Beyond the Bench 2019 – Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Melissa Gutierrez, Educational Liaison, San Diego County Office of Education
Michael Huesca, Chief Executive Officer, Paternal Opportunities Programs and Services (POPS)

Our youth have experienced difficult times in their lives...abuse, neglect, trauma, poor decision-making. Our collective task is to assist them on their journey to a strong, supportive family that will help the youth heal and set them on the path to a successful adulthood.  When we work as a team, challenge each other, be creative and take thoughtful risks, all youth can enjoy life with a family...but it takes ALL of us!

Denise Goodman, PhD, LISW, ACSW, Child Welfare Trainer and Consultant, California Department of Social Services

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Hon. Stephen Manley, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara

Dasan Lopes, Son

Stephanie Moniz, Mother

Denali Tiller, Director/Producer, Tre Maison Dasan

Prevention services are a critical component of keeping families together and helping children thrive. As we strive to move toward a child welfare system that prioritizes prevention, it is important to be mindful about the unintended consequences different prevention strategies can have on children and families, particularly in those instances when a child needs to be moved out of their home for their own protection and safety.  This session will discuss the impacts of the increasingly widespread practice of child welfare intervention to divert children at risk of entering foster care from juvenile court by encouraging relatives to petition for probate guardianship of these children.

We will explore the different ways that children come to live with a relative or extended family member (i.e. probate guardianships, voluntary placement agreements, voluntary family services, and other informal care arrangements) and how the use of kinship care to prevent opening a foster care case can have unintended and negative consequences on the very children and families that our system seeks to support. Specifically, presenters will share data about the demographics of kinship caregivers and children who are placed in informal kinship care versus a formal foster care placement with a relative.  We will contrast the different services and supports available to children placed in foster care with those placed with relatives outside of foster care.  We will explore the impacts of various prevention practices on child safety, access to funding and services, due process protections for parents and children, legal permanency, and health care and educational decision-making authority. Finally, presenters will share best practices and recommendations to ensure children in kinship families have access to the supports, services and benefits they need to thrive.

Carolyn Griesemer, Executive Director, Children's Legal Services of San Diego
Angie Schwartz, Policy Director, Alliance for Children's Rights

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According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, among persons aged 12 or older, the rate of substance dependence or abuse is higher among American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) than any other population group.  AI/AN youth are disproportionately suffering from substance use, co-occurring disorders, and are often over-represented in the juvenile justice system.  Increasing research shows youth incarceration is ineffective, excessively expensive, and harmful. This session will focus on effective interventions utilizing developmentally appropriate strategies to support justice-involved youth, system change through leadership and community, identifying and referring AI/AN youth for culturally appropriate services, youth residential treatment centers designed for AI/AN youth, and will provide practitioners with culturally informed processes that can augment their skill sets with a goal of improving outcomes for tribal youth and youth of color.

Hon. Lawrence King, Chief Judge, Colorado River Indian Tribes
Vida Castaneda, MSW, Senior Analyst, Judicial Council of California
Mark Espinosa, MPHA, Health System Administrator, California Area Indian Health Service
Carrie Greene, Behavioral Health Consultant, Indian Health Service

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Tre Maison Dasan Podcast - This podcast features an interview with Denali Tiller, director and producer of the film Tre Maison Dasan, and Dasan Lopes and Stephanie Moniz who are featured in the film. Tre Maison Dasan follows three boys growing up, each with a parent in prison.

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Almost ninety years ago, several young African American men, mostly teenagers, were falsely accused, charged and convicted for rape, in what became known as the case of Scottsboro Boys. In 1989, five teenagers, known as the Central Park 5, were charged with attempted murder, assault and rape. Four were convicted of assault and rape, a fifth convicted of the added charge for attempted murder.  In 2002, the now adult former teenagers were exonerated, but the collateral damage and consequences of their wrongful convictions is what this session will explore.

This session is a continuation of the preconference session “Beyond Trauma-Informed Care: The Epigenetics of Racial and Historical Trauma”  and an opportunity for an intimate dialogue with Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park 5, about the case, its impact on him and the others convicted, his view of the criminal justice system and whether it can be fixed.

Hon. Trina Thompson, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda
Cephus "Uncle Bobby X" Johnson, Co-founder and Executive Director, Love Not Blood Campaign
Yusef Salaam, Motivational Speaker, Yusef Speaks

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Cutting-edge neuroscience research shows that chronic stress and trauma alter youth brain development and impact their behavior - reducing their capacity for emotion regulation and empathy, affecting everything they do. Juvenile Justice formal agents (courts, corrections, police, probation) as well as education, mental health and child welfare professionals, caregivers and more, who are involved in serving these youth, imbibe secondary/vicarious trauma, which affects optimal professional performance as well as personal sustainability.  This workshop will present the latest scientific findings on the impact of toxic stress and trauma on brain development and behavior, and discuss optimal solutions for mitigating these impacts, validated by neuroscience, trauma research and somatic psychology.

This dynamic and interactive workshop will combine short didactic sections with small-group breakouts and large-group experiential practice. The workshop will integrate cognitive, emotional and kinesthetic learning. Participants will leave with an experiential taste of Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind), so they can feel its impact for themselves - an experience that they can immediately apply in their lives and work, personally and professionally. The collective wisdom and experience of participants will be captured from small-group discussions and shared with the larger group.  In the spirit of ‘It Takes A Village’ – this workshop will provide the theory and powerful practices that anyone can do anywhere, to mitigate the effects of chronic/toxic stress and primary/secondary trauma. We will explore approaches to balance our efforts on our external environments (systems/organizations) with transformative efforts on our internal environments (information processing, emotion regulation). We will discuss a dissemination model that can enable everyone involved – children/youth, families/caregivers, and professionals in juvenile justice, mental health, child welfare, education, and more – to function more optimally, and join forces more effectively.

Bidyut Bose, PhD, Founder and Executive Director, Niroga Institute

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For the first time in decades, Reasonable Efforts is a hot topic according to the Children's Bureau of the Federal Administration of Children and Families. This workshop will discuss what reasonable efforts are, their history, and the challenges facing judges and attorneys in making meaningful reasonable decisions. This session will rely on hypothetical situations, videos, and audience participation.

Hon. Leonard Edwards (Ret.), Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara
Hon. Michael Nash (Ret.), Executive Director, Office of Child Protection

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Stephanie Moniz, Mother

The Los Angeles County, Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), and the Los Angeles Office of County Counsel, has the only dedicated Child Abduction Hague Unit in the State of California.  This is a group of social workers and County Counsel attorney's that are trained in all aspects of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.  When a Hague hearing is set in the foreign country a member of the DCFS Hague Unit travels to that country to participate in the hearing and argue for the return of the child.  Participants will learn how to complete an application under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, with special emphasis on applications submitted to Mexico. Participants will also learn alternative options for when a Hague application is not feasible. Examples include welfare and whereabouts visits, petitions for access, and working with foreign nationals. Case examples will be provided of actual Hague hearing that occurred including photos, case descriptions, and outcomes.

Michelle Lucarelli-Beltran, LCSW, Supervising Children's Social Worker, Department of Children and Family Services
Alyssa Skolnick, Principal Deputy County Counsel, Office of the County Counsel, County of Los Angeles

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School shootings are occurring at an alarming rate around the country but nowhere is the gun violence crisis more evidence than in our under-served urban communities where homicide rates often reach 10 times the national average. Young Black men are especially vulnerable - the chance of a Black American family losing a son to a bullet is 62% greater than losing him to a car accident. Additionally, domestic violence and suicide prevention and intervention are enhanced by addressing access to, and prohibitions against, firearms. While some of these issues have too often been left out of the national conversation about guns,  the good news is that change is possible and is happening in cities across the U.S., including here in California.  Join this candid conversation with subject matter experts about approaches to addressing gun violence including the impact on youth, policy and service responses to gun violence, and strategies for collaboration.

Hon. L. Michael Clark, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara
Shani Buggs, PhD, MPH, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Davis
Yasmine Mabene, California State Director, March for Our Lives
Mike McLively, Senior Staff Attorney and Community Violence Initiative Director, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Julia Weber, JD, MSW, Implementation Fellow, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence

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Last year the legislature passed AB 1810, creating mental health diversion (Penal Code sections 1001.35 and 1001.36). Many parents who suffer from mental health and co-occurring substance use disorders find themselves subject to the jurisdiction of both the dependency and criminal courts. Mental health diversion presents a unique opportunity to use treatment plans developed in the dependency case to keep a parent out of prison and in the community under dual court supervision. By linking the criminal and dependency cases, the court can leverage reunification both as an impetus for engagement in services and as a rubric for measuring successful participation in diversion. Moreover, non-defendant family members can be assessed for services to mitigate the effects of intergenerational trauma. This presentation will review the fundamentals of mental health diversion, strategies for leveraging a dependency case to support mental health diversion, and a discussion of risk factors for intergenerational trauma.

Hon. Ursula Jones Dickson, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda
Hon. Stephen Manley, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara

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As the leader in providing comprehensive victim-centered and trauma-informed trainings nationwide, RAINN’s expert trainer will walk through how members of the Judicial Council of California’s Center for Families, Children & the Courts (CFCC) community can better support children, families, and victims affected by sexual violence, as they move through the court system. We will begin by providing the group with a comprehensive overview of sexual violence and how the judicial system affects survivors. This will include an overview of the prevalence and scope of sexual violence within the United States, an overview of how trauma affects an individual’s actions and reactions – including their behavior, memory, and emotional responses, and common traumatic responses that can look like lying or deception throughout the judicial process. Then we’ll dive into how participants can apply in their professional roles this understanding of trauma and its lasting impact on victims and witnesses to effectively communicate with and support survivors in a manner that resists re-traumatization, helps obtain necessary information, and can lead to more just outcomes in the court system.

Sunitha Menon, Chief of Consulting Services Operations, Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network

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This workshop will encourage participants to reflect on how they identify and manage their own implicit biases and the impact of implicit bias at decision points within various systems, e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health and education.  The presentation will explore how implicit biases can effect outcomes such as how youth are brought into the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.  Dr. Cameron-Wedding will describe how implicit bias can effect issues such as the utilization of risk assessment tools and determinations of probable cause in juvenile justice cases. Participants will develop an keener understanding of the extent to which implicit bias can contribute to the differential handling of children based on race/ethnicity, social class and gender.

Rita Cameron Wedding, PhD, Professor of Women's Studies and Ethnic Studies, Sacramento State University

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Chronic absence, missing 10% or more of school, is a known early warning sign that students are off track for academic success. When chronic absence reaches high levels, it is a sign that schools, community partners, and public agencies need to work together to develop a comprehensive, prevention oriented approach to improving attendance while also unpacking and addressing barriers that keep students and families from getting to class.  Offered by Hedy Chang of Attendance Works, this session will especially focus on lessons learned for reducing the high chronic absence rates and working with community stakeholders to create positive learning environments that encourage and support regular attendance.

Hedy N. Chang, Founder and Executive Director, Attendance Works

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This workshop will first provide an advanced overview of trauma from a forensic psychologist to ensure that participants are knowledgeable about terms commonly used in juvenile court proceedings that are often misunderstood. Second, implementation of trauma-informed advocacy will be demonstrated through an interactive exercise designed to move practitioners from a “one size fits all” approach, to more tailored and nuanced approaches to criminal justice. Finally, a juvenile court bench officer will share a prospective from the bench and provide recommendations for implementation of a trauma informed model for judges, prosecutors and defense counsel.

Hon. Ana España, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego
Francesca Lehman, PsyD, Forensic Psychologist
Carolyn Levenberg, Administrative Law Judge

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Children, aged 0-5, are the largest growing group of children entering the foster care system. Their developmental and educational outcomes are often impacted by the abuse and neglect they suffer including developmental trauma that impacts brain development, drug and alcohol exposure in utero, delayed speech and motor developmental milestones, and lack of access to early learning opportunities like preschool, early intervention, and special education services. Participants will learn about the regional center system providing early intervention services for children from birth to three years old and the school district system providing special education services for children 3-5 years old. Barriers to accessing services including education rights holders and highly mobile children will be discussed. Attendees will leave armed with the tools necessary to assist the children and families they serve in accessing these services.

Jill Rowland, Education Program Director, Alliance for Children's Rights

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Many Northern Rural California Counties are disproportionately affected by high Adverse Child Experience (ACE) scores relative to other regions in California. The Population Health Innovation Lab (PHIL), a program of the Public Health Institute, is supporting the formation of a Northern California collaborative focused on identifying and addressing opportunities for policy and systems change that mitigate issues of trauma and domestic violence.

Sue Grinnell, Principal Investigator, Public Health Institute
Carrie Parmeter, Program Coordinator II, Human Response Network
Dana Pearlman, Social Innovation Consultant, Public Health Institute - Northern ACEs Collaborative
Lisa Tadlock, Executive Director, Public Health Institute - Northern ACEs Collaborative

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Both federal and California law grant relatives preferential consideration for placement of a child who has been removed from a parent because of allegations of abuse or neglect. However, with sweeping changes to the assessment and approval process imposed by Continuum of Care Reform (CCR), coupled with several recent appellate court opinions, California is still striving for effective and consistent implementation of the relative placement preference across the state. This training will address tools and tips for what can be done to speed up the Resource Family Approval (RFA) process and steps to take to ensure your clients’ relatives do not fall through the cracks.  Additionally, a step-by-step overview of relevant statutory language, case law and state policy on relative placement requirements, as they apply to each hearing in a dependency court proceeding will also be provided. This will include information about recent changes to the criminal history assessment process for prospective caregivers, as well as an overview of changes in funding and financial supports available for children being cared for by relatives. We will also discuss obtaining a more complete picture of why the RFA assessment was approved or denied, how the RFA assessment process intersects with juvenile dependency proceedings, and what remedies may be available when the RFA assessment process has been delayed or denied.

Hon. Martha A. Matthews, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles
Susan Abrams, Director of Policy and Training, Children's Law Center of California
Mary Livingstone, Staff Attorney, Dependency Legal Services of San Diego
Berta Zangari, Firm Director, Dependency Legal Services of San Diego

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Talking about race is hard. Racial disparities create risk for long-lasting harms to children. Many professionals voice frustration with introductory level ‘cultural competency’ trainings that do not provide concrete tools needed to take action to change racial disparities. The conceptual model (Lewis, 2011) uses a trauma-informed, ecological systems framework to focus on the quality of working relationships within organizational systems. Research findings are presented from work with early childhood educators and work with interdisciplinary child welfare teams composed of juvenile court judges, lawyers and social workers using the National Zero to Three Safe Baby Court Teams (SBCT) innovative approach. Participants will be introduced to several tools including the Perception of the Quality of Working Relationships (Lewis, 2009) and successful strategies used by SBCT teams to collect data and set sustainable goals to reduce racial disparities. We discuss evidence of reduction of racial disparities through SBCT delivery of equitable services to young children in the foster care system. Participants will be given the ‘Ten Guidelines for Undoing Bias’ to use for specific goal setting in their communities and courtrooms.

Marva L. Lewis, PhD, Associate Professor, Tulane University School of Social Work

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Between 1973, when the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) was first described in the United States, and the present, this disorder has evolved from a purely medical condition to what some people would suggest is a social epidemic.  We will consider some of the reasons for this evolution and discuss the major impact that social workers, probation officers, mental health professionals, and legal professionals can have on the future of children and their families who are at risk of, or are already affected by, this condition.

Hon. Charles "Steve" Crandall, Presiding Juvenile Court Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of San Luis Obispo
Peggy Combs-Way, Private Consultant, SoCal National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Kenneth Lyons Jones, MD, Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego School of Medicine
Andrea Torzon, MFT, FASD Care Coordinator, Institute for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Discovery

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Children transition from foster care to relatives or back to parents often in the child welfare system. Often times, the system is not aware of the the traumatic impact that this transition can have for the biological family, the child, or the care-giving family. This session will help participants understand these transitions through a trauma informed lens and identify key strategies to help ease the transitions, support resiliency of the child, the biological family and the care-giving family and make the transition permanent.

Jennifer Rexroad, Executive Director, California Alliance of Caregivers
Sara Rogers, Chief, Continuum of Care Reform Branch, California Department of Social Services

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This session summarizes new case law relevant to delinquency and provides an overview of significant appellate and Supreme Court cases affecting delinquency law and policy.

Hon. Charles Smiley, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda

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The speaker will present her work on the data gathering and information about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women database, held by Sovereign Bodies Institute. She will provide an in-depth review of SBI's work tracing, investigating, documenting and mapping cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls describing the connection with domestic violence, sexual assault and sex trafficking. She will highlight issues related to the collection of information by local, state and federal law enforcement and how indigenous identities are often missing or misidentified.  The speaker will describe the process of relationship building with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, how she maintains the confidentiality and integrity of SBI's data base, and its policies regarding sharing of information.  Attendees will have opportunities for small group and large group discussions in this workshop to further identify issues and create solutions for their own communities.

Trafficking Survivor and Expert

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Nearly one in four children in the United States live with immigrant parents, and over 18.6 million children have at least one foreign born parent. In addition, “between 2009 and 2013, almost four million non-citizens were deported and an estimated half-million of those deportees were parents of US citizen children.” (NCJFCJ, 2018) How do social service agencies and juvenile court handle cases where parents are deported or live in foreign countries? How do border communities meet the challenge of working with binational cases. How should attorneys work with parents that are on the other side of the border, that they may never meet in person? In this interactive workshop, meet the team of four professionals from the border community of Imperial County, California that handles binational cases every day. Judge Juan Ulloa, DSS Program Manager Brenda Vera, and Attorney Veronica Henderson will use real world scenarios to show participants how to notice using the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory, work with DIF, conduct UCCJEA calls with foreign countries and more.

