Invest in guardians ad litem for kids, not a bunch of attorneys
What kids need is more lawyers. Said no one ever. Well, until now.
Florida’s Senate is considering whether it’s a good idea to invent an entirely new bureaucracy at unknown cost to the taxpayer, filled with attorneys who would represent the express wishes of children, regardless of whether these wishes are in the children’s best interests. Regardless of whether these express wishes are contrary to their parents’ wishes. Why?
To answer that question, we need a basic understanding of why children would need a lawyer in the first place. So here’s the skinny: When courts find probable cause that parents or guardians have abused, abandoned or neglected their children, these children are “sheltered” from their parents and either placed with relatives, non-relatives (think neighbors or friends), or they’re placed in foster care. At this point, most kids are appointed a guardian ad litem (GAL).
The guardian is a trained volunteer whose sole focus is to make sure the child is not forgotten in court. Their salary is, of course, zero. Their turnover rate is low.
This is often the single biggest benefit to the child — volunteers stick with their children throughout the tumultuous foster care system, no matter what. They meet the child at least monthly, often more, and are actually in the best position to tell judges what’s going on in the child’s world, what kind of help they need, and what’s actually in their best interests.
Best interest findings are necessary in most dependency hearings, such as change of custody hearings, termination of parental rights trials, changes to visitation, etc. Volunteers discuss their findings with a child advocate manager and a GAL program attorney. The GAL attorney ensures that the children’s interests are heard.
Guardians are also tasked by law to state the child’s express wishes to the court, regardless of whether this contradicts their best interests. What Florida has now is the best of both worlds: Children can rely on a GAL attorney to represent both their express interests and their best interests. It’s ultimately the judge’s job to make best interests findings.
OK, so here’s what our Senate wants to do per Senate Bill 1920: It wants to provide some children with an attorney for the child, and some children with a guardian ad litem, depending on whether they’re in foster care, how old they are, whether their parents’ rights to be their parents are being terminated, whether they’re adopted, or what their preference might be.
Why so many contingencies? I don’t know, but it’s bound to create confusion. A fact all dependency advocates agree on is stability is good for the child — that’s true in the home, and it’s true in law. This bill, if passed, destabilizes child representation.
But again, why? Proponents of the bill contend that if everyone else has a lawyer, why shouldn’t the child have one. An attorney for every child, right? No thanks.
A lawyer for the child means that if a child likes mom more than dad, then it’s the lawyer’s job to advocate for mom over dad in court. Or perhaps the child likes her foster parents because they’re wealthier. Again, that’s her lawyer’s position. Her guardian would represent what the child wants, but may also present to the court that it’s not in her best interests. That’s an extremely important bit of information for a judge to hear. And taxpayers would pay an indeterminate amount of money for judges not to hear it.
Only the guardian is tasked with representing the child’s best interests to the judge.
Instead of insisting every child should have an attorney, how about every child should have a guardian?
Instead of funding an indeterminate amount of money to create a whole new bureaucracy in a good-intentions experiment, how about just funding the GAL Program so every child has a guardian.
That would actually help children in need.