Parents who have survived family and intimate partner violence are at risk of having their experiences used as evidence to separate them from their children in dependency court. Parent attorneys and parent advocates may find specific challenges to keeping these parents with their children and in obtaining appropriate reunification services from the agency.

Presenters D’Adre Cunningham (WDA’s Incarcerated Parents Project) and Evangeline Stratton (Family Violence Appellate Project, Washington) will describe and review legal strategies with regards to shelter care placement (removal), visitation, dispositional (reunification) services, and protective relief on behalf of parent survivors and their children as well as address legal arguments to challenge common agency approaches that separate survivor-parents form their children. The planners hope that attendees will learn how they can change their advocacy and outcomes when working with parent-survivors.

To register for this program, email wda@defensenet.org with “Advocacy for Survivors” as the subject line.