Court-Agency Collaboration Project

The Court-Agency Collaboration Project is funded by a three year grant from Children's Bureau, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A court agency liaison is leading collaborative working groups in Douglas, Lancaster, and Sarpy Counties. These groups include all the juvenile judges, several child protection administrators and workers, attorneys (guardians ad litem, parent's attorneys, prosecutors, agency attorneys). Foster Care Review Board representatives and Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) representatives within each county. Each group is working on concretely addressing various barriers to permanency throughout the child protection court process.

The Court Agency Liaison along with CCFL faculty and staff organizes and facilitates each of the meetings, which are held in each county on a regular basis, usually about once a month. Each collaboration group has begun by identifying barriers to permanency on a continuum from the initial reporting of alleged child abuse or neglect through the time that a child is placed in a permanent home (either reunified with his or her family, adopted, or in a permanent guardianship). These barriers that cause delays for children have been prioritized within each collaborative group. Groups are currently analyzing system issues that create the delays and developing and implementing-system based solutions.

The goal of each group is to develop and implement system improvements that reduce the delays to returning to or finding a permanent home for abused and neglected children. It is hoped that by including most, if not all, of the individuals who work in the system these collaborative groups will have the expertise to design and implement solutions to some of the most serious delays in the system. Because of the interdependence of these systems, no single group or agency can make these improvements on their own. However, by working together there is optimism that significant improvements will be made and that children who are removed from their homes will find permanency within a reasonable time period.