Conference on Children and their Fractured Families In Baltimore, Maryland

Protect our children, take care and love them

Disrupted adoptions, parental abduction and immigration are just among the issues that will be taken up in the conference entitled, Fractured Families: The Causes and Consequences of Children Separated from their Families Across International Borders.  The event will be held at the University of Maryland in Baltimore on November 4 and 5, 2010.

Ambassador Susan Jacobs and Hon. Peter J. Messite are set to give the keynote addresses for the first and second day, respectively.  Amb. Jacobs is the Special Advisor to the Office of Children's Issues, a newly created position for the protection of the interests and welfare of children.   Hon. Messite is Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, and who formerly chaired the Family and Domestic Relations Law Committee, Maryland Judicial Conference from 1991 to 1993.  Judge Messite was designated as U.S. representative to Judicial Network under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of the International Child Abduction. 

Presenters for the event are:

1. Dr. Howard Altstein - social worker educator and author;

2. Christina Baglietto - Regional Adviser for Latin America for the ISS/IRC and UNICEF consultant;

3. Dr. Allison Blake - Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families;

4. Dana Chou, interim Director for the Children's Services at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in Baltimore;

5. Michelle Brane - Director of the Detention and Asylum program at the U.S Women's Refugee Commission;

6. Kathleen Cleary - Executive Director for Consortium for Children;

7. Stephen Cullen - head of the Miles & Stockbridge's Family Law & Private Clients Group

8. Howard Davidson, J.D. - directed the American Bar Association's Center on Children and the Law since 1978, and Chair, U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect;

9. Dr. Jean M. Geran - an expert in international child protection and family policy;

10. Geoffrey Greif - professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work;

11. Nathalie Lummert - currently manages all Migration and Refugee Services' (MRS) programs for immigrant and refugee children;

12. Debbie B. Riley - Executive Director of The Center for Adoption Support and Education, Inc., an independent post-adoption organization in the Baltimore-Washington area;

13. Kathleen S. Ruckman - Incoming Branch Chief, Office of Children's Issues;

14. Prof. Jana Singer - faculty member of the University of Maryland School of Law;

15. Miki Stebbing - Accrediting Entity Liaison for the Department of State; works with the designated accredeting entities to implement the Hague Adoption Convention and the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000;

16. Professor Maureen Sweeney - directed the Immigration Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law since 2004; and

17. Wendy Young - Executive Director of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a non-government organization founded by the Microsoft Corporation and actress, Angelina Jolie to provide legal services and advocacy to the thousands of immigration and refugee children who arrive alone in the U.S. each year.

The United States International Social Service and the University of Maryland School of Social Work are the main organizers of the conference, and supported by the University of Maryland School of Law, Rutgers School of Social Work, and the Wittig Associates.

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