The Vermont Judiciary is seeking more people to serve as volunteer advocates for kids in the court system.
Vermont law requires the court to appoint a guardian ad litem — known as GALs — whenever the Department for Children and Families tries to take a child into its custody. GALs are responsible for advocating for the best interests of the youth.
Guardians ad litem meet with the kids they represent at least once a month, promote cooperation between DCF and the child’s lawyers, and make sure the court has all the relevant information about the kids. GALs are unpaid volunteers and must go through a three-day training before they can start.
The Vermont Judiciary houses the GAL program, but it doesn’t manage the volunteers or tell them what to do in cases, said Rob Post, program manager for juvenile matters at the Vermont Judiciary.
“In child welfare, it gets messy, right?” Post said. “And the guardian ad litem is sort of like a pure entity because they only have this one interest, and that's the kid.”
There were more than 800 kids in DCF custody in the last quarter of 2024, which is fewer than in recent years, according to data from the department. But at the same time, the number of GALs has dropped by 50 — to roughly 250, Post said.
“A lot of our GALs are taking on too much work,” Post said. ”Some of our people do this, like, full time — they've got more than 10 kids.”
The judiciary is looking for more volunteers in particular in Lamoille, Franklin, Grand Isle and Bennington counties, and all of the Northeast Kingdom.
Some of those counties don’t have enough volunteers, while others have high numbers of kids in DCF custody. Some counties have a combination of both those factors, Post said.
“I think 250 people doing this work is actually pretty good given, like, the size of our state — it's just we have a lot of kids in custody,” Post said. “If we had less kids in custody, that would reduce the burden on all of our systems — courts, judges, lawyers and guardians — but we all face this sort of uphill battle with the numbers.”
