WHAT IS AN INDEPENDENT FAMILY ADVOCATE?

The practice of Family Advocacy was devised by the American Family Advocacy Center in
1997, by founder and director, Suzanne Shell. The purpose of this practice was to insure that
parents and children who are involved with state child welfare agencies would have a tool which
would assist them with protecting their fundamental human right to family association. State
statutes are frequently in tension with constitutional rights in juvenile dependency cases. An
independent family advocate can provide support and information which is frequently not available
to them otherwise–and which is often deliberately withheld from them–so they can make fully
informed decisions. Advocacy also teach the parent how to enforce the rights they choose to
invoke.
Many organizations offer advocacy services to family members - adults and children - who
are involved with child welfare agencies. Most of these family members have progressed in their
cases to the point of court ordered services, including therapeutic and rehabilitative services,
designed to rehabilitate and treat a parent and to treat an allegedly abused or neglected child.
Parents are often in court ordered treatment for a physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits the major life activity of raising their children to the point where the state feels
compelled to remove the children from the home. Many times, parents have, or are perceived by
the child welfare agency and the courts to have, an emotional or mental condition that could
compromise the safety of their children.
Virtually every parent involved with the system is required to have one or more
psychological evaluations, and virtually every evaluation contains some of the same psychological
factors that are used against the parents: depression, anxiety, paranoia, distrust, borderline
personality disorder, hyper vigilance. These diagnoses, made based on tests taken by the parent
after the trauma of intervention has begun, often become the basis for court ordered treatment
plans.

American Family Advocacy Center Copyright 2000 - 2011 Suzanne Shell. permission required reproduce or redistribute.
 Additionally, children of these parents are often also ordered into mental health treatment
when they start to act out in foster care, which is often misdiagnosed separation anxiety. They are
often placed on mind and/or behavior altering medications and become classified as special needs
children and are placed into therapy of some sort.
As such, both parents and children could often fall under the protections of the Americans
with Disabilities Act, due to real or perceived mental, psychological and/or emotional disabilities
which are recorded in the case and court files, and for which these family members are receiving
treatment. To date, no agency provides services in a court ordered treatment plan to compensate for
these real or perceived disabilities.
Family Rights Advocacy Institute trained and certified family advocates provide services
that often fall under the ADA provision of Auxiliary Aids and Services as well as advocating for
family members before a treatment plan is imposed. Whether or not a family member qualifies
under the ADA, they still have the right to utilize the services of an independent family advocate of
their own choosing without retaliation, recrimination or threats. The First amendment and supreme
court rulings clearly protect this freedom of association, even for family members in dependency
cases.
During an intervention into a family, on top of the real or perceived mental, psychological or
emotional disability, the members of the family experience debilitating emotional trauma to the
point that they cannot function adequately to protect themselves and their rights. The level of stress
is so high that it compromises their ability to remember instructions or events that occur during this
period, assert their rights, or effectively participate in the process of developing their cases or
successfully completing their treatment plans. They are reacting at an extremely high emotional
level and are experiencing pain, fear, anger, anxiety and confusion. The Family Advocate provides
services to assist the family member with compensating for their real or perceived disability and/or
the stress of the situation, and helps them to more effectively deal with the complicated legal and
administrative issues surrounding the intervention by the state.
A Family Advocate:
• is a non attorney who is knowledgeable in the laws, policies, procedures, requirements and
practices of child welfare agencies, their service providers, Guardians ad litem, CASA’s, etc. and
in the Federal requirements surrounding all related issues including the ADA, accessing records,
etc.
• does not represent a family member in court or in the capacity of a licensed attorney, but
works with the family member’s attorney and forwards relevant information and evidence to him

American Family Advocacy Center Copyright 2000 - 2011 Suzanne Shell. permission required reproduce or redistribute.
 • assists the family member with protecting their rights throughout the process of intervention
by CPS agencies by being present during administrative meetings, staffings and reviews to
accurately document the interaction, guides the family member through the complicated maze of
requirements, and suggests possible courses of action and remedies from which the family member
can choose to facilitate his success with the court ordered treatment plan.
• assists the family member with documenting their compliance with any court ordered
treatment plan and offers solutions to problems encountered that might jeopardize their success.
• assists the family member seeking administrative and other remedies for violations of law,
policy, ethics or their rights by any child welfare agency, service provider or party to the case,
including the failure of the agency to provide services in the treatment plan to compensate the
child’s or parents’ real or perceived disabilities.
In other words, we empower the family member to be an effective participant in the treatment
team and to be able to assume and exert some measure of self-determination and dignity over his
life and the outcome of his case to the point where the family can be safely and appropriately
reunited.
The only reasonable modification required to permit the family member full access to all
services provided and to the enjoyment of his family is that the parties to the case and service
providers allow the family member to use the services of their chosen Independent Family
Advocate. These services can be provided the appropriate releases of confidentiality signed by the
family member. This service is usually offered at no expense to the CPS agency or the family.
It is our position that any party or service provider who denies any family member who is under
a court ordered treatment plan access to this auxiliary service and/or to the services of a Family
Advocate is in violation of the ADA, as well as the right of free association for the purposes of
issue advocacy. That denial intentionally, willfully and maliciously creates a barrier to the family
member’s ability successfully complete a court ordered treatment plan, and to enjoy the
companionship, comfort and affection of family members, and to his right to maintain the sanctity
of his family which the courts have declared to be a liberty interest. Efforts by agencies to prevent
this association is actionable as a constitutional violation.

