Civil Rights in Child Welfare Law: Advocacy and Action

What if many of the child welfare cases on your docket are also civil rights cases? This webinar reframes child welfare advocacy through a powerful civil rights lens – revealing how Constitutional protections and federal statutes can be game-changers for both your individual clients and for systemic reform efforts. We will discuss how historic patterns of discrimination continue to drive modern inequities in child welfare and attendees will learn to wield civil rights laws, including the Fourteenth and Fourth Amendments, as strategic tools to protect family integrity and advance racial justice.

Attendees will walk away with:

• Practical strategies to identify civil rights claims within your cases
• Real-world examples of successful constitutional challenges to surveillance, removal, and discriminatory treatment
• Actionable litigation and advocacy tools that go beyond traditional family court arguments

Presenters:

Aubrey Edwards-Luce, JD – Executive Director, Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and Courts, University of Baltimore School of Law

Aubrey Edwards-Luce is the Executive Director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and Courts (CFCC), where she works to ensure that families have resources to avoid unnecessary court involvement. She is dedicated to co-creating liberating solutions with those most affected by social and legal systems. Aubrey is a social worker turned lawyer who has over 15 years of work experience with children and families who were already in or were at-risk of entering court systems.

Her legal career started at the Children’s Law Center in DC, where she was guardian ad litem attorney before becoming a policy attorney. Prior to joining CFCC, she was the Vice President of Child Welfare and Youth Justice at First Focus on Children. Aubrey founded the Child Welfare and Racial Equity (CWARE) Collaborative in 2020. This coalition of federal policy advocates and lived experts works to radically transform the child welfare system and create anti-racist policies and systems. Aubrey lives with her family in Prince George’s County, Maryland on unceded land of the Piscataway people. She has lived experience as a hidden foster care caregiver.

Hina Naveed, JD – Policy and Legal Analyst for Racial Justice Initiatives, Children’s Rights

Hina Naveed joined Children’s Rights in 2023. Previously, she was the 2021-2023 Aryeh Neier Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) where she conducted research on, and pursued litigation and advocacy related to, the US child welfare system.

Hina also authored an ACLU/HRW report, “If I Wasn’t Poor, I Wouldn’t Be Unfit” The Family Separation Crisis in the US Child Welfare System, in which she documented how the system too often removes children from their parents with scant evidence and limited protections for parents’ due process rights, and disproportionately impacts children from over-policed, underserved communities, especially people of color and people living in poverty.

Hina earned her BS as a Registered Nurse from the College of Staten Island and her JD from the City University of New York School of Law. While pursuing her law degree, Hina worked in a child welfare agency serving children in the NYC foster system.

Stephanie Persson, JD – Senior Staff Attorney, Children’s Rights

Stephanie is a Senior Staff Attorney at Children’s Rights, where she works on class action litigation to improve government systems for children and youth. Her cases have advocated for improved state child welfare systems, eliminating harmful solitary confinement in juvenile detention facilities, providing adequate mental health care to children through Medicaid, and ensuring equitable support for kinship families seeking to foster relative children.

Stephanie is also a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz where she teaches a course on Children and the Law and a member of the Advisory Committee for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Youth and Family Justice. Stephanie received her BA from the University of Washington and her JD from Columbia Law School.

CLE

California (60-minute hour)

This participatory activity has been accredited by the State Bar of California for a maximum of 1.5 hours of General credit for live and on-demand participation. Attorneys must sign in for CLE.

Colorado (50‐minute hour)

This course is accredited by the Colorado Board of Continuing Legal and Judicial Education for a maximum of 1.8 units of General credit for live and on-demand participation. Attorneys must sign in for CLE. Colorado is a self-report state.

Attorneys in all other jurisdictions must seek CLE accreditation individually if desired.