In our county, they give you a morning or an afternoon date. You have to be there at 8:30 or 1:30 but your case may not be heard for several hours. So there's always that time in the waiting room. Usually the child's attorney and the case managers are around so it's not usually dead time. But if you are just there with your kid, they can make it a pretty dismal time. As a parent, you think, I missed work for THIS? But having some extra people can really break up the misery. Not to really do anything just keeping it light.
Today I signed up to support two families I know who had hearings. Including giving a ride of one of the kids to court. Then, another family had their runaway child picked up on a charge so they were there too. So we had three families. Also a grandma and an ex-husband. Four people from the Parent Group. We all hang out together swapping tips. I think it drives the kids kinda' nuts. Because other people know what's going on plus they're losing control of their parents. I went to the three hearings. One kid was incarcerated for not more than 7 days after a surprise statement from the grandma. He had repeatedly defied the court orders, One was incarcerated but after the second hearing was going to be released to her father (that process takes hours also).
It used to be that the support group parents could be thrown out of the hearing. But not for a long long time.
Juvenile Court is such a valuable community asset. The idea is for the young person to realize what's going on and have some respect for the court before they reach the age of majority (18) when things can get really serious.
Whew, a lot of drama today!
Picture of a 1910 picture of a juvenile court. It doesn't look like this but not that different.
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