Baby Court
What is Baby Court?
Baby Court is a specialized treatment court in Michigan designed to address the needs of children under the age of three years, who are being served by the child welfare system for maltreatment. It is a problem-solving court that recognizes a child's need for a consistent and sensitive attachment figure. All families receive an attachment-based treatment, Infant Mental Health Home Visiting, and the clinician speaks to the child's needs in court. The foster care specialist and clinician collaborate frequently, court hearings are non-adversarial and held more frequently. Baby Court is effective at reducing developmental delays, time in care, and re-entries into care. It also increases timely permanency, parenting sensitivity, and reunification.
MPSI Provides Three Self-paced on-line Trainings for Baby Court
Bringing Baby Court to Your Community
(Training takes approx. 1 Hour) No Cost
This module is designed for county-level decision makers in child welfare, children's mental health and the court systems. It provides an overview of Baby Court, outlines the steps to bring a Baby Court to your community, and increases awareness of other training resources.
- First complete the Bringing Baby Court to Your Community form.
- After completing the form you will receive instructions for self-registration.
- Once registered, access Bringing Baby Court to Your Community at training.mpsi.wayne.edu.
Baby Court Team Training
(5 Modules - Total training time is approximately 8 hours)
This traing is intended for members of a Baby Court Team, including jurists, attorneys, foster care specialists and their supervisors, and IMH clinicians and their supervisors. Participants learn about the laws and policies that guide the child welfare system, how Baby Court addresses the needs of babies in the child welfare system and their families, the collaborative role of the Baby Court team, the values of Baby Court team members, inequities in the child welfare system, the impact of implicit bias in work with families, the child welfare process from allegation to case closure, and the perspective of families involved in the child welfare system, and Infant Mental Health-Home Visiting. We are able to offer this training for free to Michigan providers thanks to support from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the Health Resources Services Administration.
- Participants who pass a post-test can earn a certificate and social work CEs.
- To register for the training please email amstacks@wayne.edu.
- Provide the first and last name(s) of the people you would like to enroll, their email address, the county in which they work, and their role of the Baby Court Team
Overview of Baby Court
(Training takes approx. 1 Hour) No Cost
This module was designed for Wayne County front-line child welfare providers who need to know about the Baby Court so that they can make appropriate referrals.
- First Complete the Overview of Baby Court form
- After completing the form you will receive instructions for self-registration.
- Once registered, access the Overview of Baby Court module at training.mpsi.wayne.edu
We are grateful to the Michigan Health Endowment Fund for their support to develop the Baby Court training and evaluate it and to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Resources Services Administration for funding that allows Michigan professionals working with families in child welfare to access the training for free.
Question? Contact Ann Stacks at amstacks@wayne.edu