A potent reminder for Juvenile Court judge
It’s not a common sight: a child sitting in a courtroom while a judge determines whether her parents have the right to keep her.
When it does happen, it’s a potent reminder for Timothy J. Ryan.
“I love it when the baby in question gets brought to the court by the foster parent and the mom gets to say hello and hold the baby,” says Ryan, the presiding judge of the Maricopa County Juvenile Court. “It reminds you of what you’re there for.”
As a Juvenile Court judge, Ryan makes the final decision on some of the most personal, life-altering matters in a family’s life: whether to reunite parents with their children after reports of child abuse or neglect, or legally cut those ties and send the child into the care of another family. Reunification is the norm, Ryan says. But when he rules against the parents, he strives to make sure they know he heard them out.
“They may not agree with me, but I want them to understand I thought about their rights very seriously,” he says. “I want the parents to know I am listening. And I am thoughtful.”
Ryan is quick to applaud parents who get their act together and get their kids back. But he’s perhaps even quicker to respect parents who realize giving up their child might be the best thing they can do.
“It’s a very moving experience when you have a parent who hasn’t turned it around who stands up and says, ‘I don’t think I’ll make it. And my child is doing so well with the people who are caring for my child. And I consent.’ ”
It’s an incredibly unselfish act, Ryan says. But he also laments it.
If a parent had been able to turn things around, in many cases, it would have meant Mom or Dad were drugfree, he said. He urges these parents to keep working on their sobriety, for their own benefit.
Getting parents who come into Juvenile Court to focus on the need to immediately start working on their problems is vital, Ryan said. The state offers various services, from parenting lessons to substance-abuse counseling, but many of the people he’s seen are slow to get moving, he says. There’s a mindset that the prospect of a trial to sever their parental rights is a year or more in the future.
But it takes time to change behaviors, Ryan says. People who are slow to act can run out of time to meet the many deadlines that are set in a child’s case. Ryan builds a sense of urgency into his work to move people along.
“I don’t want parents to kid themselves,” he says, “into not seriously engaging in services from the outset.”