Safe Babies 2025 Training Series
Embark on a transformative learning experience with our Safe Babies Training Series, meticulously designed to empower child welfare professionals. Throughout the year, our dedicated Safe Babies team orchestrates comprehensive training sessions aimed at equipping professionals with the knowledge and skills crucial for safeguarding the well-being of our youngest community members. Collaborating seamlessly with trusted community partners, we ensure the delivery of dynamic and engaging training sessions tailored to meet the diverse needs of all child welfare stakeholders. Join us on this journey of continuous education, as we strive to create a safer and nurturing environment for the most vulnerable in our community.
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CEU certificate available after completion of post event survey.
Preserving Sibling Connections in Child Welfare Cases
November 3, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST
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Summary
Diane Sumoski has spent the last 14 years representing children in the child welfare system and gaining insights from personal experience and scholarly research on what impacts these kids. She will discuss the importance for kids in the system of maintaining connections with their siblings and family to reduce the trauma of being placed in the system. She also will discuss ways to advocate for these kids’ connections under the law and the DFPS policies through the techniques and ideas that have worked in her own involvement with these children.
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Learning Objectives:
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Understanding why maintaining sibling connections is critical to system-impacted children’s well-being
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Practical ways to promote and enable sibling connections
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Legal support for maintaining sibling connections
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Existing Agency policies regarding sibling connections
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Viewing sibling connections as a fundamental right of children in the system.
Presented by:
Diane M. Sumoski, Clinical Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law
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Ms. Sumoski is a Clinical Professor of Law at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. Through December 2024, she also was the Director and Supervising Attorney of the Child Advocacy Clinic at the law school. She received her B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College, and her J.D., cum laude, from Cornell Law School. As the Director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Clinic, she supervised law students in their representation of children in the child welfare system as the children’s guardian and attorney ad litem and in their representation of youth who have aged out of the foster care system. Ms. Sumoski continues in that practice on a pro bono basis. Ms. Sumoski is board-certified in Child Welfare Law and has served on the Exam Commission for the Child Welfare Law Board Certification. She also is a member of the Standing Training Committee of The Texas Supreme Court’s Children’s Commission and has served on the Trial Skills Training Committee of the Children’s Commission as well as on numerous workgroups. She is presently serving on the Commission’s Standards of Representation Committee. Ms. Sumoski served on the Board of Directors of the Dallas Bar Association from 2009-2016 and currently serves as a Chair of the Dallas Bar Association’s Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Section. She is the recipient of the DBA’s Kim Askew Distinguished Service Award and of the Louise Raggio Women’s Legal Advocacy Award from Legal Services of Northwest Texas. She has held numerous leadership positions in the Litigation Section of the ABA, including Director of its Public Service Division.