QIC-EY Products

Four Ways That Courts Can Actively Engage Children and Youth Involved in Child Welfare Proceedings

Children and youth often have little or no power over important aspects of their lives that are impacted by court involvement. Court professionals need to engage authentically, meaningfully, and directly with children and youth to determine what they want and which options will work best for them and their families.

Children and youth who are involved in child welfare proceedings are not always able to communicate fully what they need. As a result, engagement strategies need to be tailored to each individual’s age and level of development. Following are four ways that court professionals can engage children and youth of all ages authentically and can ensure their involvement in all decisions being made about their lives.

Professional talking to a child in a friendly environment

#1

Use court hearings as opportunities to build a relationship with children and youth.

#2

Create a child-and-youth-friendly court environment.

#3

Create opportunities to engage children and youth between court hearings.

#4

Partner with people who have lived expertise to create a court process and an environment that promote success.

Professional with a teen

How professionals can use this report:

Knowing busy professionals don’t always have the opportunity to identify tools that could help them upgrade their work with children and youth, each section contains meaningful insights and practical actions that professionals working in courts can take to engage and empower children and youth at the most critical milestones of their lives. Because the report contains many resources, teams can divide the sections and assign different members of the team to review that section and report back.

View and Download Document
About

QIC-EY Overview
Partner Agencies
Advisory Councils
Evaluation

Helpful Links

Pilot Sites
QIC-EY Products
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Cookies Policy

Join the Mailing List

Receive updates on the QIC-EY including products being released, training opportunities and other information to help inform your work on youth engagement.

Join the List

This website is supported by the Administration for Children & Families (ACF) of the United States (U.S.) Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $5,000,000 million with 100 percent funded by ACF/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, ACF/HHS or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit the ACF website, Administrative and National Policy Requirements, at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/administrative-and-national-policy-requirements.

Skip to content