Child Advocacy

 An Objective Voice for Children

The judge can appoint a child’s advocate in legal proceedings to provide an objective voice for the child in court. Depending upon the type of case, the title of the children’s advocate and the rules governing that person’s role will vary. The advocate is charged with determining and advocating for the best interests of the child.  In addition to children’s advocacy services based on court appointment, the parties may decide they want to include the children’s perspective and advocacy for their best interests through child advocacy consulting services or through including the children’s voice as an addition to traditional mediation.

Celeste Kling has extensive experience as a children's advocate and has worked in this capacity with many hundreds of families over more than two decades as Child and Family Investigator, Children’s Legal Representative, Special Advocate, and Guardian ad LItem.  In addition, she has served for over 10 years on  the Colorado Supreme Court Standing Committee for Family Issues (2009 to date) and the Board of the Colorado Office of the Child’s Representative (2000-2008) and has frequently trained attorneys and mental health professionals in this area of the law.  Celeste served on board of the Court Appointed Special Advocates (1988-1991) and has taught family law classes regularly at Colorado State University since 1997.

 
Child Advocacy Consultant: 

Informed by her two decades of experience and expertise as a children’s advocate, Celeste Kling offers specialized, stipulated child advocacy consulting services to parties in family law cases in which they are seeking a neutral, child-focused professional opinion about the best interests of their children.   These arrangements are customized and stipulated (agreed by the parties and Ms. Kling, as opposed to being created by a court order) on a case-by-case basis.  In some special cases for reasons of expertise, timing, privacy, cost, complexity, or a desire to resolve issues without litigation, parties do not wish to determine legal issues regarding their children through the standard process of a child and family investigator’s involvement and/or a parental responsibility evaluation, followed by stipulation or trial.  

Child advocacy consulting services may be appealing to parties when they do not need a full-blown custody evaluation with psychological testing, but want to reach agreement with professional input about the best interests of their children.  This could be a case in which the parents:

 
Mediation with Child Input:

Celeste Kling has a very successful mediation practice, which includes many family law issues, as well as non-family law matters.  Usually, family law mediation on topics related to children is conducted by the mediator working directly with the separating or separated parents, or working jointly with the parties and their attorneys.  In some cases, however, the parents believe that the input of their child or children would be a valuable element in the process of reaching a resolution.  In these cases, by stipulation of the parties, Celeste Kling meets individually with each of the children to learn their thoughts and get their input, so that she can bring their perspective back to the mediation table, without the children participating directly in mediation. 

In appropriate cases, this approach has proven to be a very constructive method of giving the children a voice in the parenting plan that is not translated or delivered by one of the parents, and does not put the children on the spot with both parents in an emotional showdown.  In the end, all decisions are made by the mediating parents, but their confidence is buoyed by clarifying what their children’s wishes are as the parents determine their agreements.

The children’s advocate helps to minimize the stress to the child.

The children’s advocate helps to minimize the stress to the child by meeting with the child outside of court and avoiding the need for the child to testify or confer with the judge or to simultaneously confront both parents. The children’s advocate helps to ensure that the parents (and their attorneys, if any) have high-quality, independent information about the children upon which to base their decisions.

The child’s advocate balances objectivity and compassion while learning and documenting the child’s needs, and listening to his or her concerns and desires. Often, the advocate’s involvement is significant in leading the parties to reach a child-focused solution outside of court.