Show Me the Money: Finding Funds for Low-Income Children

Last week, I attended the first continuing legal education class offered by the newly-created Child Protection & Advocacy section of the State Bar of Georgia, titled “Show Me the Money! Financial and Other Resources for Georgia’s Children.”

The training brought together child advocates, case workers, attorneys, guardians ad litem, and policy makers to outline how foster parents, adoptive parents, appointed advocates, and others can access governmental funding to help the children in Georgia who have special needs, are living in poverty, or do not have permanent homes. These needs can include food, mental health services, a place to live, or cash payments for medical equipment.

As a Guardian ad Litem (GAL) who frequently conducts custody investigations pro bono to qualified low-income families via the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation and the DeKalb Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, I have been amazed at the resilience of some of the children I have interviewed, despite the crushing poverty around them.  I have also seen how something small like a little financial help or the presence of a committed mentor can be a game changer in redirecting the course of their lives.

The Georgia Family Connection Partnership has published a guide that outlines the forms of federal funding available to low-income children and their families. Communities seeking statistics and data to support their grant-writing efforts can contact GFCP for empirical data to support their grant proposals.

If you are adopting from foster care, or if your child is disabled and cannot work, or if you know a child who needs prescriptions, health insurance, or medical treatment, there may be funds available.

Resources:  Barton Child Law & Policy Center, Emory University School of Law; DeKalb Children's Advocacy Center; Voices for Children

Child Advocates Needed - No Legal Experience Required

On any given day, there are 7000 children in foster care in Georgia. Sometimes, all they need is a little support and assistance from a caring adult who will stick up for them, and help connect them with the resources they need.

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) are trained volunteers who are appointed by juvenile court judges to work with certain children who are in the child welfare system. They are usually not lawyers. Instead, CASA volunteers help ensure that a child does not languish in foster care.

Today, about 60% of foster children have a CASA volunteer advocating on their behalf, but about 2,900 kids still need an advocate. 19 counties in Georgia have no CASA advocates at all.

To learn more about what CASA does, and find out how you can become trained as a CASA volunteer, visit www.gacasa.org. For more information about CASA programs in the metro Atlanta are, click here.

Source: "Call to Service: Georgia CASA" by Angela Tyner, Director of Advocacy and Program Development, Georgia CASA, THE YLD REVIEW, Volume 54, Issue 2, Winter 2012.

NOTE: The CASA logo is registered trademark that belongs to CASA, not to me.

Why You Need an Advance Directive for Healthcare

Thanks to the Georgia State Retirees Association, which invited me to speak to them yesterday about the importance of Advance Directives for Healthcare. Why should you execute an Advance Directive for Healthcare? Here are some of the big ones:

1) It's free. The Georgia Legislature created a form, so you don't have to worry about the language or pay a lawyer to do it.

2) It allows you to die with dignity. We are all going to die, but we will not all have choices about how it happens.

3) It costs you money NOT to execute one. Guess who pays the tab if you are in the hospital in a coma for months? Your estate. This can mean there is nothing left for you to leave your heirs in your Will after all, if they have to sell your assets to pay medical bills first.

4) You might want to override the default decision-maker. If you have an unmarried partner (of any gender), and you want that person to make decisions about what happens to you, you need to name that person as the decision-maker.

5) You want to spare your family the anxiety of second-guessing what you would have wanted. Don't assume your adult children just know what you want -- they might not.

Advance Directives do not need to be notarized, so if you can find two adults who will not benefit from your death, you can execute one right now. Do it.

Wellness Group for Gay Men Forming Now

Therapist Joseph Holbrooks with the Care and Counseling Center of Georgia will be leading an eight-week support group for gay men beginning Feb. 6 at the organization's Midtown office. The first session is free; future sessions will be $35/each. This is a chance to explore "wellness" from a holistic point of view.

Therapy can be invaluable for anyone who is going through a divorce or break-up. Details are on the flyer or go to www.cccgeorgia.org/counselors.html#Holbrooks

Workshop: "You Only Die Once" - An Overview of Advance Directives for Healthcare and Wills

Join me again this Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 9:30 a.m. at North Decatur Presbyterian Church (Medlock and N. Decatur) where I will be teaching the second of two classes about the legal and medical aspects of death with Emory Hospital Oncology Nurse Nancy Reynics.

Last week, we talked about Georgia's Advance Directive for Healthcare form, what happens if you do not have one, and the importance of choosing someone as your agent who will be assertive when dealing with doctors, to make sure your wishes are followed.

This week, we will finish that discussion and talk about some of the other practical aspects of planning for death: planning for your funeral and getting your affairs in order for probate.

These two sessions are part of an eight-week adult Christian education class sponsored by NDPC. All are welcome, regardless of religious belief, and there is no charge.

