(Posted 2022 December)
It’s been a busy time for The Fairfax County Juvenile & Domestic Relations District Court. This arm of the county’s court system hears cases involving juveniles, crimes against juveniles, and family matters (except divorce) in the county, the City of Fairfax, and the towns of Herndon, Vienna, and Clifton. Volunteer Voices recently sat down with Tina Spurlock, intake division director of Domestic Relations Services in the JDRDC, to talk about what the court does, how it interacts with Domestic and Sexual Violence Services, and its partnership with the Domestic Violence Action Center. This is an excerpt from that discussion.
Volunteer Voices: What does JDRDC do?
Tina Spurlock: We deal with most things that involve children and families. There are a few exceptions—divorce is handled in Circuit Court. The judges in JDRDC cannot allocate property; they deal with people, so they don’t do the property settlement part of divorce. But anything else family related happens in our court. That includes custody, visitation, child support, spousal support, paternity, and any modifications or violations of those things. We also help families experiencing domestic violence. We help with protective orders. That could be spouse-on-spouse, girlfriend-boyfriend, if they have children and live together. It could also be parents and adult children. The Department of Family Services files child support with our court. And child abuse and neglect are handled in our court.
We deal with juveniles from the county who need to get treatment for substance abuse or need to go to jail. Parents experiencing issues with truancy or runaways come to our court. We manage the detention facility, our shelter care, and residential facilities for juveniles.
VV: That’s a lot!
TS: A large number of staff work as probation officers for juveniles.
We also have an adult probation unit for adults who have committed crimes against families—that’s sex offenders or people who have committed child abuse. This is a very large percentage of our case load right now.
VV: Why is your case load in this area so large?
TS: There are lots of possible reasons. The population of the county has increased. There’s a large portion of the people in our adult system that came here from other places. Things acceptable in other countries aren’t acceptable here and people have to make that shift. In other countries it might be culturally acceptable to hit your wife, but here it’s a crime. We can also look at issues of mental health and substance abuse, which have been on the rise since covid. In terms of domestic violence, we’re seeing an increase in the numbers and the severity. We’re seeing more strangulations, more malicious woundings, more serious domestic violence cases. People are having a hard time.
We did 108 protective orders in October.
VV: Wow. What’s was that number before covid?
TS: In the 70s was probably more the average before covid. Maybe even the 60s.
But there’s good news. Juvenile cases have gone down because we’re not criminalizing juveniles as much. Evidence based research indicates the more time juveniles spend in the court system, the more likely they are to reoffend. So, the practice is to try other methods, community-based solutions, and have them spend as little time in the system as possible.
In spite of that decline, we are seeing a lot of juvenile-on-juvenile violence. People are having to remember how to behave at school.
VV: Talk to us about the partnership between DVAC and JDRDC. What does that partnership look like?
TS: Because of our role doing protective orders, it’s always made sense to partner with DVAC. We started doing in-person hearings—around 2015—that made it even more necessary to have DVAC on site. We had DVAC rotate to help with advocacy services for clients filing for protective orders. Then they decided to write it up as an actual position within DVAC. That strengthened our partnership. The focus is to have strong community partnerships and to have everybody working together.
VV: So strong community partnerships is the best thing about the partnership?
TS: The best thing about the DVAC partnership is that it provides very warm handoffs to our clients who really need domestic violence advocacy services. We partner so closely with DVAC we know exactly where the advocate is and how to make the referral go smoothly. We can assess what’s happening with the client and how best to advocate for them. If someone needs safety planning desperately, I can reach out and the DVAC advocate comes immediately. We’re able to work together to make the client’s whole process to apply for a protective order go smoothly. Transportation can be done through DVAC, which is great because that’s not a resource we have. It’s the same if we need someone to go to a shelter while we work things out. It’s a very important part of trying to keep clients as safe as possible. We’re not just handing them a brochure with a phone number on it.
VV: What are the challenges of the partnership? How do you manage them?
TS: Space. We’re out of physical space because our units have grown so much. Our [DVAC court advocate] had an office with us for several years and that was ideal because she could see clients there. And we always knew right where she was and could walk our clients to her. We lost that space. It’s not conducive to have advocates lugging all their stuff to a different space every day. We would prefer to have a space separate from community corrections so clients don’t run into their abusers in the lobby. It’s traumatic and can result in violations. Imagine if you haven’t seen your child, and you run into that child in the lobby and try to hug them? That’s a violation. The solution is still a work in progress.
VV: What else should we know about JDRDC?
TS: Our agency is very forward thinking and very focused on evidence-based practices. We learned a lot of great things during the pandemic about being able to pivot and now offer improved services to our clients, for instance, virtual appointments. The agency is trying to figure out what comes next in terms of telework, staffing, and remote appointments. In addition, a lot of staff is retiring. That’ll create a lot of transition and how staff are allocated. We’re in a time of transition, but mostly in a good way.
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