The Effects of Judicial Personnel on Hearing and Outcome Timeliness in Juvenile Dependency Cases

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12072
• Author: Stephanie O. Macgill,Steve M. Wood,Alicia Summers,Jesse R. Russell
• Date: 01 January 2014
• Published date: 01 January 2014

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

THE EFFECTS OF JUDICIAL PERSONNEL ON HEARING AND

OUTCOME TIMELINESS IN JUVENILE DEPENDENCY CASES

Steve M. Wood, Jesse R. Russell, Stephanie O. Macgill, and Alicia Summers

This article examines how the amount of judicial personnel workhours available for each juvenile dependency case in a county

may be related to the percentage of cases reaching key decision hearings in a timely manner. Panel analyses of data from

Washington State indicate that, when controlling for community risk factors, counties with more judicial personnel per case

held timely fact-finding and permanency planning hearings more often and more often achieved timely adoptions. Judicial

personnel per case, however, was not a significant predictor of the percentage of permanent placements completed within

timeliness goals.

Keypoints

• Many states are not achieving the requirements of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), leading to children

languishing in care

• The juvenile dependency system needs to examine ways in whichit can increase the timeliness of safe and per manent

placements for children

• Courts are being overburdened with an increase in juvenile dependency petition filings without a corresponding

increase in judicial personnel

• Courts should increase their number of judicial staff, so they can process cases faster and meet outcome goals more easily

Keywords: Judicial Personnel;Juvenile Dependency;Permanent Placement;Timeliness;andWorkload.

Identifying the factors that critically relate to increases in the number of safe and timely permanent

placements for children has been a focus of many researchers in the juvenile dependency field

(e.g., Benedict & White, 1991; Courtney, 1994; Harris & Courtney, 2003). With the passage of the

Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997, federal mandates require children to be placed in

safe and permanent homes. ASFA also requires that this placement occur in a timely manner. Unless

exceptions exist, states must initiate termination of parental rights proceedings if the child has been

in foster care for 15 months or more of the most recent 22 months. In addition to ASFA, states have

implemented their own statutes to decrease the amount of time between the removal of children to

foster care and key hearings. For example,Washington State requires a fact-finding hearing within 75

days of petition filing (RCW 13.34.070[1]) because there is an expectation that delays in holding this

hearing may result in prolonged court involvementand lengthy stays in foster care for children (Center

for Court Research, 2010).

The federal government has not been satisfied with the performance of many states in meeting the

requirements of ASFA (Meckler, 2003). The Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) allows the

federal government to examine whether states have been successful on seven child welfare outcomes

related to safety (e.g., timeliness of investigations), permanency (e.g., re-entry and stability of foster

care placements), and well-being (e.g., educational needs of child). The findings from these reviews

indicate that only a small percentage of states achieved “substantial conformity” with any of the seven

outcomes. To be considered to have substantial conformity, at least 90% of applicablecases reviewed

in a state must have been rated as “substantially achieving” the specific outcome. Of the seven, none

Correspondence: swood@ncjfcj.org

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 52 No. 1, January 2014 90–99

© 2014 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts