Volume 22

Building Better Courts for Children in Foster Care:
New DVD Calls for Sweeping Reform,
Illustrates Problems and Solutions

Tuesday, June 28, 2005
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Russell Senate Office Building
Room 385
Washington, D.C. 20510

One year after the bipartisan Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care called for sweeping reforms of the juvenile and family courts and of federal child welfare financing, momentum is building across the country to make these recommendations a reality and improve the lives of, and outcomes for, children in foster care.

The Pew Commission will release a powerful new DVD that vividly illustrates the need to improve the courts that oversee children in foster care. Through firsthand accounts from children, parents, judges, administrators and others, the DVD portrays the high-stakes decisions made in these courts and the obstacles that can keep children from leaving foster care for safe, permanent families.

Excerpts from the DVD will be shown publicly for the first time at a Capitol Hill event hosted by Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). Senators DeWine and Rockefeller are developing new legislation which will include the Commission’s recommendations on the courts.

Participants will include:

THE HONORABLE BILL FRENZEL
Chairman, Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care
Guest Scholar, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
Former Member of Congress (R-MN), Ranking Minority Member, House Budget Committee

THE HONORABLE MAURA CORRIGAN
Member, Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care
Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

THE HONORABLE WILLIAM A. THORNE JR.
Member, Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care
Judge, Utah Court of Appeals

MAUREEN K. BYRNES
Director, Policy Initiatives and the Health and Human Services Program
The Pew Charitable Trusts