Virtual Workshop on Hearing Quality in Child Abuse Cases

The Hawaii Court Improvement Program is sponsoring a virtual workshop/training for parent counsel and guardians ad litem in Hawaii on Improving Hearing Quality in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases, which will be taught by the Honorable Douglas Johnson (Retired, Nebraska) through a grant with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.  Judge Johnson’s brief biographical summary follows. The workshops will be conducted via Zoom on Friday, September 11 and September 18, from 12:30 pm – 3:30 pm each day.

As an incentive, licensed attorneys who complete both days of training will be the first to receive a free copy of the National Association of Counsel for Children’s latest (3rd) edition of Child Welfare Law and Practice (aka The Red Book).  This offer applies only to attorneys invited by the Court Improvement Program.

Registration information will be available soon. In the meantime, please reserve these dates on your calendar. We hope you will be able to take advantage of this opportunity!

Hon. Douglas F. Johnson

Judge (Ret.) for Separate Juvenile Court of Douglas County, Nebraska. Judge Douglas F. Johnson is a 1987 Creighton University School of Law graduate. He was appointed to the Separate Juvenile Court of Douglas County, Nebraska in 1993. He is an adjunct professor of law at Creighton University School of Law since 1995. He is a Past President of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) and is a long time member of its teaching faculty. Judge Johnson provides training on the Resource and Permanency Planning Guidelines, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Evidence, Judicial Ethics and Leadership, Court Collaboration, the Prehearing Conference, Reasonable Efforts for Infants and Toddlers, Helping Babies from the Bench, and other topics. He is the founding Lead Judge of the NCJFCJ’s Child Victims Model Court in Omaha. In 2005, Judge Johnson started Nebraska’s first Family Drug Treatment Court (FDTC) which focused on families with children from birth to five years of age. In 2014, he worked with Project Harmony to expand 0-5 FDTC to include all families with children birth to five in the Douglas County Juvenile Court, and it is now called: Impact From Infancy. He has written numerous articles for the CASA Judges’ Page Newsletter since its inception in 2003, NCJFCS’s Today Magazine, and authored Chapter 14, Zero to Three Family Drug Treatment Court, in Clinical Work with Traumatized Children, Ed. Joy D. Osofsky (2011). Judge Johnson serves in a number of non-court capacities: President of the Omaha Bar Association, Co-Chair of the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Commission on Children in the Courts, Governor’s Commission on Protection of Children, Nebraska State Bar Foundation Fellow, American Bar Foundation Fellow, Co-chairs the Youth Impact! of Douglas County, and Judicial Branch Education Advisory and Curriculum Committee. He serves on numerous national, regional and local commissions, committees, and Boards. Judge Johnson and his dog, Finnegan, became a certified therapy team in 2014. Since 2012, Finnegan has come to court every day and provides comfort to children, parents and professionals. Judge Johnson was been recognized for service work including: United States Health and Human Services Commissioner’s Award from the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Omaha Bar Association Robert M. Spire Public Service Award, Creighton University School of Law Alumni Merit Award, Zero to Three’s Leaders for the 21st Century Fellow, Child Saving Institute A.W. Clark Award, the Metropolitan Child Abuse Coalition Award for Individual Non-Member for Efforts on Behalf of Children in the State of Nebraska, and the Nebraska Supreme Court Award of Distinguished Judge for Service to the Community.