How to Choose an Advocate or Advocacy Organization

• Examine the agenda of the organization to determine if it coincides with your agenda. If
there are conflicts, it could hurt your case. But don't be fooled by the child welfare
practitioners telling you the organization you associate with will hurt your case, or they are
“too political.” Child welfare agencies and service providers have no legitimate say in who
 you associate with for political purposes. Have no doubt, child welfare is as much a
political practice as it is a social welfare practice. Family rights organizations need to be
somewhat political in order to influence social change. Your case and your participation
will help with that endeavor.
• If the makeup of the organization and/or the leadership of the organization is overly
represented by professions (mental health, medical, social work, etc.) rather than citizens
and consumers (targeted family members) there is a great risk that this organization will not
effectively advocate for you. Many times the professionals cannot escape their training
which affects their ability to walk in your shoes, or be empathetic. They tend to be
judgmental rather than supportive, and their services will reflect that attitude. They will
often not allow for the imperfections inherent in parenting and require you to become
perfect as a condition of having your children returned. They also have professional ties to
the child welfare agency and will do nothing to jeopardize that professional relationship.
They will not take the calculated risks required or push for accountability. They will hold
you back and make you feel good while they are doing it. These groups are often simply
used by child welfare agencies to neutralized real advocacy and activism.
• Beware of organizations that whose leadership consists of people who were legitimately
accused of abuse or neglect. This often evidenced by their abusive or in-your-face conduct
toward anyone who disagrees with them. They rant and rave, and call the child welfare
practitioners names and make derogatory commentary about them. The only tool they have
is force, and cannot negotiate or compromise. They cannot be objective or reasoned with.
These groups will not work with other organizations, they will attempt to dominate other
organizations and steal their work to enhance themselves. They do not support the efforts of
other organizations (especially if they disagree with a tactic or a person). They won’t share
information, but will take it from others. They won’t learn from others who have gone
before them, which undermines all of our efforts. These groups believe they can do it alone,
that their way is the only way, often driving other groups or individuals out of the market.
These groups rise fast and fade away with barely a blip on the radar, this will not help your
case or your cause.
• Beware of organizations who seek their own glory, or whose leaders are using its
membership to support their claims on their personal cases. To these people, their name in
lights is more important than advancing your case or reforming child welfare. These glory
seekers can actually hurt your case and they do hurt our reform efforts.
• Your advocate should not have an open case of their own. Nobody can effectively advocate
 for someone else while they are fighting to get their own children back. Trust me, it will
hurt your case.
• Your advocates and organization should have participated in intensive training and be able
to prove it. You don't want to be someone's experimental guinea pig. You want tried and
true tactics. If they aren’t trained, if they aren’t subject to oversight, you are asking for
trouble.
• Your advocacy organization should be willing to reveal its track record and measures of
success. If they do not reunite families more quickly and more often than the norm in your
area (minimum of six months generally speaking), they are not effective. If they take longer
than the norm (more than twelve months to reunify), they are harming your case. You can
check this out by searching their group archives.
• Beware of groups that offer only bitch and piss and moan services, often by utilizing
interactive online groups. We don't need to keep rehashing the horror stories - we need to
take effective action on individual cases as well as the issue as a whole. Your group should
offer training sessions for parents involved in a case, speakers and strategies for activism
and advocacy, and more. If they don’t do that, it is likely they are just going to drag you
into their pity party.
• Beware of groups who cannot be relied on to make the appearances for your case or who
don't keep appointments. If it doesn’t matter to them that they let you down when you were
counting on them, they aren’t going to care about the quality of the services they provide.
• Beware of groups whose grand claims of success are not able to be proven or substantiated.
• Beware of groups who will not offer references from former families who used their
services. At the same time, beware of groups or advocates who will give out contact
information of family members they worked with without having first obtained their
permission to do so. If they can’t figure out how to accomplish this without violating
confidentiality, they are not likely to figure out how to help your case effectively, either.
• Beware of groups who are not obstructed by the child welfare agencies, courts, and other
child welfare practitioners. These groups are obviously not enough a threat to the system’s
business as usual to make any attempt to prevent them from providing services. Frequently,
these non-threatening will make bad compromises with the child welfare practitioners,
rendering their advocacy ineffectual. We are not yet at a place in our effort to reform
whereby a child welfare agency welcomes the services of trained and competent advocates.
• Beware of groups or individuals who charge you fees for their services. While there is a
place for earning income, amateur advocacy and activism is not the appropriate place for
 that. A person who charges fees is engaged in a business enterprise - which is a legitimate
practice - but it is not in grassroots advocacy or activism. Do not be misled. This industry
already generates billions of dollars for the child abuse industry service providers, amateur
advocates do not need a piece of that pie. Unpaid advocates have put their money where
their mouth is, and operate out of altruism, not out of the potential for personal profit.
• Beware of any group that advocates you signing up for government entitlements instead of
finding ways for you to solve your issues in the private sector. Government entitlements
make your family a target for child protection intervention.
• Your group should be able to refer you to trusted professionals who are not whores of the
child welfare system in any needed discipline. If they can’t they haven’t done their basic
homework and are not likely to provide effective advocacy.
• Beware of groups who cannot offer strategies where the costs to you are minimal to none or
are not covered by outside resources. Your association with this group should not create a
financial burden for your family.
• Be prepared to work your fingers to the bone in behalf of your own case. They are your
kids, not ours. If you are not willing to put in the effort required to get them back, why
should your group?