On Wednesday, September 27, 2023, the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) hosted the 2023 CFCC symposium focused on The Harm of Removal to Children, Parents, and Communities, at the University of Baltimore School of Law .
When children are separated from their parents by legal systems, they suffer permanent trauma. The anguish is no less for parents who find themselves without their children due to state intervention. Both parents and children experience detrimental effects on their mental, emotional, and physical health. Further, the larger community suffers when there is a systemic pattern of continually breaking up families. Join us to discuss the impact of family separation and to collectively brainstorm about how we keep families intact and support their health and well-being.
Learn more about the 2023 CFCC Symposium.
CFCC News
CFCC's July Newsletter Focuses on New Executive Director and Case Manager, TCP Spring Wrap-up and Sixto Cancel's Confirmation as Keynote for the 2023 CFCC Symposium!.
Read the full article and subscribe to future communications.
Truancy Court Program 2022-2023 Overview
Rohina Zavala, CFCC Truancy Court Program Coordinator, provides an overview of the highlights and challenges with TCP during this year. Read her blog post.
You Can Make a Difference for TCP Families
CFCC’s Truancy Court Program operates in some of Baltimore’s most underserved neighborhoods, where the reasons students miss school can include a wide range of stressors—including violence, poverty, poor health, substance use, grief, homelessness, and unemployment, to name a few. In addition to delivering spring break food baskets to families each year, CFCC maintains a fund to help students meet ongoing challenges that pop up throughout the year. Your contributions make this possible. Thank you for helping to support Baltimore City students and their families!
CFCC in the Spotlight
August 1, 2023 – CFCC Executive Director Aubrey Luce-Edwards was featured in “Shadow Foster Care: Children and caregivers in a ‘hidden’ system miss out on benefits and support,” by Amanda Robert in The ABA Journal’s Children & the Law series.
July, 2023 – CFCC Faculty Director Shanta Trivedi published “Mandated Support for Survivors,” in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Vol. 30:1.
July 21, 2023 – Aubrey Luce-Edwards, CFCC Executive Director, hosted a breakfast briefing on the hidden foster care system for Congressional staffers on Capitol Hill.
July 2023: CFCC has received the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) 2023 Impact of the Year Award, which was presented during the organization’s 86th Annual Conference in Baltimore on July 18. Learn more.
June 21, 2023: CFCC hosted a TCP Judges’ Luncheon to celebrate the end of the school year, and awarded the Anthony “Bubba” Green Star Player Award to the Hon. Miriam Hutchins (ret.).
June 14–15, 2023: Shanta presented her paper, “Am I Still a Parent? The Harms to Parents when their Children Are Removed,” at the 2023 Family Law Scholars & Teachers Conference (FLSTC) at Boston College Law School. Shanta is currently co-chairing the FLSTC with Professor Meghan Boone (Wake Forest University).
June 1 and 2, 2023: CFCC Faculty Director Shanta Trivedi participated in the Annual Meeting on Law and Society in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
On June 1, she served as a reader in an Author Meets Reader Session for the books Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families "and" How Abolition Can Build a Better World by Dorothy Roberts (University of Pennsylvania) and Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care , by Wendy A. Bach (University of Tennessee) chaired by Professor Emerita Nancy Polikoff (American University). Other readers included:
Amna Akbar (The Ohio State University)
Kelley Fong (University of California, Irvine)
Tina Lee (University of Wisconsin-Stout)
Priscilla Ocen , (Loyola Law School, Los Angeles)
Jane Spinak (Columbia Law School)
On June 2, she participated in a roundtable entitled Focusing on Families: Centering Lived Experience in Teaching Family Policing , with Joyce McMillan of JMac for Families and Professors Dorothy Roberts (University of Pennsylvania), Sarah Katz (Temple University) and Sarah Lorr (Brooklyn Law School).