Court Improvement Program (CIP) Talks

CIP Talks

Court Improvement Program (CIP) Talks provide inspiration on how the legal community can work with partners to better serve vulnerable families and help improve child welfare outcomes. If we are serious about serving children and families more effectively, we must fully invest in coordinated strategies and jointly own the outcomes we achieve. The Child Welfare Capacity Building Center for Courts focuses on building the capacity of court improvement programs to improve child welfare practice in the courts and legal community. For more information, click here.

2021-2022 CIP Talks

The 2021-2022 CIP Talk series focuses on engagement and empowerment of youth voice at both an individual and a system level. This dynamic series brings together those who have experienced foster care, attorneys, and judges who provide their perspective on not only how we might more fully engage youth in the process as it exists today, but also how we might support youth with lived experience as they take a leadership role in efforts to create a better system for the future.

Past CIP Talks

Lily Colby, Esq.

Ways We Engage: Three Strategies to Improve the Foster Care System
June 2022

The Honorable Judge Madelin F. Einbinder

The Judge and the Child Partnership: Engaging Youth in Court Hearings
March 2022

Jennifer Rhodes, BSW and Madison Sandoval-Lunn

Leveraging Lived Expertise to Create Systems Change
February2022

Leveraging Lived Expertise to Create Systems Change Action Guide

February 2022 CIP Talks Action Guide

Andrea Khoury, Esq.

Youth Voice in Realizing Justice
January 2022

Youths Report to Court – Dream Sheet

Diamond Whitley

Pathways to Youth Voice
December 2021

The Honorable Aurora Martinez Jones

Listen to Believe
November 2021

Cristal Ramirez

Making Live Experience Engagement Authentic, Intentional, and Mutually Beneficial
October 2021

Biography

Cristal Ramirez, MS, is currently the Youth Engagement Manager at the National Association of Counsel for Children where she helped launch the inaugural National Advisory Counsel for Children’s Legal Representation, made up of professionals who have lived experience in the foster care system. Cristal’s role with NACC has aided in integrating youth engagement throughout the organization and has provided technical assistance and trainings on this topic. She also serves as an Independent Contractor with the State of Wyoming, Office of the Guardian ad Litem, where she is developing a Peer Advocate program and working towards furthering youth engagement efforts. She has a clinical background and uses her personal, professional, and academic experience as well as her passion to improve the child welfare system, to drive her work. She believes in the power of engaging people with lived experience and the impact that can have. Cristal has had several opportunities to advocate for better practices and policies in the child welfare system, beginning with serving as a FosterClub All-Star in 2016. She has also held several mentor roles for current and former foster youth and has worked with youth who come from underserved communities, in multiple capacities. Additionally, she practiced as a therapist intern at a foster care agency in San Diego, working directly with foster youth, both as a Case Manager and a Psychosocial Clinician and has helped improve trainings for foster parents, social workers, and agencies.