What Family, Criminal, & Immigration Attorneys Need to Know About Parent-Child Separation

It is well-established that parent-child separation can have a lifelong impact. Government officials separate children from their parents for many reasons, including but not limited to foster care and incarceration. Sometimes separations happen without governmental action, such as parental illness, military deployments, and work responsibilities. Unaccompanied children migrating to the United States are at increasing risk on this front as well. Current laws and policies regarding the care and treatment of children separated from their parents often land these families in the legal system as they struggle with alternative parenting plans, the termination of parental rights, and immigration issues. The science regarding attachment spotlights the lasting influence of these children's experiences. In this program, Jody Todd Manly, Mt. Hope Family Center's Clinical Director, and Catherine Cerulli, an attorney and current Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the University of Rochester's Susan B. Anthony Center and the Laboratory of Interpersonal Violence and Victimization, will share and translate evidence-based information regarding the consequences of parent-child separation into practical tools for lawyers. They will also share interviewing techniques and basic principles of trauma-informed lawyering skills needed when dealing with children and parents who have experienced separation.

This program is relevant to practitioners dealing with children separated from their parents due to foster care, divorce, and/or abandonment, as well as those representing unaccompanied children at the border. The course blends best practices in law and science as Drs. Manly and Cerulli share their expertise through easy to understand vignettes of practical trauma-informed practices when representing or dealing with children impacted by parent-child separation.

Learning Objectives:

1. Grasp the relationship between parent-child separation and trauma, and understand its impact
2. Learn cutting edge research regarding childhood trauma and how that science can inform your practice
3. Review the science on how trauma affects children's brains and development
4. Discuss trauma-informed lawyering and how to best represent child clients who have experienced trauma
5. Apply practical lawyering skills to hypotheticals
6. Identify available resources