Florida fails to protect kids' rights in court, advocates say

An article from the Orlando Sentinel by Kate Santich:

Florida gets an F for its failure to protect the legal rights of abused and neglected children, according to a ranking released Thursday by two national child-advocacy organizations. The chief criticism: Even though Florida law requires that a guardian ad litem be appointed for every kid who ends up in the child-welfare system, the guardian may be only a volunteer and not an attorney." Volunteers can't file motions, can't make objections; they can't request discovery; they can't cross-examine; they can't depose," said Amy Harfeld, executive director of the nonprofit organization First Star, one of the authors of the state-by-state report, along with the California-based Children's Advocacy Institute. "And even when children do have counsel, there's no requirement that the counsel stay on through the appellate process."

Despite the fact that most states do provide attorneys for children who have been removed from their homes, the issue has been contentious in Florida, where opponents say there is not enough money to cover the statewide Guardian ad Litem program as it is. That office has lost $5 million in state funding during the past two years and has had to prioritize which children are represented by guardians. As a result, about 5,100 Florida children were not appointed a guardian last year, as the law requires. The latest report — which flunked six other states in addition to Florida — argues that children in state custody have as much at stake as defendants in criminal proceedings, for whom the Constitution requires an attorney. Dependency courts can determine where children live, go to school, what medications they're given, and whether they ever get to see their parents or brothers and sisters.

Several messages left at the state's Guardian ad Litem program office went unanswered. But its 2009 annual report noted: "Last year, the Guardian ad Litem program spent $397,468 of its budget to provide attorney ad litem representation for dependent children. Though the program would like to be able to contract with attorneys to represent the child's legal interests in all cases where appropriate, current funding does not allow this."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-lockid-atty-101609101609oct16,0,5846487.story