Duquette D N, Ramsey S H
Child Abuse Negl. 1986;10(3):293-308. doi: 10.1016/0145-2134(86)90005-0.
Despite a widespread conviction that children ought to be independently represented in child protection court proceedings in the United States, there is little consensus as to what the role of that independent child advocate ought to be or, indeed, who should fulfill that role. This study accomplished three purposes: articulated an aggressive, ambitious and continuous role for the child's representative which encompassed a broad range of the child's interests, both legal and nonlegal; provided training in this role to demonstration groups of attorneys, law students and lay volunteers; and compared the effectiveness of each of the three demonstration groups in representing children to one another and to a control group of attorneys who received no special training from the research team. The findings indicate that carefully selected and trained lay people representing children in child abuse and neglect legal proceedings under lawyer supervision performed similarly to trained lawyers and law students in the way they approached their duties and in case outcomes achieved and significantly different from attorneys who, consistent with the practice in nearly all the United States, received no special training in child advocacy.
尽管在美国，人们普遍认为儿童在儿童保护法庭程序中应该有独立的代表，但对于该独立儿童权益倡导者的角色应该是什么，或者实际上谁应该履行这一角色，几乎没有达成共识。本研究实现了三个目的：为儿童代表阐明了一个积极、宏大且持续的角色，该角色涵盖了儿童广泛的利益，包括法律和非法律利益；为律师、法律专业学生和非专业志愿者示范群体提供了该角色的培训；并比较了这三个示范群体在代表儿童方面相对于彼此以及与未接受研究团队特殊培训的律师对照组的有效性。研究结果表明，在律师监督下，精心挑选和培训的非专业人员在虐待和忽视儿童法律程序中代表儿童，在履行职责的方式以及取得的案件结果方面，与经过培训的律师和法律专业学生表现相似，并且与几乎在美国所有地区的惯例一致、未接受儿童权益倡导特殊培训的律师有显著差异。
