National Association of Counsel for Children (NACC)

The National Association of Counsel for Children is dedicated to advancing the rights, well-being, and opportunities of children and families impacted by the child welfare system through high-quality legal representation.

Every year in the United States, there are approximately 670,000 children living in foster care. Every year more children enter foster care than exit, and the number of children waiting to be adopted is higher than the number of children who were reunified with a parent or guardian. NACC believes these numbers can be reduced and reversed by providing children and parents with high-quality lawyers who will zealously advocate in the courts for the services and outcomes children and families need.

NACC adopted a 2019-2023 Strategic Plan in August 2018. The driving focus of NACC’s current strategic plan is to accelerate the growth, experience, diversity, and leadership of a national community of children’s lawyers and other child welfare legal professionals to Promote Excellence, Build Community, and Advance Justice. NACC provides programs and resources that improve the quality of representation for children, parents, and agencies; and we advocate for policies that advance children’s rights, including the right to counsel; and build community among practitioners while helping attract and retain talent in the children’s legal advocacy profession.

Through our work to improve high-quality legal representation:
1. The child welfare court system is more likely to be fair and equitable, and protect children’s well-being, rights, and opportunities
2. Children can have equitable access to services and supports
3. Children can be in loving, permanent families and exit the child welfare system as appropriate when their needs have been met
4. Children and youth can be supported in ways that keep them from “crossing over” to juvenile and criminal justice systems

NACC's three core strategies for advancing justice for children and families in the child welfare system are (1) Promoting Excellence in Legal Representation through Training & Certification; (2) Community Building among practitioners through Membership and Convenings; and (3) Advancing Justice for Children and Families through Policy Advocacy.

NACC's Training and Certification programs offer practitioners high-quality legal education, the Child Welfare Law and Practice Guide, and Child Welfare Law Specialist (CWLS) Certification. Child law attorneys must navigate various federal, state, and local laws, making child welfare one of the most challenging specialties in our legal system. NACC provides a number of training programs designed by nationally recognized experts as well as custom training programs to meet the specific needs of a particular jurisdiction. NACC also provides a specialty certification in Child Welfare. NACC is the only organization accredited by the American Bar Association to certify attorneys as Child Welfare Law Specialists. NACC’s Certification Program has also been endorsed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Conference of Chief Justices/Conference of State Court Administrators.

NACC's Community Building programs support the development and expansion of the field of children's legal advocacy by hosting conferences, networking opportunities, membership, and an open forum for discussion. NACC’s Membership Program is 45 years old and has been an invaluable mechanism for building and fostering the children’s legal community. NACC members receive discounts on our training programs, have access to our national listserv, monthly webinars, receive the quarterly legal publication The Guardian, and stay informed through law and policy updates. NACC's member community also engages in policy advocacy at the local level.

NACC's Policy Advocacy Programs include publishing policy papers, amicus briefs, and taking positions aimed at improving child welfare systems in the United States. NACC provides a national voice on children’s legal advocacy supported by thousands of practitioners across the country. Despite children’s need for legal advocates, in many states, children have no attorney to represent them in court, or their attorney has very high caseloads for very low pay. NACC launched the Counsel for Kids campaign to ensure all children in foster care are seen, heard, and represented. NACC offers a number of resources to assist our members in impacting the lives of children. NACC also actively engages in appellate litigation as amicus curiae.

The National Association of Counsel for Children produces high-quality products and programs through a dedicated staff, a large network of consultants, and an active and expert Board of Directors. NACC is led by Executive Director Kim Dvorchak who came to NACC in May of 2017 with a new vision to take the organization in a bold direction to increase our impact as a national children's legal advocacy organization.

The NACC staff have grown from five to fifteeen under Ms. Dvorchak's leadership due to a more than tripling of revenue in five years. But most importantly, the staff has become more diverse and includes three staff with personal experience in foster care. NACC's core operations team is headquartered in Denver, CO, and the balance of our team works remotely across the country. NACC staff include expertise in the legal representation of children and parents, the development of training and educational programs, the development and implementation of public policy, youth engagement and engaging individuals with lived experience, communications, program development, and project planning.

NACC leads a combination of earned income programs and grant projects. NACC is highly respected in the field and leverages the expertise of its membership and organizational partnerships to achieve our goals.

In 2022 the National Association of Counsel for Children celebrated its 45th year as a nonprofit children’s legal advocacy organization.

NACC has made significant progress in accomplishing our 2019-2023 Strategic Plan. NACC has achieved growth in every program area, impacted the state of the law through our advocacy and amicus briefs, and has been a strong and effective voice for racial equity and constituent engagement in the child welfare field.

In 2019, NACC established the framework for this growth, developing a State Coordinator program to support practitioners at the local level, relaunching our Children's Law Office Project to support the leaders of specialized law offices for children, building online learning opportunities, and reinvigorating our policy advocacy agenda and engagements.

In 2020 NACC helped the legal community serve children and families through crisis and uncertainty by mobilizing a COVID-19 Resource Hub, policy statements, tip sheets, and virtual learning. NACC served as a critical hub for information, strategizing, and learning through this challenging time for families and for the courts. Also in 2020, NACC launched a youth board, now called the National Advisory Council on Children's Legal Representation. Every member of the Advisory Council has lived expertise in foster care and other educational and professional experiences. NACC incorporates youth voice across every program area and Board of Directors.

In 2021, NACC launched Counsel for Kids, a national campaign to ensure the right to counsel for youth in the child welfare system, developed revised Recommendations on Child Representation in Abuse and Neglect Cases, and began the development of the 4th Edition of Child Welfare Law and Practice. Also in 2021 NACC launched a Race Equity Hub to provide resources to practitioners and policymakers on how to combat racial disproportionality and inequity in the child welfare system.

NACC’s work has been recognized in several national reports. The first, Children’s Justice: How to Improve Legal Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System, was the culmination of a six-year multi-million dollar study that examined the representation of children. NACC’s membership, certification, Child Welfare Law and Practice publication, and training programs were highlighted as models for improving child representation. The second, an informational memorandum issued by the federal Children’s Bureau on High-Quality Legal Representation in the Child Welfare System also lauded NACC’s certification program and recommended that every attorney practicing child welfare law in America obtain NACC’s Child Welfare Law Specialist Certification. The third,

In 2022 NACC refreshed its 2019-2023 Strategic Plan to make explicit our commitment to race equity and constituent voice. NACC also published the 4th Edition of Child Welfare Law and Practice, also known as "The Red Book."