Webinar Archive: Reentry Series
5
When the Battered Mother is Incarcerated:
Impact of the Child Welfare System
Webinar date: July 15, 2013
Description
The webinar includes a discussion of federal and state law as it pertains to children of incarcerated parents in foster care, with a specific focus on how these laws affect incarcerated and reentering battered mothers and other parents seeking to reunify with their children. There is an examination of how requirements of federal laws such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act impact these children and families. We also discuss state law approaches to challenging issues involving casework with children of incarcerated parents. States have adopted a variety of approaches for addressing issues including: Are incarcerated parents entitled to reasonable efforts? What are reasonable efforts for incarcerated parents? How does incarceration factor into the grounds for termination of parental rights? Can parental incarceration be a compelling reason not to file a termination of parental rights petition? This webinar examines how states have answered these challenging questions and discuss how advocates can incorporate lessons from these approaches to better support incarcerated and reentering battered mothers and other parents with children in foster care.
About the Presenter
Kathleen Creamer is an attorney who has devoted her career to working with parents and children involved with the child welfare system. In her current position as a Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow, she does policy work to improve services to children and families of incarcerated parents. Prior to beginning her fellowship in May 2011, she worked as a staff attorney at Community Legal Services (CLS). In that capacity, she represented parents in all stages of dependency proceedings, including adjudication, permanency reviews, termination of parental rights trials and appeals. Her caseload included incarcerated parents. She also has prior experience with incarcerated parents as Director of Legal Services at Our Place, DC, a program that provides supportive services to women during and after incarceration. Prior to her position at Our Place DC, Ms. Creamer served as a law clerk to the Honorable J. Michael Ryan of the D.C. Superior Court Family Court. She obtained her law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.
Click here to access recording. A copy of the PowerPoint (and any other documents from the webinar) is available by clicking here.
This webinar series is supported by Grant No. 2011-TA-AX-K129 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.
