Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic
Students working in the Barton Public Policy Clinic (fall semester) and Legislative Clinic (spring semester) will work on current legal and policy issues affecting children involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in Georgia. Students in the clinic will not provide direct representation for clients but instead will work on research and advocacy projects that have a systemic impact on the way juvenile courts, child protection, and juvenile justice agencies handle child abuse and neglect cases and juvenile delinquency cases. Projects will arise from requests by agencies, courts or legislative committees focusing on these issues, or from current events that affect the system. For three hours of graded credit, students will work a minimum of 150 hours on clinic matters.
During the time that students are working in the Clinic they will be living the life of a child advocate—collaborating with court personnel and child advocacy organizations, drafting legislation and developing strategies to support its passage, testifying in front of legislative committees, and initiating projects designed to effect systemic changes. Some of the work will be exciting and have the potential to make sweeping changes; other work will be the initial exploration into a long-range proposal that may or may not come to fruition. Some work will demand sophisticated research skills and some work will be administrative tasks required to keep a non-profit child advocacy organization viable.
Students are required to keep regular office hours. By the end of the first week of work in the clinic, they are required to set their schedule for the semester. Students should schedule enough hours during the week to meet the full hourly requirements of the clinical program.
Most of the student work in the Clinic will be performed as a team member. When students work as a team, they are expected to work cooperatively and to multiply their individual skills and knowledge. Each team project will have a clinic staff member as the contact person who will oversee that project.