23 results for author: admin
Bending the Curve to Improve Our Child Protection System report
This major report details a system-wide collapse of Vermont's child protection system,
while offering realistic solutions to rebuild it. Click here to download PDF.
VPRC Welcomes New Executive Director, Larry Crist
Trine Bech, Vermont Parent Representation Center’s Founding Executive Director has announced she will be stepping down as Executive Director on April 15, 2016. The Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Lawrence Crist, long time leader in Vermont services, will succeed Trine as Executive Director at that time. The Board is also grateful that Trine will remain involved as Staff Attorney for an interim period, working on direct services to clients, primarily in the Rapid Intervention PreNatal and Parenting (RIPP) program.
VPRC was founded in 2008 to change the model of legal and support services for families where there is a risk of ...
Richard Wexler: Flawed Alaska child abuse study suggests ‘solutions’ likely to worsen problem
Richard Wexler, Alaska Dispatch News: December 29, 2015
The problem of child abuse is serious and real -- in Alaska and everywhere else in America. But a recent study by researchers at the University of Alaska Anchorage about the rate at which children known to the Office of Children’s Services are re-abused is built on a foundation of faulty assumptions and questionable data. As a result, it points toward “solutions” likely to make things even worse.
The report, compiled by UAA's Institute of Social and Economic Research, implies that OCS errs only in one direction, screening out cases that should be ...
Trine Bech: Strengthening families through community connections
Published in Vermont Digger 07/70/2014.
Editor’s note: This commentary is by Trine Bech, the executive director and staff attorney for the Vermont Parent Representation Center Inc.
Keeping Vermont’s children safe is the responsibility of not only the Department for Children and Families (DCF) but of us all. To meet this responsibility, our primary focus must be on strengthening families in order to keep children safe at home. This work is complex and our response cannot be to remove all children who are at risk, only those who cannot be safe at home. It requires a delicate balancing of the constitutional liberty interests of parents to raise ...
Susan M. Buckholz, Esq: When an Attorney’s Best Efforts are Not Enough: The Multidisciplinary Approach to Parent Representation
By Susan M. Buckholz, Esq.
"Parents in the child welfare system tend to be disenfranchised; they are used to not having a voice and can be easily intimidated by the child welfare power structure. They need someone to stand up for them. When they have a strong voice in the process, the system works better for everyone." Marc Cherne, Director, Allegheny County, Department of Human Services.
Few events in the life of a family are more traumatic than the removal from the home of one or more of the children in that family. The causes, which can vary widely from case to case, matter not in this regard, as the vast majority of parents are doing the best ...
Trine Bech: Making the child protection system work
Published in Vermont Digger. Editor’s note: This commentary is by Trine Bech, who is executive director of the Vermont Parent Representation Center Inc.
Vermont Parent Representation Center (VPRC) is a parent advocacy and support organization for families at risk of losing their children to state custody. For over five years we have been hearing the voices of parents and families and bringing these voices to the decision-making tables.
Most often at these tables are DCF Family Services, in charge of our child protection system; DCF Economic Services, in charge of our financial support system; the Judiciary, making decisions about whether to ...