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CAP & HRP Special Event

Romania

 

Join the Child Advocacy Program (CAP) and the Human Rights Program (HRP) at Harvard Law School for:

Romania's Homeless Children: Problems, Politics and Policies Related to Institutional Conditions, Foster Care, and International Adoption

Thurs., Oct. 19, 2006
5:00 PM
Austin West
Harvard Law School

5:00 - 7:00 PM
Austin West

Welcome by HLS Professor of Law and CAP Faculty Director Elizabeth Bartholet

Presentations by guest speakers:

  • Charles Nelson, Richard David Scott Chair of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital Boston

  • Eric Rosenthal, Founder & Executive Director, Mental Disability Rights International

  • Sara Dillon, Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School

Time for Q&A

 

7:00- 7:30 PM
Lobby of Austin Hall

 

Reception outside the Austin West classroom

 

There are an enormous number of children worldwide living in orphanages or on the streets, typically in quite desperate conditions, and there is enormous controversy over how best to address their problems. Those who see themselves as children's advocates and as human rights advocates take deeply divided positions, with many, for example, adamantly opposing any inclusion of international adoption among the available policy options, while others support it as one of the best solutions for those children for whom it can be made available. This event will focus on Romania's homeless children as something of a case study designed to illuminate not only the issues in Romania but also the larger problem worldwide. Charles Nelson is one of the nation's leading experts on early brain development and related issues regarding the harms that come to children from institutionalization, and has also worked for years in Romania to try to help Romanian authorities devise better policies for children. Eric Rosenthal is the author of a recent report documenting the horrific conditions in some of Romania's orphanages. Both Nelson and Rosenthal are very familiar with the politics surrounding efforts to develop alternatives to institutions, including foster care and international adoption. Sara Dillon has analyzed the law and politics surrounding homeless children and international adoption from what she sees as the appropriate human rights perspective, one that gives significant value to the importance of growing up in a nurturing home.

This session, which is being jointly sponsored by the Human Rights Program (HRP), is part of a course offered by the Child Advocacy Program (CAP) called the "Art of Social Change: Child Welfare, Education, and Juvenile Justice." (Click here for the full "Art of Social Change" speaker schedule: <http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/cap/policy/general0607/schedulefall06.php>)

We're inviting members of the greater child advocacy and human rights community to participate in this special session and engage in dialogue with our expert panelists as well as our students. When you arrive on Oct. 19th, you'll find a table outside the classroom (Austin West) where you can make a nametag for yourself.  Please include your affiliation/organization/school so that participants can approach you during the reception. 

After the speakers present, there will be time for Q&A/reactions. Although we need to reserve ample time in the Q&A portion of the class for our enrolled students, we also encourage reactions from our community guests and experts.  When you make a comment, please briefly identify yourself and your connection to the issues.  Following the session, there will be a reception just outside the classroom.

 

 

 


Romanian foster child plays with her mom.

 



Disabled child inside one of Romania's institutions.

 

Speaker Biographies:

nelson

Charles A. Nelson, Ph.D., holds the Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research at Harvard Medical School and in general pediatrics at Children's Hospital, Boston (where he also serves as Director of Research in Developmental Medicine). He has a long-standing theoretical interest in the effects of early experience on brain and behavioral development.  His empirical research has tended to focus most on the ontogeny of memory and of face recognition.  He served on the National Academy of Sciences panel that wrote from Neurons to Neighborhoods, and from 1997-2005, directed the John D.  and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development. Dr. Nelson has an honors degree in Psychology from McGill University, a master's degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in developmental and child psychology.



rosenthalEric Rosenthal is the founder of Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI), an advocacy organization dedicated to the international recognition and enforcement of the rights of people with mental disabilities.  He has served as the organization's Executive Director since 1993.  Rosenthal has trained activists and conducted human rights investigations in psychiatric institutions, mental retardation facilities, prisons, jails, and orphanages in seventeen countries of Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Rosenthal has been featured on ABC News Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and Nightline (May 10, 2006) and profiled in the Washington Post (August 18, 2002 and January 18, 2000).  An in-depth analysis of Rosenthal's work was published in The New York Times Magazine (January 16, 2000).   Rosenthal received a BA with honors from the University of Chicago in 1985.  He received his law degree cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1992.  As of 2007, Rosenthal will be an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown.

 

nelsonSara Dillon teaches International Trade Law, EU Law and International Children's Rights at Suffolk University Law School. Prior to this, Professor Dillon taught for seven years in the Law Faculty at University College Dublin, where she was also active in environmental issues. She has a PhD in Japanese from Stanford University and JD from Columbia University Law School.  More recently, Professor Dillon has written and spoken on international adoption and human rights. She is the parent of two internationally adopted children.


 



More on the session sponsors:

Child Advocacy Program (CAP) at Harvard Law School: <http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/cap/>; cap@law.harvard.edu; 617-496-1684

Human Rights Program (HRP) at Harvard Law School: <http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/>; hrp@law.harvard.edu; 617-495-9362

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