Reducing Domestic Violence and Improving Outcomes for Children: Funding Civil Legal Aid to Maximize Impact

• Published date: 01 October 2019
• Author: Casey Chiappetta
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12440
• Date: 01 October 2019

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

REDUCING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND IMPROVING OUTCOMES

FOR CHILDREN: FUNDING CIVIL LEGAL AID TO MAXIMIZE

IMPACT

Casey Chiappetta

Domestic violence survivors and children in foster care often experience significant unmet civil legal needs. Legal aid ser-

vices, when adequately funded, can help close the justice gap for these two populations while improving safety, stability, and

court efficiencies. However, despiteample literature demonstrating how legal aid can improve outcomes, almost half of those

seeking legal aid services are turned away due to lack of resources. This article reviewsthe research and data about how legal

aid can improve outcomes for people in the domestic violence and child welfare contexts. It also discusses how several state-

administered federal funding opportunities—including the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Victim Assistance Formula Grant

Program, Title IV-D child support funds, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) basic block grants—can

fund the needed civil legal help.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

Domestic violence survivors may require assistance with filing protection orders, obtaining custody, securing and

retaining housing, rectifying identity theft, and maintaining employment.

When court-based services help self-represented litigants with custody, visitation, and paternity matters, domestic

violence survivors can better access safety for themselves and their children.

Receiving full legal representation has been shown to help domestic violence survivors obtain protective orders, gain

custody of their children, and navigate the divorce process.

When legal aid helps address some of the underlying legal needs of families, it can prevent a child from entering fos-

ter care; if the child does enter, it can reduce time spent in foster care.

Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Victim Assistance Formula Grants, Title IV-D child support funds, and Temporary

Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) basic block grants are three state-administered sources of federal funding that

allow states discretion to use funds for civil legal aid for domesticviolence survivors, parents with child support mat-

ters, and children in foster care.

Keywords: Child Welfare; Civil Legal Aid; Domestic Violence; Foster Care; Funding Legal Aid; and Self-Help Services.

Survivors of domestic violence (DV) and their children have attendant civil legal needs that too

often go unmet. They may require help filing for protective orders, obtaining custody of their chil-

dren, keeping or securing housing, rectifying identity theft, and maintaining employment.

1

DV sur-

vivors present almost double the civil legal needs of other low-income individuals,

2

but like others,

they are unlikely to acknowledge their problems as legal in nature or seek out legal assistance.

3

For purposes of this article, legal aid includes court-based and other self-help services, limited

representation, and full representation. When a DV survivor receives any form of legal aid, he or

she is more likely to succeed in court. Nationally, the Self-Represented Litigation Network esti-

mates that approximately 60 percent of people in civil cases self-represent.

4

Although there is no

national figure of how many DV survivors self-represent, studies have continuously shown that DV

survivors are among the most likely to self-represent, reporting that between 80

5

and 97 percent of

DV survivors self-represent.

6

When self-help services for certain legal problems are available, those

Corresponding: caseychiappetta@gmail.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 57 No. 4, October 2019 465–477

© 2019 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts