The Enhanced Resource Guidelines: A Blueprint For Improving Court Practice In Child Welfare Cases

• Author: Andrew Wachter,Melissa Gueller,Connie Hickman Tanner
• Date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12523
• Published date: 01 October 2020

THE ENHANCED RESOURCE GUIDELINES: A BLUEPRINT FOR

IMPROVING COURT PRACTICE IN CHILD WELFARE CASES

Melissa Gueller, Andrew Wachter, and Connie Hickman Tanner

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (“NCJFCJ”) provides training and technical assistance to juvenile

and family courts across the country. Since 1995, the NCJFCJ has worked to improve the lives of children and families in

child abuse and neglect cases with the Model Courts and Implementation Sites projects using the Enhanced Resource Guide-

lines as a foundation. This article describes the history and evolution of the Enhanced Resource Guidelines, identifies key

principles and practices implemented by demonstration sites, shares lessons learned from judges leading reform efforts, and

highlights preliminary results from research and evaluation efforts. Research has indicated that implementation of the

Enhanced Resource Guidelines is associated with increased judicial continuity throughout the case, increased engagement of

families during hearings, decreased time to permanency, and fewer out of home placements for children. Judicial leaders can

make improvements on and off the bench by improving the quality of their hearings and practice as recommended in the

Enhanced Resource Guidelines.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

The Enhanced Resource Guidelines include Key Principles and other best practices to improve the handling of child

abuse and neglect hearings and improve outcomes for children and families.

The Enhanced Resource Guidelines and the original Resource Guidelines have been implemented in juvenile and

family courts across the country for decades and judges share lessons learned from their implementation efforts.

Preliminary research suggests implementing the Enhanced Resource Guidelines can improve case processing time,

increase engagement of children and families during hearings and other.

Keywords: Abuse and Neglect; Child Welfare; Court Improvement; Dependency; Family Court; JuvenileCourt.

I. INTRODUCTION

A. RESOURCE GUIDELINES

In an effort to better equip judicial officers overseeing child abuse and neglect cases, the

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (“NCJFCJ”) developed the Resource Guide-

lines: Improving Court Practice in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases over a three-year period.

1

The

guidelines were developed by a committee of judicial officers and subject matter experts who had a

vast amount of knowledge and experience handling child abuse and neglect cases. Once released,

the Resource Guidelines were endorsed by the NCJFCJ Board of Trustees, the Conference of Chief

Justices, and the American Bar Association.

2

The Resource Guidelines became the blueprint for the

NCJFCJ’s efforts to provide training and technical assistance to judges presiding over child abuse

and neglect cases from courts across the country. The Resource Guidelines were grounded in four

basic concepts: judicial leadership; efficient management of child abuse and neglect cases; timely

decision-making; and fairness and due process.

3

These principles helped courts to better translate

ideas for systems change into specific practices and became the basis for future revisions to the

Resource Guidelines.

Correspondence: mgueller@ncjfcj.org

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 58 No. 4, October 2020 882–896, doi: 10.1111/fcre.12523

© 2020 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts