The Need

More than 1 in 6 abused children in Texas are re-abused within five years, according to statistics from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.  The system is in dire need of improvement. 

Recognizing this, on November 20, 2007, the Texas Supreme Court established the Permanent Judicial Commission on Children, Youth and Families.  “As gatekeepers for families in crisis, courts must make life-altering decisions that require knowledge of multiple and complex issues.... Too often courts lack the technology, training, and resources needed to make good decisions."  [Order Establishing Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families, The Supreme Court of Texas, November 20, 2007].  On November 30, 2007, the Texas Supreme Court’s Task Force on Foster Care identified TLC’s website program as a key solution for improving the court system’s handling of child abuse cases. 

The following case illustrates how a child’s life can be devastated when a mistake is made:

In 2001, a small girl was discovered locked in a lice-infested, filthy closet in Hutchins, Texas, where she had been forced to live in utter darkness for years by her birth mother. At eight years old, she was near death from starvation, weighing only 25 pounds, and was covered with feces and sores.  She had been so traumatically sexually abused, surgery was necessary. A legal mistake made by the attorney for adoptive parents had allowed her birth mother to reclaim her — even after a loving couple believed they were in the midst of a successful adoption.   At 18 months old, after living with the adoptive parents since birth, the child had been returned to her birth mother, who was homeless and without a job when she had voluntarily given her newborn daughter up for adoption.  This tragedy would have never happened but for an attorney’s mistake. Atkinson v. Texas, 107 S.W.3d 856 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2003).

Overview of Programs

Texas Lawyers for Children Website Program — Responding to the serious lack of resources and information available to the legal professionals in the child abuse field, TLC coordinated a statewide collaborative effort to gather best practice information and launched the Texas Lawyers for Children website project in 2004, making this information available to all practitioners. This innovative and interactive website, www.TexasLawyersforChildren.org, is designed to bring the latest and best information, resources, and collaboration tools to the legal professionals handling child abuse cases.  The website is organized to be extremely easy to use, allowing professionals to get the key information they need as quickly as possible.

Training Programs — TLC brings nationally recognized experts in law, medicine, and mental health to Texas for live training seminars.  These seminars have been co-sponsored by the Dallas County Family and Juvenile Courts, with judicial training programs also being co-sponsored by the Amon Carter Foundation and Dallas’ Child Abuse Prevention Coalition.  The purpose of these training events is to educate legal professionals about critical issues in child abuse cases.  Such topics include:
- Dynamics of Sexual Abuse
- Impact of Trauma on Children’s Brain Development
- Parental Drug Addiction and Treatment

National Expansion — Using the Texas Lawyers for Children website as a model, TLC can bring similar tools to other states.  Every state’s child abuse professionals need ongoing training and access to the best information available.  This website model can be replicated, modified as needed, and licensed to other states, giving other states’ legal professionals access to these powerful tools.  The goal of this program is to facilitate systemic change on a national level.  TLC’s model has already been replicated in California.

Improving Outcomes: A Child Abuse Court Resource Network — Improving Outcomes is an initiative started by Texas Lawyers for Children to engage all states in a collaborative movement to share best practices. As a national campaign, it promotes the sharing of best practice information for handling child abuse court cases in order to improve the quality of case outcomes for abused and neglected children. Improving Outcomes provides judges, attorneys, and other child welfare professionals with expertise in legal, medical, and mental health aspects of child abuse cases through a three-tiered child abuse court resource network—the Improving Outcomes Network.