Judicial/Legal Resources

Family First designates Colorado’s Court Improvement Program (CIP) to train judicial officers and legal professionals on key provisions of this legislation.

In Colorado, CIP has and will continue to collaborate with the following stakeholders to help increase understanding of the significant changes brought about by the passage of Family First:

• Colorado Department of Human Services
• Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel
• Office of the Child’s Representative
• County Attorneys’ Association
• County Attorneys’ Association
• County Human Services Directors Association
• The Juvenile Justice Community
• Local Best Practice Court Teams

Training by all of the above named partners will help to ensure that Colorado’s children, youth, and families have a more positive experience in the child welfare system. The focus will include wellbeing, not just safety, as a stand-alone factor. Judicial training has and will continue to include reasonable efforts, risk vs. safety and prioritizing how to keep children and youth in their homes or with kin through effective targeted services, and reconceptualizing placements as treatment and not for containment through the use of the QRTP process and bench card.