A grassroots campaign is calling on all families and professionals who have had negative experiences with the Division of Children and Family Services to contact their Arkansas House of Representatives members. The campaign asks citizens to voice their support for DCFS reform and share their experiences with the agency.
This effort comes in response to the recent Mountain Home cases and a Lawrence County case. In the Lawrence County case, children went from a six-month no-contact order of protection to immediate, unscheduled, unsupervised overnight visitation with the identified abuser. Those children were also at risk of being placed back into the identified abuser’s custody due to the 2021 Presumption of Joint Custody law, which critics refer to as the “Arkansas Automatic Joint Custody Law.”
The grassroots movement is asking for provisions to prevent such incidents from occurring again. Specifically, they recommend that all founded or confirmed abusers be required to complete parenting and domestic violence courses. They are calling for DCFS to establish clear, objective standards and processes—similar to those required of foster parents and adoptive parents—including specialized training on the special needs of children who have experienced abuse, before an abuser can be considered for joint custody…