Editorial: Neglecting children’s rights

Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

Hundreds of Southern Nevada children who are victims of neglect and abuse lack legal assistance or an advocate to protect their interests in the child welfare system.

According to a story in Monday's Las Vegas Sun, Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle said fewer than 50 percent of children who come into his courtroom have an advocate or legal representative. Federal and state laws require such representation.

About 2,200 children are in foster care in Clark County. Without a lawyer, a child could be separated from siblings or wind up in an overcrowded group home. Without an advocate, a child may not receive the mental health or special education services he or she needs.

The National Youth Law Center, a California-based nonprofit group, has asked the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to take action against Nevada and Clark County for failing to provide these children with legal representation. Nevada could lose about $250,000 in federal funding if it doesn't provide advocates for the children. Health and Human Services Department officials told the Sun that the agency will place Nevada on a program to improve.

Two Clark County programs that do provide children with advocates and lawyers say they don't have enough volunteers or paid staff to do the job and don't have enough money to hire additional lawyers. One of the groups, the Children's Advocacy Project, employs six lawyers, each of whom represents 40 to 50 children. But it isn't enough.

The state and county must do better. While it isn't clear who would pay for increasing such services to these children, it is quite clear who pays when there aren't enough lawyers and advocates to go around. These children already have suffered mental and physical abuse or neglect at the hands of adults who were supposed to take care of them. We cannot continue placing them into a legal system that further neglects their rights and needs.