Our Vision
We envision communities where children and families thrive without unnecessary involvement in the legal system.
Our Mission
We promote child and family well-being while inspiring the next generation of attorneys to prioritize the power, voice, and needs of families. We engage communities in all that we do and work tirelessly to transform systems that create barriers to family well-being.
Our Values
We value the dignity of families and the voices and wisdom of communities. In all that we do, we exercise compassion, integrity, and transparency, and we are guided by the principles of social justice, anti-racism, and inclusion.
Our First 20 years
CFCC’s founding mission included advocating for and supporting the creation of unified family courts to resolve family conflicts in a therapeutic, ecological and service-based manner. A unified family court is a single court system with comprehensive subject-matter jurisdiction over all cases involving children and families: divorce, custody, child support, marital property, alimony, adoption, paternity, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect and juvenile delinquency, among others. The court coordinates efforts to produce resolutions tailored to an individual family's legal, personal, emotional and social needs. The unified family court is an ideal structural and operational court model that can respond effectively to today’s complex family law matters.
Founding director, Professor Emerita Barbara Babb, and CFCC staff played an instrumental role in transforming family justice in Maryland, helping to create and launch the Family Divisions and authoring Performance Standards and Measures for Maryland’s Family Divisions (Maryland Judiciary, 2002, with Jeffrey Kuhn). In addition, CFCC has provided services to jurisdictions in California, District of Columbia, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Utah. In addition, CFCC published Unified Family Court Connection , the only publication in the nation devoted to the development and advancement of unified family courts, which circulated to nearly 4,000 judges, law school deans and professors, attorneys, legislators, services providers and nonprofit leaders serving families and children. Professor Babb continues to work with jurisdictions, judges, attorneys, court personnel and community leaders on these issues.
For more information about CFCC’s first 20 years, and the work of our founder, please visit our 20th anniversary celebration blog post .