A pilot project for a northeast Ohio court is showing how a community can support and stabilize families through the struggles of child custody issues – and six new pilot projects are following the lead.

Summit County Juvenile Court is the first in the state to establish a multi-disciplinary legal representation team to address these issues. It consists of a defense attorney, social worker, and parent advocate all working with families involved in abuse, neglect, and dependency cases.

The idea was the result of an Ohio Supreme Court study that looked for ways to improve representation for parents who come through the legal system in the hopes of being reunified with their children as quickly as possible.

The initial pilot was funded through a federal Court Improvement Program grant held by the Supreme Court.

“It sounded like a good opportunity to provide parents with the best support in their goal of reunification with their children, so we decided to step up to the plate and give it a try,” said Summit County Juvenile Judge Linda Teodosio.

Since its inception in February, the Summit County project has handled 11 cases. To date, three families have reunified, affecting six children.

“When I have the lawyers who are practicing in the pilot telling me every case should be this way, and what a difference it makes for their clients, it sure makes me want to do whatever I can to expand it,” Judge Teodosio said.

The most unique component of the legal team is the parent advocate, a person who’s already gone through the challenges of the children services system.

The fallout from family issues and depression left Veronica McNair – the project’s parent advocate – without her children for months and forced her to navigate the legal system by herself.

“It was incredibly intimidating and overwhelming,” said McNair, who works for Greenleaf Family Center, an Akron-based social services organization. “I wish this kind of team was around when I needed it.”

In her role, McNair communicates with the parents to make sure they understand the legal process, and what’s expected of them in the pursuit of avoiding a child’s removal from the home or regaining custody, and she provides wisdom and emotional support whenever needed.

“I always try to reassure them that they can do this,” McNair said. “If I did it, I know they can.”

On top of working toward an expedited reunification, the multi-disciplinary legal teams’ main objective is to provide the supports and services parents need so they will not enter the children services system again in the future.

“To me, going back and forth from parents to foster care has to be the most traumatic thing for kids,” Judge Teodosio said.

Given the project’s promise, the Supreme Court has partnered with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and Ohio Children’s Trust Fund to provide an additional $750,000 in grants for other local courts in the state to build on Summit County’s successes.

The six new pilot sites launched last month. Each has chosen to focus its multi-disciplinary team efforts on helping families avoid entering the children services system and out-of-home placements of children. The strategy is called “pre-petition.”

The new pilot grantees include the public defender offices in Cuyahoga and Erie counties, Clark County Juvenile Court, Stark County Family Court, and Wayne County Probate and Juvenile Court.

“At some point, we’d like to venture into the pre-petition field and maybe stop the cases from coming to court, by providing the families with additional support before they get to that point,” Judge Teodosio said.

More information about the multi-disciplinary team pilot project in Ohio is available by emailing Debra Copeland, the Supreme Court’s policy analyst in the Children and Families Section.