Bench & Bar January/February 2025

CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION

BY JENNIFER S. NELSON A NECESSARY EDUCATION GAL TRAINING:

• Mental Health. You need to at least be familiar with common mental health issues like PTSD, attachment disorders, trauma, ODD, ADHD, bi-polar disorder, depression, anxi ety, and the nature of addiction. • Drugs. GALs talk about drugs almost as much as mental health. It doesn’t take long to know the difference be tween a recreational user and the “I can’t believe you drove to court” user. You may also need to know how a person can get a false positive drug test result and the differences be tween urine, hair, and nail screens. It is also important to be aware of the court’s stance on medical marijuana, suboxone, and other hot topic issues. • Resources and Insurance. You should know which counselors will conduct parenting classes, anger manage ment sessions, behavior intervention plans, psychological and substance abuse evaluations, and how much each cost, how long they take, and what doctors will take your client’s insurance. Some things can only be learned by time in the field, but training and continuing legal education (CLE) programs can also help educate you on a plethora of topics. Trainings are often viewed by attorneys as simply something they have to do to check

“Be a lawyer. Hang a shingle. Need cases? Get appointed to represent people in depen dency, abuse and neglect cases, and earn $500.00 per case. It’s easy!” When I hear those words, I cringe. It actu ally is NOT easy. It can be fun if you enjoy spending time with your colleagues and you like to problem-solve, but mostly it involves helping families through some of the worst experiences of their lives and representing children who have been victims of physical and/or emotional abuse and neglect. According to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, as of October 6, 2024, there were 8,317 children in out-of-home care in Kentucky. Some of these children are in foster care, some are with relatives, but all of them have a social worker, a judge, and a Guardian Ad Litem (“GAL”). To be an effective GAL, you need to know the basics: the rules of procedure, the acronyms, the timeframes, the “law” and applicable statutes, the Cabinet lingo, and the general requirements of a case plan. You also need to know a little bit about the following topics: • Criminal Law and Dependency, Ne glect, and Abuse (“DNA”) Proceed ings: You don’t want to make things worse by not understanding the pro cesses and procedures for the clients you represent.

a box, and the time spent in trainings is fre quently used as an opportunity to catch up on emails rather than to actually listen and learn something from the presenter(s). But if you don’t know what you are doing in a DNA case, a kid could stay in foster care too long, a parent could lose his or her parental rights, or a child’s life could literally be at stake. It’s not hyperbole. Kentucky has historically ranked very poorly when it comes to national child abuse statistics. While there has been great improvement in recent years, with a 48% reduction from 2018 to 2022, Kentucky’s child abuse rate is still around 60% higher than the national average. 1 Given the vast number of child abuse victims, GAL train ing could be viewed as the most important training an attorney in the Commonwealth can take. Not only should the number of child victims be taken seriously, so too should the gravity of the issue. Abuse of a child is one of the most heinous acts a person can perpetrate, and it is certainly FOUR TIPS TO SUCCEED AS A GAL (1) Know your judges. (2) Know your social workers. (3) Try to understand the people you are representing – even if it is way outside your comfort zone. (4) Do the training. It’s required, and it matters.

52 january/february 2025