Leecia Welch, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law has been awarded the 2007 Child Advocacy Award by the ABA Young Lawyers Division. The national award is intended to “honor lawyers for distinguished service on behalf of children and celebrate “the often unheralded services” child advocates bring to the legal profession. Each year, the ABA Young Lawyer’s Division bestows the honor on two attorneys. Leecia, who specializes in foster care reform, was chosen from among young lawyers (36 or younger) for the award. Gail Chang Bohr, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota, received the award among lawyers older than 36. Both attorneys will be presented with their awards on August 11 at ABA’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.
“Leecia works tirelessly for the benefit of foster children across the country. I am frankly amazed at what she has accomplished on behalf of children in her relatively young career,” said NCYL Director John O’Toole. “We at NCYL feel so fortunate to have her on our staff.”
Leecia joined NCYL in 2004, acting as lead counsel in David C. v. Huntsman, a class action to reform Utah’s foster care system. On June 28, the US District Court in Salt Lake City approved an agreement to end the case after 14 years, with all parties agreeing that the state’s child welfare system is among the best in the country. It is viewed as a national model by child welfare experts across the country.
“Tens of thousands of abused and neglected children in Utah are better off now because of Leecia’s relentless and effective advocacy. It is a huge accomplishment,” O’Toole said.
Leecia is also on NCYL’s litigation team in Clark K. v. Guinn, a class action to reform the foster care system in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada; and Katie A. v. Bonta, which seeks to establish foster children’s right to therapeutic wrap-around services as part of the mental health services they are entitled to under Medicaid.
Leecia oversees several projects to improve the education of foster youth, including the training of law students at UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law to become educational surrogates for foster youth in Alameda County schools, and also teaches a class at Boalt on child welfare reform through impact litigation.
Prior to joining NCYL in 2004, Leecia was an associate in the litigation department at San Fancisco’s Morrison & Foerster LLP, focusing exclusively on Williams v. State of California, a class action that reformed California’s troubled public school system.
“Leecia’s work reflected the best values of lawyering … the word tireless does not do justice to her role on the case,” said Morrison & Foerster partner Jack Londen, who supervised Leecia’s work on Williams.”
Leecia earned her J.D. Magna Cum Laude from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1996. She was the editor of the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, and the Children’s Legal Rights Journal. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University Phi Beta Kappa. After law school, Leecia served as a Children’s Law Fellow with Civitas Initiative, developing and implementing all programs and initiatives related to children’s issues.
The daughter of a social worker in Florida’s foster care system, Leecia often had abused and neglected children living with her family as a child, and has always had a keen interest in foster care issues.
Child Welfare System Cited as National Model Court Commends Parties for Their Success
The federal District Court in Utah yesterday approved an agreement between the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) and Utah officials to end a longstanding suit to reform Utah’s child welfare system.
“This is a significant milestone for Utah’s children and families who benefit from the vast improvements Utah made in caring for its abused and neglected children,” Governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. said.
U.S. District Court Judge Tena Campbell approved the agreement between NCYL and Utah during an afternoon hearing attended by about 40 advocates, state foster care officials, and others from the child welfare community.
NCYL and Utah officials signed an agreement to end the case, David C. v. Levitt, on May 11. All parties agree that significant and steady improvements have resulted in a child welfare system that protects the state’s abused and neglected children, and helps families get the support they need. Changes have been so dramatic that the system is now recognized by child welfare experts as a national model.
“We are proud of the significant reforms achieved through the lawsuit and we believe the parties’ most recent agreement will go a long way toward ensuring that these reforms are sustained,” said Leecia Welch, a senior attorney at NCYL and lead counsel in the case. “It has taken many years of hard work to get where we are today and there will be many challenges ahead, but, today, the Utah child welfare community should take a moment to congratulate themselves for their tremendous achievements.”
Court approval of the parties’ agreement means that the court will no longer monitor the case. The system has been in litigation for the past 14 years.
For the past eight years, the lawsuit has been overseen by a court monitor, the Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group, whose role also ends with court approval of the agreement. However, DCFS is subject to one final review in the fall 2008. If that review is satisfactory, the case will be dismissed permanently Dec. 31, 2008.
Some of the most significant improvements to the system in the past decade include doubling the number of caseworkers from 282 to 612; reducing caseloads to between 13 and 15 cases per worker; and an extensive caseworker training program. State child welfare administrators and workers have adopted a set of key “practice skills” that focus on establishing relationships with children and parents in the system, and addressing their unique circumstances and needs. DCFS has also developed a state of the art data management system and mechanisms to measure system performance. The provision of health care services for foster children is also considered a national model.
Since David C. was filed in 1993, the budget for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services has increased from $50 million to more than $151 million.
The system will continue to be monitored by state and regional Quality Improvement Committees composed of foster parents and youth, lawyers, mental health professionals, Court Appointed Special Advocates, and other stakeholders. These panels will evaluate the system’s performance, promote community involvement in the child welfare system, and report their findings. In addition, Utah Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. has formed a special Children and Family Cabinet Council charged with recommending how and what resources should be allocated to the system.
NCYL sued the state of Utah in 1993 over its child welfare practices, calling for broad reform of the system. The system currently has about 2,300 children in foster care. There are more than 20,000 complaints of child abuse and neglect made in Utah each year.
Children in the case were represented by Leecia Welch and John O’Toole of the National Center for Youth Law, Oakland, CA; Stephen Clark of Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough, Salt Lake City, Utah; and Gregory Dresser of Morrison & Foerster LLP, San Francisco, CA.
Edward M. (“Ned”) Opton, Jr. joined NCYL in January as a part-time volunteer attorney. In less than half a year, he has made a substantial contribution to our work here at the Center.
For twenty-five years until his recent “retirement,” Ned worked in the Office of the General Counsel of the University of California, specializing in labor and employment law. A 1977 graduate of Boalt Hall, he practiced for four years with Morrison & Foerster before joining the University.
Ned earned his undergrad degree at Yale, and also has a PhD in Clinical and Physiological Psychology from Duke. From 1963 to 1969 he was an Associate Research Psychologist and Lecturer in psychology at UC Berkeley. In 1969 he joined the Wright Institute, an independent graduate school of psychology in Berkeley that he helped found. At Wright he was an Associate Dean & Senior Research Psychologist. Wright’s program philosophy is based on an insistence that human relationships are of central importance to both learning and clinical practice in psychology.
Ned’s considerable experience as an attorney, including as a litigator, makes his presence at NCYL valuable in and of itself. The fact of his combined background in both the law and psychology enrich his contribution to our work enormously, particularly to our work on mental health for vulnerable youth.
Ned is coauthor and coeditor of two provocative books. The Mind Manipulators, published in 1978, which he wrote with Alan W. Scheflin, surveys practices such as “brainwashing” and psychiatric coercion, and includes histories of their use in police and prison systems. The Mind Manipulators covers topics ranging from the Moscow show trials of the Stalinist era, to the U.S. Army’s and CIA’s LSD experiments, to the Charles Manson “Family,” psychosurgery, and behavior modification. Ned is also coeditor, with R.S. Lazarus (who has been described as the “Dean of Stress & Emotion Research”) of a collection, Personality.
At NCYL, Ned has edited a report on mental health services for young children, is researching juvenile mental health courts, and does on research for NCYL’s Clark K. (Nevada) litigation. He is also serving as an editorial mentor to NCYL’s summer law clerks as they contribute to Youth Law News.
Besides his work at NCYL, Ned is also a volunteer tutor at King Middle School in Berkeley, and occasionally at 826 Valencia, author Dave Eggers’ writing center for youth in San Francisco.
