Depending on the case type and attorney role in CARES, when youth on an appointment reach a certain age, the appointed attorney will see either a reminder or a prompt on the home screen, and/or upon navigating to their appointment in CARES. This is to assist attorneys in remembering key dates in cases and keeping the information in CARES up-to-date and accurate.
Age-Based Reminders
CARES will occasionally show the appointed attorney age-based reminders (based on the entered date of birth) upon navigating to the appointment. For example, juvenile delinquency cases require findings of diminished capacity to continue appointments past age 18, so the appointed attorney will see a one-time CARES reminder of this for youth on such cases after youth turn 18.
Best Interests to Client-Directed Representation
The Right to Counsel for Youth bill, effective 1/9/2023, requires that client-directed Counsel for Youth be appointed for youth 12 years of age or older in certain case types (see OCR's practice supports for more; this article is about how CARES prompts attorneys to record this change). More on entering all roles in CARES
When a youth on an applicable case is turning 12, CARES will show a warning leading up to their birthday and later an age 12 prompt to the appointed attorney requiring them to update their representation dates to include their Counsel for Youth role (or to enter a reason that best interests representation continues past age 12):
- Warning Before 12: When the youth is almost 12, the CARES home screen will include an alert warning that the youth will turn 12 soon. When the appointed attorney navigates to the appointment, they will see a pop-up reminder there as well:
- Prompt at 12: When the youth has turned 12, the CARES home screen will include a new alert reminding the appointed attorney that the youth is now 12. (Please note, because the legislation is not effective until 1/9/23, if the 12th birthday came before the legislation took effect, the transition date and prompt will use 1/9/23 as the client-directed start date). When the appointed attorney navigates to the appointment, they will also see a pop-up prompt there to streamline updating their role or other options:
The options for this main age 12 prompt are below. Select Continue at the bottom of this pop-up after selecting any option. Or, click Remind Me Later if you need to delay these data entry updates for 3 days.
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- "Yes, update my role to Counsel for Youth now (most common)." As noted on the pop-up, this is the most common/typical response and, when selected, CARES will automatically fill in the youth's 12th birthday (or 1/9/23--the effective date of the legislation) and open the child party screen for you to see and confirm the change. See the Important Reminder at the end of this article--do not un-select your previous best interests role!
- "Correct an error in this youth's data (e.g. DOB, your role, etc.)." The age 12 prompt only shows for applicable case types (i.e., D&N) and active attorney roles (i.e., GAL) based on the youth's date of birth as entered in CARES. If you suspect that there is an error in one of these pieces of information entered into CARES, use this option--the child party screen will open for you to make any edits, and, depending on your edits, this prompt may not show again.
- "No, best interests representation can continue for this youth." Rarely, best interests representation continues past age 12. The reason this may happen is listed below this option--if you select this option, you must also select the reason. If the reason is not fully accurate and/or does not apply, do not use this option. More on using a Best Interests Continuation Reason
Selecting "No, best interests representation can continue..." requires the reason, "GAL appointment for youth over 12 made and supported by judicial findings that the GAL appointment is necessary due to diminished capacity."
Important Reminder
If you select "Yes, update my role to Counsel for Youth now," CARES will auto-fill the youth's 12th birthday (or 1/9/23--the effective date of the legislation) and open the child party screen for you to see and confirm the change. Please remember, you should not unselect your best interests checkbox after your role shifts. Instead, there will be a second checkmark and date under "Client-Directed Representation." You can edit any of this information as needed; the corresponding dates together should capture the full timeline of your representation as pictured below:
In the D&N example above with both roles selected, the attorney was GAL for Youth from the start of their appointment on 1/1/2019 until the youth's 12th birthday on 2/1/2023. See other examples, how to fix errors, and learn more about how to enter or update attorney roles and their corresponding dates in Attorney Role(s) per Youth.