The Juvenile Court Improvement Program (CIP) is pleased to announce the launch of its online training. This online training was designed to provide the same information as the in-person training offered by the CIP Training Workgroup, and its partners, regionally throughout North Carolina. By moving to an online format, training can be offered on-demand and much faster. This training was created with new child welfare judges and attorneys in mind but can be beneficial to seasoned attorneys who need a refresher and other legal community stakeholders who practice or participate in the child welfare system.

How Do I Access the Online Training?

Because the online training is housed on a separate learning management system so that more users can access it, you will need to create an account to sign in or use your existing Google account.

What is Covered in the Online Training?

This is a series of online training courses designed to assist child welfare stakeholders in learning relevant information and advocate effectively in abuse, neglect, and dependency courts within the constitutional framework of a person’s right to parent. The training courses are divided into four sections: 1) abuse, neglect, and dependency pre-adjudication process, 2) adjudication statutory framework, 3) disposition hearings, and termination of parental rights, and will:

• Focus on legal and procedural aspects of filing the petition, grounds for non-secure custody, and due process for parents and children, as well as decision making about common issues in pre-adjudication such as discovery, confidentiality issues, paternity visitation, relative placement, and tribal considerations,
• Highlight and provide practical applications for the statutes related to adjudication and disposition,
• Emphasize issues around medical consent, reasonable efforts, notification of abuse, neglect, and dependency, placement with relative or kin, visitation plans, and concurrent planning, and
• Look in depth at the applicable statutory framework, pretrial issues, pretrial hearings, grounds for termination of parental rights, related rules of evidence, and best interest determinations.

Parents’ Attorneys

To evaluate this training and gauge its effectiveness, you will be asked some additional questions upon registration. You will also receive a follow up email in three to six months asking questions to determine if this training has had any effect on your practice and strategies in the child welfare system. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

CLE Credit

This online training has been approved for 3.5 CLE hours upon completion of all the courses in their entirety. CIP staff will submit a list of those who have completed the courses monthly to the N.C. State Bar as proof of completion and the trainee will be responsible for remitting the cost of the CLE credits directly to the N.C. State Bar.

Questions / Feedback

If you have any questions or concerns, there is a chat feature within the courses, or you can contact Jasmine Rivera at [email protected] or Kiesha D. Crawford at [email protected] or by telephone at 919-890-1222.

Resources

The Abuse, Neglect, Dependency, and Termination of Parental Rights Proceedings in North Carolina manual and the N.C. Juvenile Code were the primary resources used to create this training.

THANK YOU to the CIP Training Workgroup and partners who made this online training possible. Without your expertise and dedication to this work, this training would not have come to fruition.

This training was made possible by grant funding from the Children’s Bureau (CB), an agency within the Administration for Children and Families, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The CB seeks to improve the safety, permanency, and well-being of children through leadership, support for necessary services, and productive partnerships with states, tribes, and communities. CB provides leadership in addressing and preventing child abuse and neglect.