Hawaii Judges Were Trained To Run Better Child Welfare Hearings. Their Performance Plummeted 0 The hearings can determine whether parents lose their children, but topics that could help avoid that are rarely or never discussed.
Since 2012, the Hawaii Judiciary has been working with a national council to improve the quality of hearings in family court, where proceedings can lead to momentous decisions such as whether parents lose custody of their children forever.
In November 2019, judges from across the state got training on how to conduct better hearings, including how to engage with parents and what topics to discuss to achieve goals such as avoiding or shortening foster placements or speeding up the time it takes for a child to find a permanent home.
To measure the effect, observers sat in on a sampling of court hearings before and after the training.
The most recent draft report showed a surprising result: Across the board, judges are addressing almost all topics in hearings with parents less than they did before the training.