Hon. Juan Ulloa, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Imperial
Veronica Henderson, Attorney, Henderson and Ranasinghe LLP
Brenda Vera, MSW, Program Manager, Imperial County Department of Social Services

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During this session, Judge Leonard Edwards will provide a broad overview of the DHCS-funded County Touchpoints project, which is training child welfare workers, court staff, prosecutors, and probation officers about opioid addiction and its treatment, and especially about Medication Assisted Treatment and how persons who interact with parents with addiction can support sobriety and recovery by supporting continuation of the medications.  Dr. Marce Abare will introduce the neuroscience of opioid addiction as a brain disease, discuss the interface of abstinence-based treatment and MAT, and describe the changes in the substance use disorder treatment system now that treatment is a benefit under Drug Medi-Cal for Medi-Cal beneficiaries.  Howard Himes will discuss how national professional organizations expect child welfare workers and justice stakeholders to support MAT in parents, and give some case examples involving dependency courts for discussion.

Hon. Leonard Edwards (Ret.), Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara
Marce Abare, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Reentry Resource Center, Mobile Medical Unit, Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System
Howard Himes, Consultant, Health Management Associates
Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, RN, MPH, Consultant, California Health Policy Strategies

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Careful assessment of domestic violence dynamics, including addressing safety and accountability concerns, are necessary when making Juvenile Court Final Custody Orders.  In this course, participants will discuss how to make effective final custody orders in the context of domestic violence, what information a dependency judge should include in the final custody orders, and different strategies or approaches to handling domestic violence cases transitioning from the child welfare system to family court.  Judicial faculty from both the dependency and family courts will engage participants to share different perspectives and practices on making final custody orders and handling case transitions.

Hon. Jerilyn Borack, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento
Hon. Mark Juhas, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles

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This workshop will consider how ideas about poverty, socioeconomics and bias inform the approach that the child welfare system takes in protecting children.  Dr. Bridges will help participants explore the phenomena of blame and punishment and specifically, how this plays out with poor, system-involved families.  In this workshop participants will identify how justice partners, through working in their respective roles, can begin changing this structural phenomena in child welfare and juvenile justice with the objective of improving outcomes for families.

Khiara M. Bridges, PhD, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley Law School

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This workshop discusses the cross-over between proceedings under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS) and juvenile court proceedings (dependency and juvenile justice).  Presenters will explain the time frames and criteria for periods of involuntary hospitalizations under the LPS Act, and the subsequent referral for conservatorship.  The issue of coordination or lack thereof with the juvenile court will be addressed.  Other topics include the role of the Public Guardian, placement options, psychotropic medication, the definition of “grave disability,” access to juvenile court records, alternatives to conservatorship, courtroom environment for youth with mental illness, selection of a conservator, and disparities among different counties in their approach to conservatorship for youth.  Participants will  have the opportunity to hear the perspective of the court, county counsel representing the Public Guardian, the public defender representing the youth, and a treating psychiatrist from Starview Adolescent Center.

Hon. Donna Groman, Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles
Patty Choi, Deputy County Counsel, Office of the County Counsel, County of Los Angeles
Carlos Rodriguez, MD, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Medical Director, Star View Adolescent Center
Patricia Moorhead, Deputy Public Defender, Los Angeles Public Defender's Office

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Good planning and service delivery requires good information. The ability to access relevant educational, medical and other histories in a timely way is critical to good outcomes for youth under court jurisdiction. Yet, good outcomes also require recognizing and honoring the importance of privacy and discretion, particularly related to sensitive information in a child’s record. This workshop will begin with an overview of the confidentiality laws that control release of information about foster youth from child welfare, health, mental health, education and probation files, and introduce new resources summarizing and providing guidance on these laws. Then, a panel of professionals representing different perspectives will take on some of the common and most challenging information sharing scenarios, including sharing in multi-disciplinary teams and CFTs, and disclosing sensitive information such as mental health and reproductive health information. The panel will apply their knowledge and give feedback on the challenges from their perspectives. Audience members will be encouraged to participate and provide their solutions, scenarios and perspectives as well.

Rebecca Gudeman, Senior Director, Health, National Center for Youth Law
Alyssa Skolnick, Principal Deputy County Counsel, Office of the County Counsel, County of Los Angeles
Robert Waring, Policy Director, Supervising Attorney, East Bay Children's Law Office