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    2022 National Parent Representation Conference Materials

    Session Materials:

    Day 1 - Thursday, April 7

    Session A, 10:45 am - 12:15 pm

    1. At the Front Door: “Early Defense” Advocacy to Support Parents 
    2. By the Numbers: Using Data to Drive System Improvement
    3. Constitutional and Racial Justice Issues in Child Welfare Litigation: How to assert them, how to preserve them, how to enforce them
    4. The Power of a Decision: Changing the Trajectory of the Child Welfare System
    5. Supporting Parents with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Holistic and Antiableist Approaches to Legal and Non-legal Advocacy
    6. SKILLS: Trauma Informed Interviewing of Parents in Child Welfare
    7. DISCUSSION: The Great Resignation Makes it to Parent Representation: Strategies for Recruitment and Retention for ANY and ALL Members of a Legal Team

    Session B, 1:30 - 3:00 pm

    1. The Role of Parents in Education: Rights after Removal
    2. How the Appellate Process Can Effectuate Systemic Change
    3. Chemistry and the Courts: Understanding and Challenging Drug Testing Results in Dependency Cases
    4. Anti-Racist Lawyering: A Concrete Toolkit
    5. The Rise of Predictive Analytics in the Family Regulation System
    6. SKILLS: Making the Agency's Witness Your Own: Cross Examining the Case Worker
    7. DISCUSSION: Essential Strategies for Representing Parents

    Session C, 3:15 - 4:45 pm

    1. Building the Plane as We Fly It - Lessons from start-up parent interdisciplinary representation offices
    2. Beyond Trial Skills: What Every Parent's Attorney Must Know to Better Understand Families and Advocate for Their Needs
    3. Civil Rights Protections for Parents in Child Welfare Services and in Recovery from a Substance Use Disorder
    4. Data Driven Advocacy: Data and Research as a Tool for Parent Representation
    5. Fighting for State Legislative Change
    6. SKILLS: Strategic Use of Depositions and other Pre-Trial Techniques
    7. DISCUSSION: Tackling Racism and Inequality in Family Court

    Day 2 – Friday, April 8

    Session D, 8:30 - 10:00 am

    1. When Parents Object to Psychiatric Medication: Psychiatric and Legal Issues
    2. Pre-Petition Advocacy 2.0: Developing Community Partnerships and Holistic Services Models to Combat the Family Regulation System
    3. Confronting America's Hidden Foster Care System
    4. Making the Dream Work: Routines to Enhance and Sustain Interdisciplinary Teamwork
    5. Trauma-informed Systemic Advocacy
    6. SKILLS: Building an Effective Partnership Through Listening to Your Clients
    7. DISCUSSION: Bringing Strategic Child Protection Appeals

    Session E, 10:15 - 11:45 am

    1. Now that we have their attention: Seizing the moment to change the media narrative about family policing
    2. We All Want the Same Thing: Effectively Working with and For Parents with Disabilities
    3. Pieces to the Puzzle- Exploring the Enmeshed Family Regulation and Immigration Systems, Reducing Harm and Pushing Abolition
    4. Due Process for Parents in the Time of Covid
    5. Doing the Work to Do the Work - Confronting Equity within your Organization
    6. SKILLS: Critically Unreasonable: Trial Advocacy at Initial Removal Hearings
    7. DISCUSSION: Partnerships for Prevention: Pre-Petition Advocacy by Parents Counsel

    Lunch Plenary 

    Session F, 1:15 - 2:45 pm

    1. Harnessing the Power of Family Time 
    2. Driving Systemic Change by Taking a Seat at the Table
    3. The Problem with Problem Solving Courts
    4. Keeping Families Together
    5. Making the Case that Family Poverty isn't Neglect
    6. SKILLS: Litigating Medically Complex Cases
    7. DISCUSSION: You Gotta Fight. For THEIR Rights. To Parent! Representing Parents with Mental Health and Substance Use Conditions

    Session G, 3:00 - 4:30 pm

    1. Elevating, Assuring and Demanding ICWA
    2. Out-of-Sight, Not Out-of-Mind: Zealous Advocacy in Our Clients' Absence
    3. Innovative Approaches to Serving Incarcerated Parents in Dependency
    4. Effective Strategies for Working with—or Against—Kin
    5. Take Away our Poverty, Not our Children –How Parents’ Legal Teams can Help Empower Mothers Against the Child Welfare Industry by Ensuring they Access Their Rights, Tax Credits and Benefits
    6. SKILLS: Preserving Family Bonds: How to Advocate for Clients in TPR and PostDispositional Cases by Recentering Our Clients’ Voices and Revisiting Attachment Theory