS

GUEST EDITORS’INTRODUCTION TO THE 2020 SPECIAL ISSUE

ON DEPENDENCY COURTS

Kelly Browe Olson,

1

Philip M. Stahl

2

, and Rebecca M. Stahl

3

We are honored to be the special issue editors of this October 2020 Family Court Review

publication, and it has been our privilege to work with the contributors to prepare this special issue.

Since the inception of special issues in the 1990s, there have been more than sixty, with more on

the way in future volumes. There has been a myriad of special issue topics, mostly focused on pri-

vate family law cases or international issues. Before this publication, there have been six issues

devoted to children at risk and the dependency system, including mediation and family conferenc-

ing in dependency court, reform of the child protection system, the ABA Youth at Risk Initiative,

adoption (twice) and foster care, and transitioning from teenage years to adulthood, all between

2001 and 2010. We are pleased and honored to bring this worthwhile issue examining the child

welfare system in 2020 to Family Court Review.

The child welfare system in the United States had a slow start. Although a few states had

introduced laws protecting children beginning in the early 1900s, two advancements in the 1960s

changed child protection significantly.

1

In 1962, the Journal of the American Medical Association

described symptoms of child abuse and deemed child abuse to be medically diagnosable.

2

Then, in

1963, the popular television show, Ben Casey, MD, dramatized and provided reputable statistics

about child abuse, which increased awareness in the general population.

3

By 1972, every state

had mandated reporting laws, and in 1974 the federal government passed the Child Abuse and

Prevention Treatment Act that funded programs to help identify and report child abuse and to

provide shelter and protective services to victims.

4

During the past fifty years, the child welfare system has seen many changes, and the number of

children in the system has increased significantly, as have societal issues affecting families, includ-

ing substance use, family violence, and others. According to Judge Howze’s article, there were over

430,000 children in the foster care system, and nearly 700,000 children were served in the foster

care system at the end of the fiscal year 2018. Our hope with this special issue is to examine some

concerns and successes within the child welfare system and to offer some ideas for future innova-

tions. As this special issue’s articles were coming to completion, the novel coronavirus and the need

for social distancing sent shock waves through the entire world and turned the child welfare system

upside down. Several articles address the impact and we have included a specific article addressing

the pandemic’s impact on the families and professionals in child welfare, examining what we have

learned and what we can potentially learn from these extraordinary times. In addition, we have

included a reflection piece on how the pandemic has affected one particular juvenile court.

The articles in this special issue focus on several key themes. They are grouped in three sections.

The first section focuses on research associated with the child welfare system. Ryan Davidson,

Megan Irgins, and Connie Beck examine a cross-section of families who return to the child welfare

system after a previous termination of parental rights. They identify several families in an Arizona

court and describe the common characteristics of families who returned with subsequent children

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 58 No. 4, October 2020 870–872, doi: 10.1111/fcre.12521

© 2020 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts