The reform agenda detailed in the Blueprint for Change is based on the following underlying principles:

Permanency: All children are entitled to a safe, permanent and nurturing home in order to reach their full potential as human beings. Wherever appropriate, permanency should be achieved within a child’s own family.

Leadership: Family Court is responsible, along with its court partners, for ensuring that children under court jurisdiction are safe and have a permanent home in a timely fashion and that parents/caretakers receive due process of law.  Wherever possible, the Family Court seeks to achieve top-to-bottom integration of cases, so that the same judge/referee presides over the entire child welfare case from filing to finish.

Problem-Solving: Family Court seeks to adopt a problem-solving approach to child welfare cases. Court appearances should provide a meaningful step toward permanency. Moreover, in pursuing this goal, the Family Court seeks to operate on appropriate, child-centered time frames.

Information: The Family Court is dedicated to making informed decisions in each case. In order to move cases toward permanency in a fair, timely and effective manner, judges must have access to up-to-date and accurate information about the litigants who appear before them.  In order to promote accountability, administrators must have the evaluative capacity they need to assess what is working and what is not within Family Court.

Respect: The Family Court strives to encourage mutual respect and cultural sensitivity among all participants in the child welfare system, including litigants.  In particular, the Family Court seeks to promote productive inter-agency collaboration as well as clear communication with litigants.