Focusing on Children at Risk

What are the courts doing to help dependent children?

Thousands of children in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties are living in foster homes and other temporary 
settings such as group homes or residential institutions. In most cases, these children have been removed 
from their parents by court order because they have been abused or neglected. By legal definition, they 
are “dependent children” because they are dependent on the courts and the child welfare system for 
protection.

When a family court judge orders a child removed from his or her parents, the goal is to get the child safely 
resettled as quickly as possible in a permanent home, whether back with parents in a stable environment, 
with grandparents, with other relatives, with a caring non-relative or with an adoptive family. The focus is on 
establishing a healthy, permanent living situation for the child.

Unfortunately the sad reality is that many of these children remain in temporary care for years moving from 
home to home. In addition, many youth “age out” of the system with few connections to healthy caring 
adults.

To address these and other issues the Supreme Court established the Office of Children and Families in 
the Courts in 2006 within the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC). Supreme Court Justice 
Max Baer is the Court’s liaison to the Office of Children and Families in the Courts. The Office’s main goals 
are to address the needs of dependent children and their families, to reduce the time children spend in 
temporary homes and to improve the experiences of these children while in temporary care.

Funds for the office are provided through grants from the Court Improvement Project, which is run by the 
Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Since 2006, the Office of Children and Families in the Courts, along with the Department of Public Welfare 
and other partners, has safely reduced the number of dependent and delinquent children in temporary 
foster care homes by more than 7,000, or 33 percent. Placing these children into a permanent family 
setting greatly improves their chances to succeed and significantly reduces the cost of institutional care, 
saving an estimated $117 million annually.

Working with county family courts and child welfare officials, the Office of Children and Families in the 
Courts seeks to provide more training for judges, to urge more leadership by judges in dependency cases 
and to ensure frequent hearings for each dependent child. Family courts also are encouraged to share 
information with each other as they develop “best practices” in the handling of dependency cases.

More information about the Office of Children and Families in the Courts is available at 
www.ocfcpacourts.us.

Revised November 2012