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Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Abstract

The foster care system is intended to provide children with temporary, safe living arrangements while working toward permanency through reunification, adoption, or guardianship. Yet adversarial court proceedings, judicial backlogs, limited stakeholder participation, and insufficient judicial expertise in child development can delay permanency decisions and prolong children’s exposure to placement instability. This Note examines the shortcomings of the current judicial framework for resolving foster care cases and argues that multi-party arbitration offers a more efficient and child-centered alternative. Drawing on the historical development of the child welfare system and research concerning placement instability, permanency hearings, and stakeholder participation, the Note considers how prolonged foster care can affect children’s emotional, psychological, and developmental well-being. It also examines the ways in which traditional proceedings may marginalize children, biological parents, foster parents, extended family members, and social workers whose perspectives are important to determining a child’s future. The Note proposes replacing recurring permanency hearings with a structured multi-party arbitration process in which a trained child-welfare expert, or panel of experts, considers evidence, family service plans, placement options, and the child’s expressed preferences. The proposal addresses statutory authorization and court referral, arbitrator qualifications and selection, creative family-support solutions, funding mechanisms, and the participation of children and other stakeholders. It also recognizes the ethical challenges of arbitration, including power imbalances, coercion, arbitrator bias, confidentiality, and the need for judicial oversight and due process protections. Ultimately, the Note argues that carefully regulated multi-party arbitration could promote more timely, inclusive, and developmentally informed permanency decisions while preserving procedural fairness and improving outcomes for children and families involved in the foster care system.

Keywords

Foster Care, Multi-Party Arbitration, Child Welfare, Permanency Planning, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Family Court, Child-Centered Decision-Making, Placement Stability, Best Interests of the Child, Stakeholder Participation, Reunification, Judicial Reform, Due Process

Disciplines

Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | Law

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