ATLANTA—The State of Georgia has been selected as one of two Research and Demonstration sites for the National Quality Improvement Center on the Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System. As a research and demonstration site, Georgia will receive a grant to study the effectiveness of legal representation for children involved in child abuse and neglect cases.

Over 100 attorneys throughout Georgia will participate in this important four-year study, which launches this fall.

“Being part of this study provides Georgia a good opportunity to train attorneys to become better advocates for the children of our state,” said Justice P. Harris Hines, chairman of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s Committee on Justice for Children. “It is hoped that the training will have a positive impact by lessening the time it takes to safely return children to their parents, or if this cannot be done, to timely find permanent families for Georgia’s foster children.”

The Supreme Court of Georgia’s Committee on Justice for Children will administer the study, in partnership with the Barton Center on Child Welfare and Policy at Emory University and the Georgia Association of Counsel for Children. A new Georgia attorney herself, Araceli Jacobs, will serve as the project coordinator for this study.

The selection of Georgia and Washington as the sites was made by the National Quality Improvement Center at the University of Michigan Law School in collaboration with the U.S. Children’s Bureau, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.