Nearly 500 lawyers, leaders in child advocacy, educators and law students came to Harvard Law School on April 12 for a major conference on promoting children's interests. An inspiring and insightful keynote address by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye of the New York State Court of Appeals, and an exciting plenary address by William C, Bell, President of Casey Family Services, set the tone for exceptional dialogue in a beautifully managed three-day program.

"The fact that we are here in Cambridge for the first-ever ABA Center on Children and the Law-Harvard Child Advocacy Program Conference speaks volumes about our collective intent to promote the best interests of vulnerable children and youth, and to find better ways of advocating for and representing their most critical interests and needs," President Bell said.

So many highlights! We will devote our coverage, in this issue and at www.childadvocacy360.com, to key excerpts and insights from both Chief Judge Kaye and Bell. The range of critical issues and commentary was such that we will continue to publish conference nuggets in future issues. There is no URL that carries the texts at this time.

We are confident, however, that our essence journalism style has indeed captured both the essence of critical thought, and the innate humanity at the heart of these presentations. We hope to have your personal feedback, your comments and questions, which we will pass along to the conference sponsors. -Hershel Sarbin

Judith Kaye
Judge Kaye opened her remarks with a compelling context of grim, wrenching data on child poverty, criminal justice for young blacks and foster care, which we have placed as recommended reading on www.childadvocacy360.com

And now, to a few inspiring and thoughtful nuggets from her Keynote:

• "We must hear (the voices of youth themselves), know them, know where they come from, look into their eyes, gain a window onto their hopes and dreams and then step up to the plate as their champions €¦ I don't use a narrow definition of 'child advocate.' I am pleased to count myself as one. I say this out of self-interest. It's not just their future, it's ours too. An abused 12-year-old, a product of New York's foster care system, wrote in therapy: "I keep your promises taped to my shoe, so I'll remember them and you will, too, I keep your promises taped to my SOLE, and if you break them, my SOUL breaks whole."

• "As the next generation of children face the dire circumstances I've outlined, the next generation of child advocates is absolutely critical to step in as their champions. Geoff Canada reminds us that kids need heroes: "Heroes give hope, and if these children have no hope they will have no future." If I could get the mayors, and the governors, and the president to look into the eyes of the 5-year-olds of this generation, dressed in old raggedy clothes, whose zippers are broken but whose dreams are still alive, they would know what I know- that children need people to fight for them, to stand with them on the most dangerous streets, in the dirtiest hallways, in their darkest hours. We as a country have been too willing to take from our weakest when times get hard. People who allow this to happen must be educated, must be challenged, must be turned around.

William Bell
William Bell begins: "I tried to imagine what my comments might be today if one of my own daughters were involved in the Child Welfare or Family Court System. ... What would I say if she found herself challenged by the fact that she had been taken from her family?

Our tendency is to view and engage children in the context of making sure that the systems respond appropriately. It's my contention that we should be viewing our actions through a different lens; we should be viewing them through the lens of our own children; what we at Casey Family Programs have begun to call 'The Standard of Our Own.'

Here's what I mean by that - when decisions are being made on behalf of a child in our care, we should be constantly saying to ourselves: If this decision; - if this family; this school; this placement - isn't good enough for my own child, then it isn't good enough for any child in foster care, any vulnerable child in America.

The more than 500,000 children who, on any given day live in foster care in this country, or the more than 800,000 who spend at least one day in foster care every year are our responsibility. Not someone else's.

I don't believe that any of us in this room today would allow one of our own children to enter a court proceeding without effective representation or without the opportunity to be heard.

We must always keep firmly in our minds the 'Standard of Our Own.' What would you want for your own child?"

This theme carries forth throughout Bell's remarks - how representing the personal human needs of a child can positively influence the legal process and children's lives. We plan to publish more excerpts from the Bell address in subsequent issues of CA360 SmartBrief as well as on the Web site.