Children's Law Center of Minnesota
Background and Purpose
Since 1995, Children's Law Center of Minnesota (Children's Law) has promoted the rights and interests of Minnesota's children, especially children of color and children with disabilities, in the judicial, child welfare, health care, and education systems using six staff members and over 250 lawyers that volunteer their services.
Children's Law represents children that are in foster care, and it works with the courts, government agencies, and social service organizations to change the policies and systems that can fail these children. The agency fulfills its mission through two core projects. The first is the Foster Child Advocacy Project, which focuses on children as they enter the foster care system to ensure that they have a say in decisions such as long-term placement, court reviews, transition to adulthood, and access to critical services.
The second core project is the State Wards or Guardianship Project, which provides representation for children for whom parental rights have been terminated. Children's Law provides representation on issues like sibling separation, contact with family members, health care access, special education needs, and preparing independent living plans for children that are aging out of the foster care system.
Current Request
With support from The Saint Paul Foundation in 2007, Children's Law successfully expanded its representation of legal orphans through the Guardianship Pilot Project in Ramsey County and represented 66 orphans. During the first two years of this project, Children's Law discovered some serious systemic issues in how the county is dealing with legal orphans including: the judicial system not conducting required in-court hearing for state wards, the Guardianship unit's suspension of searches for adoptive homes for children who are in residential treatment facilities, and state wards being left in juvenile detention centers for long periods of time when the county is unable to find a place for them to stay.
Children's Law will continue to advocate for changes in practices for how the county deals with all legal guardians of the state and will continue to provide representation to individual children. This project is staffed by a social worker and a Children's Law attorney, who supervises the caseloads of the volunteer attorneys working on this project.