Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury Releases Report on Juvenile Court Hearings

This is a press release from the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury:

Humboldt County Seal 2017This is the fifth report from the 2017-2018 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury, titled:

Do You Know What I Know? Juvenile Court Hearings

Numerous children in Humboldt County benefit from the vital services provided by foster parents in what is termed a Resource Family Home. They provide the child with shelter, food, clothing, schooling and love, while focused upon a goal of reunification with the child’s biological parent(s). Because foster parents have daily contact with their foster child and provide for the child’s needs, often successful reunification relates directly to the foster parents’ involvement.

In response to a number of complaints from grandparents, friends, and foster parents, the Grand Jury investigated the ability of childcare providers to offer input to Juvenile Court at the 6-Month Review Hearing and the 12/18-Month Permanency Hearings. We focused upon the procedures and instructions Child Welfare Services (CWS) has in place to inform foster parents of and assist them with these hearings.

In the course of the investigation, the Grand Jury found CWS employees to be dedicated, knowledgeable, committed, and overworked. We also determined the Humboldt County Juvenile Court has procedures in place which allow all relevant parties to contribute information regarding a child’s status. However, we believe there are opportunities to improve the court hearing process through more thorough and consistent foster parent training, and better communication between CWS and foster parents.

The Grand Jury offers a number of recommendations which we believe will help facilitate these outcomes and, ultimately, contribute to the overall health and well-being of foster children.

The full report is attached.Final Report - Juvenile Court Hearings

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Rosie Glasses
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Rosie Glasses
5 years ago

Nice Grand Jury report and all, but the formatting of the report within the post was mighty spiffy.
I liked it!
How’d you do that? Nice work, Kym.

Kym Kemp
Admin
5 years ago
Reply to  Rosie Glasses

Oliver did it. And he is capable of some pretty spiffy stuff. But, in this case, he just used a pdf embedder which is a plugin the website has.

Jeez
Guest
Jeez
5 years ago

“Because foster parents have daily contact with their foster child and provide for the child’s needs, often successful reunification relates directly to the foster parents’ involvement.”

Pretty sure “successful reunification” comes from the parents efforts to address why they are in the system in the first place.

shak
Guest
shak
5 years ago

In light of what the ‘modern’ education considers ‘normalization’ , this report is not comforting at all. The language used is up for interpretation. The jury has to answer truthfully to the questions presented.

Fluff.
Why all the fluff?
Where are the interpretations of what is considered ‘normal’?
Where is the list of questions presented to the jury?

Fluff.