Many decisions for children, youth, and families are dictated by court actions. Documentation of court actions are an important part of case management in both child welfare and juvenile justice. Court actions include pleadings, hearings, court orders, and notifications.
Court actions
You create a ruling record to document the rulings, orders, and dispositions that result from a hearing on an open case in TFACTS. You can record a standalone court action or link it to another existing court action. See Record a linked court action.
You cannot delete court action records in TFACTS. You can invalidate a court action record to indicate that the record was entered in error. You select a check box to indicate that the record was an error. You can indicate that a court action was created in error as long as no other court action is linked to it. See Invalidate a court action record.
Pleadings
Pleadings include both petitions and motions. Petitions are created as a means to formally request the court to take action based on the situation involving the youth. It is a legal pleading that initiates a case to be heard before a court. Typically, the petition will result in a formal court hearing. At the court hearing, the judge or magistrate makes decisions regarding the petition that can result in a verbal and/or written court order. See Record a pleading and Amend a pleading petition or motion.
Hearings
Hearing include the details from the court proceedings, as recorded in hearing segments. A segment can be entered for each day the court hears the case or one segment can be entered for all the days, as a summary.
Hearing can have multiple segment records. One segment record with a broad date range can be used to record details of the hearing that takes several days, or one segment record per day. See Record court hearing information.
Court orders
At the court hearing, the judge or referee makes decisions regarding the petition that will result in a court order. Court orders can also be issued by the court without a hearing. Court orders can contain adjudications that a child is dependent and neglected, delinquent, or unruly. You document a court order in TFACTS by recording a court action.
Court orders can also include dispositions which are decisions made by the court specifying the actions DCS or the child, youth, or family must take. These could include orders to:
place the child in custody of DCS
terminate a parent’s rights
finalize an adoption
release a child from custody
place the child in a commitment status with a determinate or indeterminate sentence
impose sentences of probation, community service or restitution
grant guardianship to DCS or to relatives of the child
For children placed in DCS custody the disposition information must indicate whether the court order included ASFA language regarding "Best Interest of the Child" and "Reasonable Efforts to prevent removal or achieve permanency." This language is used for IV-E eligibility.
Appeals for court orders
An appeal can be filed for any type of court order, but most appeals involving DCS will be appeals of termination of parental rights (TPR) orders. In TFACTS, you enter an appeal as a type of court action by linking the appeal record to an existing court order record. See Record an appeal for a court order.
Legal Status
The method for updating a child's legal status depends on whether the change is the result of a court ruling. If so, the legal status change is made through the ruling record on the case. If not, the legal status change is recorded on the child's person profile. In either instance, you may need to terminate the previous legal status before you add a new one. See Record a child's legal status associated with a court ruling.