• Don Duquette, Former Professor of Michigan Law School, Former Director of the National Quality Improvement Center on Children’s Representation, Former NACC Board Member, and Red Book Editor 
• Marty Guggenheim, Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law, New York University Law School 
• Erik Pitchal, Brooklyn Family Court Judge, NACC Board Member 
• Leslie Starr Heimov, Executive Director, Children’s Law Center of California 

• The NACC Every Kid Needs a Family workgroup is looking at various licensing requirements for family placements.  If you live and work in a state which you think has a good system for allowing children to be placed with relatives that is not overly burdensome and/or arbitrary we would love to hear from you about what your state is doing. 

• NACC signed on to an amicus brief in the case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia in support of the Appellee City of Philadelphia. The case was filed by Catholic Social Services (“CSS”), which has a contract with the City to screen, train, and certify foster parents (in addition to providing case management and other services to children in the child welfare system), and three appellant foster parents. Earlier this year, the City learned that CSS would not certify same-sex couples as foster parents due to CSS’s religious beliefs, a violation of both CSS’s contract to provide foster care services and the City’s Fair Practice Ordinance. In March, the City notified CSS it would no longer refer children if they continued to violate their contract and refuse to license same-sex couples. CSS refused to comply and the City stopped intake of new placements of children into CSS’s care. As a result, CSS sued the City alleging violations of the State’s Religious Freedom Protection Act; the First Amendment’s Free Exercise, Establishment, and Free Speech Clauses; and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. In its complaint, CSS requested that the court issue preliminary and permanent injunctions prohibiting the City from canceling CSS’s contract to provide foster care services and ordering them to reopen intake. In July, Judge Tucker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied CSS’s request for an injunction, finding that the City did not violate CSS’s religious freedom because the City’s nondiscrimination ordinance was generally applicable and not targeted at a particular religion. CSS appealed to the 3^rd Circuit, which is where the case is pending.  Stay tuned for updates.

• In the Matter of the Dependency of SK-P, in which NACC signed on to an amicus brief arguing that children in dependency cases have a constitutional right to counsel, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the current statute regarding appointment of counsel for children in dependency proceedings sufficiently protects their constitutional rights, as long as trial courts affirmatively assess in every case whether to appoint counsel, based on specific criteria set out in the opinion. In a fractured decision comprised of four separate opinions, the majority rejected the argument that all children in foster care proceedings have a constitutional right to counsel.

• Addressing Trauma May Be the Key to Helping Foster Youth Succeed in the Workplace
• Federal judge in Texas strikes down Indian Child Welfare Act
• What you need to know about Texas v. Zinke
• Discovering Family Defense: A History of the Family Defense Clinic at New York University School of Law