Those who are interested might send their stories to NARPA regarding the industry. Might also recommend Maia and/or Pinto as a speaker for their conference in November.
Forwared from a newsgroup:
Good morning,
As many of you are aware, for many years the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) has been a diligent advocate for children and their rights. I am the administrator for NARPA and we are having our 2007 Rights Conference in Los Angeles in November.
We are dedicating a day in our program to children's issues and I thought you might be interested in seeing some of our presenters and a little about our program. I am attaching a registration brochure. We are also providing Continuing Legal Education units again, and have added Social Work CEUs. If you have any questions, please e-mail me; if you wish to contact any of our members or our Children's Committee with issues, please let me know. You may also see information about NARPA and its positions and issues on our web site at
www.narpa.com.
Thank you, Ann Marshall, NARPA Administrator
~~~
From their 2003 Conference
Not Seen and Not Heard: Children Committed to Psychiatric Institutions
Carolyn Salisbury, J.D., University of Miami Law School
"I'm a child in a cage, locked in a mental hospital for being underage and not being on DCF's 'page', I'm property of the state and of workers earning minimum wage, I'm restrained and tranquilized like an animal on stage, I'm shut-up and shut-away but not allowed to feel rage, I'm just a child in state care growing up in a cage."
This workshop will present a model of legal advocacy for institutionalized children that successfully created systemic change in Florida.
The state's supreme court recently held that dependent children are entitled to a lawyer and a hearing prior to involuntary committment to a psychiatric institution. We will explore how to apply the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence to help children's voices be heard and validated within the legal and mental health systems. The workshop will discuss the University of Miami Children & Youth Law Clinic's "Voice Project" and will show how advocates can launch similar multi-disciplinary collaborations.
