Kentucky needs more legal guardians for vulnerable kids. Training begins next month.

Kentucky Chief Justice Debra Hembree Lambert is urging attorneys to step up for what she admits is a stressful and low-paying job, but one that is also rewarding: Protecting the interests of vulnerable children as guardians ad litem.

Guardians ad litem are court-appointed attorneys who represent children in dependency, neglect and abuse court cases. Kentucky needs more of them, especially in rural areas, Lambert said.  

Guardians ad litem are well positioned to connect families to resources like counseling and food pantries while fighting for children’s safety, essentially supplementing social workers’ jobs, Lambert said. 

The Administrative Office of the Courts is hosting legal trainings in November to help prepare more attorneys for the role. Registration is required for the trainings, which will be held in Covington, Lexington and Paducah. As of Friday, there were 61 attorneys registered to attend November’s trainings. 

Since this training became mandatory for guardians ad litem in Kentucky in 2020, the Administrative Office of the Courts has trained 1,050 attorneys, an AOC spokeswoman said.  

Each training will include an overview of the federal and state statutes, state case laws that apply to dependency, neglect and abuse cases and information on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Lambert said. 

Each training day, registration will stay open unless it reaches capacity, an AOC spokeswoman said. Same-day registration may be also available. People interested in that can contact the Department of Family and Juvenile Services at 502-573-2350 or email the DNA Training Team at dependencyneglectabuse@kycourts.net to check for availability.

Guardians ad litem fight for a child’s best interest — even if it goes against what the child wants at the moment. 

“What makes that role a little bit different is that the attorney filling that role doesn’t have to do what the client wants or doesn’t have to recommend what the client wants,” Lambert explained. “A child who’s abused may actually want to go back home, depending on the circumstances, or not be removed from the home, but if the guardian ad litem attorney doesn’t believe it’s in that child’s best interest, then they are not bound to advocate for that to the family court or the district court who might be hearing the case.” 

As of Friday, there were 8,538 Kentucky children in foster care, Lambert said. Guardians ad litem “play an important role in ensuring that these children receive fair and expeditious attention from the judicial system and are placed in appropriate homes,” AOC said.  

Many times, these cases involve parental substance use disorder or serious mental health issues, Lambert said, adding that there are often more resources for treating substance use disorder than mental health issues. 

“While that number is a heavy number and a big number, it clearly is not all the children in Kentucky who are abused because we can’t do a perfect job,” she said. “Social workers can’t do a perfect job. There are many more children in Kentucky who live in traumatic circumstances, if you will. So, that is just the number of children who, by court order, have been removed from a home for rather significant amounts of neglect or abuse or even dependency.”

Each of these foster care cases is reviewed by Citizen Foster Care Review Board volunteers who make recommendations to judges about children’s placements, and more. Lambert said getting involved in that work is another way for non-attorneys to make a difference in the lives of Kentucky’s children facing the foster care system. 

“I would just encourage Kentuckians to get involved in some way with making their community better for children and their parents,” she said. “And most people do that through community organizations, church organizations, civic organizations, and that involvement can make us all heal a little bit.” 

A financially ‘thankless’ job 

Guardians ad litem have a fairly financially “thankless” job, Lambert said, with a $500 fee cap for cases that sometimes take hundreds of hours of lawyering. 

“It makes it a real passion project,” she said. “I think our guardian ad litems do a wonderful job for the most part, but they are almost in a volunteer situation. Some of these cases can linger for a long time and require long days at court while you’re waiting for that case to be called.” 

Lambert, who once served as a guardian ad litem, said it would fall to the Kentucky legislature to raise the maximum fee. 

“We have advocated for it to be more, because, obviously, that’s not a very large sum,” she said. “Talks go on every year right before session about raising those fees. And we hope that there will be an organized effort this time to raise the fee.” 

The 2026 legislative session begins on Jan. 6.

“I’m very proud of the attorneys who do this work, because I know how thankless it is in terms of the financial piece, but I do believe that most of the attorneys who work in this area do work for for the good outcomes,” Lambert said.

The job also exposes attorneys to second-hand trauma, which can be mentally challenging. 

“There’s certainly secondhand trauma from so much that we deal with today in the court system,” said Lambert. “I know when I worked in the field, both as a judge and an advocate for either children or parents, I think perhaps the best help, if you will, you could give yourself is to problem solve and make this circumstance better for the family or the child.” 

This story originally appeared at kentuckylantern.com.