by Doug Phillips
Date: August 5, 1996
CORAL GABLES, Fla. --- Law students and staff at the University of Miami School of Law Children & Youth Law Clinic are working to keep today's foster children from being counted among tomorrow's criminals and homeless people. One priority of the newly established clinic is to make sure that foster children have the necessary skills to live independently when they leave state care.
"Studies have shown that 20 to 40 percent of homeless people used to be foster kids," says Carolyn Salisbury, the clinic's associate director. Salisbury, a graduate of UM's School of Law, also says that state prisons are filled with inmates who come from foster backgrounds.
"Many youngsters are discharged from foster care without knowing how to open a bank account, write checks, find an apartment or budget their money," says clinic Director Bernie Perlmutter, also a graduate of UM's law school. Perlmutter and Salisbury say Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, which is charged with overseeing the state's foster children, is not carrying out the federal mandate to teach foster children "independent living skills." By intervening, the Children and Youth Law Clinic tries to make sure that the foster care system doesn't hurt those it is supposed to be helping.
Take the case of Matthew, whose last name can't be used because he's still a juvenile. When Matthew was eight his parents took him to Guatemala and abandoned him in a hotel room after saying they would be right back. Matthew, it seems, has lived in society's margins ever since. The U.S. relatives he was eventually placed with gave him a one-way ticket back to Guatemala (to find his parents) which again left him living on the streets there. Matthew wound up in Florida's foster care system. But his living conditions have been far from nurturing, according to Salisbury and Perlmutter. Matthew's case was referred to UM's Children and Youth Law Clinic by a judge in Dade County's juvenile court system.
An investigation by law students at the clinic revealed that Matthew, now 17, faced a desperate situation. The teen had been enrolled in a vocational school but the curriculum was far beyond his grasp. Matthew had not regularly attended school since the third grade and lacked basic literacy skills. He had stopped attending vocational school and, the clinic discovered, was locked out of his foster home every weekday from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. Matthew was again spending much of his time on the street.
"This is a classic story of someone who is the victim of neglect and abandonment by his biological family who then becomes institutionally neglected - in effect, abandoned again," says Perlmutter.
Salisbury says the clinic went to court on Matthew's behalf to compel HRS to follow its case plan. The plan, she says, consists of safe placement in foster care, schooling to make up for his educational deficit and the appropriate skills training to prepare him for adulthood. Matthew's future appears to be brighter because of the clinic's advocacy. He has been placed in a different foster home and is being afforded the opportunity to work and learn.
Sadly though, Matthew's case is not unique. Since opening in the spring, the Children and Youth Law Clinic has become the court-appointed representative for more than 30 children. Among them are a 17-year-old hearing impaired and emotionally disturbed foster child, an undocumented Haitian teenager and a cocaine-exposed infant whose mother was caught trying to give the four-month-old baby a burning cigarette.
"We're doing something for children, a group of people who don't usually have a voice," says Corey Jackson, a third year law student at UM and one of the clinic's legal interns. Jackson says working at the clinic has given him a lot of practical law experience like writing motions, attending court proceedings and advocating on behalf of a client.
"This is a teaching law clinic," stresses Salisbury. She and Perlmutter assume the role of supervising attorneys as the law students do the majority of legal research, fact investigation, motion writing and discovery of evidence. Eight to ten UM law school students work at the clinic each semester and all have been certified as legal interns by the Florida Supreme Court.
Along with its practical lawyering element, the clinic also strives to teach students about public interest law and about empowering indigent clients. Says Perlmutter: "We need to stand up for marginalized members of our society and there's no more marginalized group than children because children don't vote on how laws are made."
The Children & Youth Law Clinic is the first in-house clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. The selection of children's law as its emphasis is due largely to the fact that children are more likely than any other age group in the United States to be poor and this "poverty gap" is widening.
Bernard Perlmutter (JD '83) has devoted his entire legal career to public interest law. Prior to being appointed clinic director he was a staff attorney with the Family/Juvenile/Education Unit of Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.
Carolyn S. Salisbury (JD '95) serves as associate clinic director and is also a part-time legal research and writing instructor at the School of Law. While attending law school, Salisbury earned numerous awards including a fellowship from the prestigious echoing green Foundation. It was the echoing green fellowship that led to the establishment of the Children and Youth Law Clinic. Salisbury earned a $25,000 grant for her proposal "Project Self-Sufficiency" which was designed to assist foster children in making the transition from foster care to adulthood.
Even this early in the clinic's history, Salisbury and Perlmutter say they've recognized severe deficiencies within Florida's process of dealing with foster children. They say the Children and Youth Law Clinic is contemplating the filing of a class-action lawsuit to force Florida HRS to provide independent living skills training to adolescent foster children. "HRS gets federal funding to provide these services but just isn't doing it," Salisbury says.
There's also the issue of skills-deficient youngsters being unilaterally discharged from state custody upon reaching the age of 18. Perlmutter says current state law allows children over 18 to remain in foster care if they are enrolled in school but makes no such provision for children who are not capable of living independently.
"What we're seeking to do is to make sure that kids who want and need to stay in HRS foster care beyond the age of 18 can do so," he says.
The University of Miami School of Law Children & Youth Law Clinic is housed in a small office in the Plumer Building at 5915 Ponce De Leon Boulevard. Its proximity to the law school makes the clinic convenient for students, faculty and administration. Nearby bus routes and Metrorail mean the clinic is also accessible to the people it serves. But more importantly, says Perlmutter, the clinic's location gives law students the means to travel to schools, hospitals, courts and the foster homes where their clients live.
"We want students to develop a sense of community lawyering," Perlmutter says. "We want them to get away from education's ivory tower and into the neighborhoods they serve."
Media note: For more information about the Children & Youth Law Clinic please call Bernie Perlmutter or Carolyn Salisbury at 305-284-3123.