Court Observations: Cobb County Superior Court

As part of my family law practice, I regularly watch hearings and trials in the counties where I regularly have cases. This allows me to learn about the skills of my fellow divorce attorneys, but more importantly -- this allows me to learn about the judges I will appear before: what kinds of arguments resonate with them, what their pet peeves are, and what their personalities are like. This, in turn, helps me better advise my clients about how to behave in the courtroom, and gives me insight as to whether a particular judge is likely to respond well to my proposed arguments.

Yesterday I observed a trial in Cobb Superior Court presided over by Judge J. Stephen Schuster. Schuster is an older white guy who lives in Marietta. He went straight through from undergrad at Tulane to law school at UGA, and graduated from law school in 1976. Before becoming a superior court judge in Cobb county, Schuster served as Cobb County Juvenile Court's presiding judge. Juvenile court hearings typically involve abused or neglected children.

The suit was a child custody case involving two parents, divorced 7 years ago, with a 15 year old boy, Tyler. Tyler had been living with his father and new stepmother, but now wanted to live with his more nurturing and more permissive mother. Tyler's stepmother testified that she and Tyler's father limited Tyler's cell phone usage by disabling the phone from working during school hours and late in the evening, to ensure Tyler was not up all night texting. Both parents were upset that Tyler had been caught watching porn on his father's computer -- though Tyler did not seem particularly upset about this, the judge reported.

The case had been dragging out for 18 months, and the Guardian Ad Litem in the case had prepared a report recommending custody remain with the father. At trial, however, after having witnessed Tyler's in-chambers discussion with the judge, the GAL changed his mind.

O.C.G.A. § 19-9-3 sets out the standard for custody. Where a 15 year old makes an election to live with one parent, the presumption is that this request will be honored unless it is not in the best interest of the child. Applying the best interest of the child factors set out in the statute (including the GAL's recommendation), the Judge granted Tyler's request, and changed primary custody to mom.

ADR Mediation Conference: How to Catch a Liar

As a mediator and as a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL), one of the most challenging problems to handle is this: one of them is lying, and you're not sure which one. Some examples? Spouses offer absolute opposite accounts about whether one refused to allow the other to pick up the child for parenting time or not; the amount of back child support that is due; or whether a parent tried to call or not. These are fact-based questions, and frequently the only evidence is created by the parties, unverified by independent sources.

When mediating, in some sense, it doesn't matter which one is lying. If the parties can agree to some version of facts for resolving the issues (e.g., "let's just agree that the amount X is going to pay in back child support is $Y"), then there is room for a deal to be made. (Notice this does not decide how much X owes, just how much X is going to pay.) Ditto if the mediator can redirect the parents toward the future, not the past.

Outside of mediation, however, when asked by a judge to fact-find as a Guardian for the minor child, it does matter who's lying. And as a mediator, it definitely can help speed the negotiation along if I know who's lying.

That is why I was so intrigued by the presentation "Dodging Lies and Making Deals: the Science of Lie Detection and Emotional Truthfulness" offered by Clark Freshman at the 18th Annual Alternative Dispute Resolution Conference for Neutrals held earlier this month.

Freshman is a law professor at the University of California Hastings in San Francisco, and his research is based on the analysis of body language and facial expressions -- especially microexpressions -- pioneered by Paul Ekman. If you ever saw the TV show Lie to Me, you know what I'm talking about.

The substance of the training is too nuanced to offer here, but what was most intriguing about the presentation was discovering how extraordinarily bad at detecting lies most of us were -- even when we caught the microexpressions, we were not sure what they meant, when paired with the person's words or other body language.

Interested in getting better? Check out the training videos on Dr. Ekman's website: http://www.paulekman.com/

My Strongest Weapon Is In My Pocket Right Now

Last night I attended the Stonewall Bar Association's annual dinner at Georgia Tech Conference Center along with 277 other LGBT and gay-friendly attorneys, judges, law students, legal professionals, and service providers. The event honored Dan Grossman, a constitutional law attorney from Atlanta who won a settlement from the city of Atlanta after the Atlanta Police Department conducted an unlawful raid on the Eagle, a popular leather bar in Atlanta, grossly violated the 4th amendment rights of the people in the bar.

During his keynote address, Grossman reminded us that most of us walk around armed at all times -- with our bar cards -- and it is our duty to do good with them. Everyone hopes to get rich, but that's not why most people become lawyers. We become attorneys because we want to serve justice, and to stick up for the underdogs.

In my small practice, I always have at least one pro bono case open at a time (usually two), and I provide dozens of hours of pro bono work each year as a guardian ad litem through the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation.

As we reach the end of Celebrate Pro Bono week, I am inspired by Grossman, 2011 award recipient Christine Koehler and by all of the other attorneys out there who routinely work for free to ensure that justice is served.