TRENTON — A year after she fled her drug- and alcohol-addicted mother and begged Camden County police to find her another place to live, Wendy Logan pleaded with a judge to keep her in foster care. Logan, then 13, explained in a letter to the judge what home had been like: Flunking two grades because she had to look...
Wendy Logan holds a scrapbook of her foster family. Logan, a former foster child who was denied a chance to speak to the judge in family court, stands outside the Camden County Hall of Justice on June 29, 2011TRENTON — A year after she fled her drug- and alcohol-addicted mother and begged Camden County police to find her another place to live, Wendy Logan pleaded with a judge to keep her in foster care.
Logan, then 13, explained in a letter to the judge what home had been like: Flunking two grades because she had to look after her three younger siblings. Enduring beatings and hunger. The constant moving so drug dealers couldn’t find them.
Logan went to family court in Camden but was told to wait in the hall. She was never invited into the courtroom, and the judge ordered she and her mother to attend counseling — a step she feared would eventually force her to return home.
The counseling didn’t work out and Logan remained in foster care until she was 18. But she’s still angry she never got her day in court.
"Nobody ever heard me or asked me to come into court or asked my opinions. I felt really devastated," said Logan, 25, a graduate social work student at the University of Pennsylvania. "It hurt to know a judge just threw it into the trash and didn’t want to put a face to the name. I will always be that child waiting outside that courtroom."
State law says foster children 10 and older should participate in key family court proceedings. But child advocates say this seldom occurs, and are launching a campaign to make sure more kids can have their say.
"Having children present at court hearings can sharpen the focus on the needs of the child, provide more complete information to assist in making sound decisions, and give youth more of a say in the decisions that affect their lives," according to a new report released by Advocates for Children, a statewide family research and advocacy group.
Mary Coogan, the group’s assistant director who co-wrote the report, recalled how an Essex County family court judge asked the state’s child welfare agency to attach photos to each child’s file "to remind him these are real kids we are talking about."
"We lose sight of who the individual kids are and their needs," Coogan said.
The group says judges who have discretion in these cases are often reluctant to allow children to appear before them because they don’t want them to miss school, question whether they can offer credible testimony and worry if they can handle what happens in a courtroom.
"People have described on prior occasions when kids in court expressed a desire for something to happen, and the judge decided against it because it wasn’t in their best interest, there was an adverse reaction,’’ Coogan said.
She said a law guardian and therapist who work such cases can help decide who is emotionally prepared to come to court.
A law guardian is appointed to every child under the supervision of the Division of Youth and Family Services, the state’s child welfare system, to speak on the child’s behalf. But it’s common for the law guardian, because of high case loads and busy schedules, to rely on DYFS investigative reports to gather information about the child, the report says.
Allison Blake, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, said DYFS could do a better job of involving kids in the planning and decision-making process. "It will be a culture shift," but one DYFS workers could learn to embrace because they have smaller case loads than in years past, she said.
"We think we are being responsible as adults," said Blake, a former DYFS caseworker and manager. "Sometimes we lose sight it’s about them."
The state Supreme Court last year in a ruling urged care givers, judges and others in the family court system to have children participate, saying while they "may want to be returned to their abusive or neglectful parents who have endangered and continue to endanger their lives," children over 10 can "express an intelligent opinion" and "in appropriate cases the family court would benefit" from hearing their wishes.
Other states do a better job of including kids in court, said Meredith Schalick, who runs the Rutgers Family and Child Advocacy law clinic at Rutgers Law School in Camden and has worked in both states. In Pennsylvania, a foster child must appear before a judge every six months, under a new rule that took effect last week, Schalick said.
"There is a real reluctance in New Jersey,’’ she said.
Schalick said she’s been asked by her young clients: "How is judge going to make a decision without me?’’
Deputy Public Defender Lorraine Augostini, litigation director of the Office of Law Guardian, said involving children more often in court is "a top priority,’’ and supports "enhancing the involvement of children and youth in the decision-making process that critically affects their lives."
Gary Vaught, 19, of Trenton, was accustomed to courtrooms after his testimony helped convict his stepfather of stabbing and killing his mother and grandmother in a 2005 attack that also left him injured. DYFS awarded custody to his father, whom he’d never met — and later abused him.
With the encouragement of his former foster parents, Vaught later participated in three family court proceedings. He didn’t always get his way, but said it was worth being heard.
"I was getting tired of DYFS putting me in programs they wouldn’t explain to me why I needed it. It wasn’t my choice." he said. "It’s very important to go to court, to keep your eyes wide open."
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