The Ohio Access to Justice Foundation is taking a bold step in pursuing its mission to promote access to justice by leading a new collaboration to improve Ohio’s child welfare system by improving the quality and quantity of attorneys practicing child welfare law in Ohio.
The Department of Children and Youth (DCY) awarded the Foundation a contract to collaborate with multiple partners, including The Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA), Ohio CASA, The Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO), and Kinnect to create system change. Informed by consultants Baldacci Consulting and Illuminology, the new project will help Ohio maximize its Title IV-E drawdowns and streamline reimbursements, support innovative new models for service delivery, provide specialized training to attorneys in the child welfare space, and develop incentives to recruit and retain additional attorneys for child welfare work.
“Ohio’s children and families involved in the child welfare system are some of the most vulnerable Ohioans in need of high-quality legal representation,” said Angie Lloyd, the Foundation’s executive director. “This is an incredible opportunity to create better outcomes for Ohio’s children, and ultimately, to reduce the number of children in the foster care system.”
As the official access to justice entity in Ohio and the single largest state funder for Ohio’s legal aids, the Foundation is uniquely positioned to lead and convene a collaboration at the scale required to execute DCY’s objectives. The project will consider every aspect of legal representation in the child welfare system and will engage partners in their specific areas of expertise. In addition to high-quality training for child welfare attorneys, the project includes research and data collection, as well as outreach to undergraduate and law students to encourage careers in child welfare legal services.
A Foundation team comprised of Robby Southers, the Foundation’s policy and justice initiatives counsel, and two new team members, including an attorney to manage the collaboration among the partners and a grants and reimbursement coordinator, will work together to meet the project’s deliverables.
“We’ve heard from multiple partners that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make an impact on this area of law that really needs it,” Southers said. “We’re grateful that DCY has entrusted the Foundation with this important work, and we can’t wait to get started.”
The Ohio Access to Justice Foundation helps ensure that Ohioans who are low-income or who lack access can fully and fairly participate in civil systems that produce just outcomes. Learn more at ohiojusticefoundation.org.