“Routinely, it’s the caseworkers who are afforded the greatest opportunity to talk.” “This sort of thing happens every day,” says Kara Finck, a Penn Family Law professor. “The courts are the forum where they’re supposed to be heard, but that often doesn’t happen.” “It’s very common for parents to get a very limited chance to speak,” says Karissa Phelps, a former Stoneleigh fellow at Temple’s legal aid office, who recently finished a two-year project that examined kinship care and the dependency courts. And her longest response is a cogent 87 words, which at an average speaking rate would take about 34 seconds to utter.Īll told, Tereshko interrupts or speaks over Buie 22 times. Her average statement prior to finishing or being interrupted is 11.3 words. Across 12 pages of testimony, Buie tries repeatedly to answer the questions asked. What is striking, however, is that the transcript shows something else entirely. You had an appropriate amount of time” - before turning on Buie herself: “You’re asked a question and you give a 20-minute answer that’s got nothing to do with the question that was asked of you.” “But every time I got in there, it was just like, no one was hearing me talk.”ĭuring an October 2020 hearing, Judge Allan Tereshko cut Buie off repeatedly, then told her attorney, “You’re done. “Going to court was something I looked forward to, to make my case,” she says. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, passed during the Clinton administration, mandates a rush to “permanency,” presuming that children who cannot be reunified with their parents in a 15-month time frame should be moved toward adoption.īuie, though, had maintained her hopes, collected letters of support from the counselors she had worked with, and looked toward her court date for validation. The problem, however, is that parents and families in this situation face a ticking clock.
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