W&L Law Symposium to Explore Child Welfare Emerging Issues
Next week, the W&L Law Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, in partnership with the Frances Lewis Law Center, the Shepherd Poverty Program, and Themis Bar Review, will host a symposium exploring pressing issues in the area of child welfare.
The symposium, titled “Emerging Issues in Child Welfare,” will take place on Feb. 28 in the Millhiser Moot Court Room, Sydney Lewis Hall on the grounds of Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. This event is free and open to the public.
The symposium will focus on several critical issues in society and their impact on child welfare law and practice. One panel will examine how child welfare protections operate within immigrant populations. Another panel will explore how the child welfare system has responded to the evolving rights of the LGBT community.
Another panel will engage definitions of neglect and how far courts can go in determining when abuse has occurred. The symposium will also feature a free discussion between legal practitioners, child welfare activists and legal scholars on the realities of practice in the field of child advocacy.
“Our goal with this symposium was to create a venue where a variety of perspectives could be brought to bear on several important child welfare issues,” said W&L Law Prof. Joan Shaughnessy, who helped organize the event. “We believe this discussion will have immediate application for those working on the ground.”
The symposium is scheduled to run from 9:00 a.m. until 2:45 p.m. A complete schedule for the symposium is available online.
The mission of the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice (JCRSJ) is to explore the intersection of majority and minority culture through discrete legal issues. To that end, the Journal seeks to provide a space for scholars of all persuasions to expand and develop a theoretical, critical, and socially relevant dialogue with the legal community.
