By Judy Lin, Pro Bono Services Director
Since 2019, Celeste Miller has served as the Statewide Kinship Care Legal Aid Coordinator — a unique role created and funded by the Washington State Legislature to expand legal support to kinship caregivers. Kinship caregivers are individuals, often relatives like grandparents, who care for children when their parents are unable or unwilling to do so. Most kinship caregivers take on this role outside the formal child welfare system, navigating complex legal issues with limited resources. Here, we learn more about Celeste and her important work on behalf of kinship caregivers.
Tell us about yourself, and what inspired you to pursue the Statewide Kinship Care Legal Aid Coordinator position back in 2019? What in your background or prior experiences led you to the role?
I have wanted to work with children ever since I was a teenager. Before law school, I went to school to be a social worker, so my path has always focused on child welfare and youth advocacy. I later decided to go to law school to become an attorney for foster children.
I hoped to work in legal aid afterwards, and I did internships in the dependency units of public defense in Oregon and Washington. But I graduated during a recession when legal aid positions were scarce, so I started a solo family law practice, offering sliding-scale fees and flexible services (unbundled, limited representation, etc.). I did that for seven years. I still had the goal of helping youth, so I took cases involving Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, DACA, and Vulnerable Youth Guardianships.
When I saw the Kinship Care Legal Aid Coordinator position, I applied because, in my view, it was another way to help protect children and built on my prior experience representing kinship caregivers in nonparental-custody cases. In my private practice, I saw how expensive it was for youth and kinship caregivers to get legal help and the challenges and barriers they faced navigating the legal complexities. The Coordinator position involves working with the kinship care and legal communities to solve big picture issues, and I saw it as a great way to put all my legal and social work experience to work.
What are your primary responsibilities as the Coordinator, and how has your role evolved since you started?
The position was created by the Washington Legislature by statute in 2019. The statute describes the responsibilities and then it was up to me to figure out how to go forward. The position was created from a proposal by the Washington Kinship Care Oversight Committee. My responsibilities include consulting with five statewide entities — the Office of Public Defense, the Moderate Means Program, the Pro bono Council/Volunteer Lawyer Programs, DSHS ALTSA, and the Kinship Care Oversight Committee — to develop more legal help and resources for kinship caregivers across the state.
My main focus for the first two years was making connections by meeting with stakeholders and surveying the needs and existing resources in all areas of the state. Another duty of my position is to develop resources and trainings for attorneys, legal aid, pro bono programs, low bono attorneys, and LLLTs to help them understand the legal needs of kinship caregivers, how laws affect them, and what their struggles are when raising a child. I also give trainings to the broader legal community including courthouse facilitators and kinship caregiver service providers.
A couple years after I started my job, the nonparental-custody statutes were repealed, and the minor-guardianship statutes were enacted. So, a large focus early on was training the legal and kinship care communities on the new guardianship law.
My role has evolved in recent years. About two years ago, the Washington Legislature appropriated funding to create LAARK (Legal Advice and Referral for Kinship Care), a legal-advice phone line for kinship caregivers. I helped develop and implement the program, including hiring and supervising the LAARK team. I’ve also expanded my connection with national groups such as the ABA Center for Children and the Law and Generations United to monitor policy advocacy nationally and to learn from other programs to see what we can use in Washington. I’m about to attend the Generations United conference to talk about how my position and LAARK were created so others can learn from our experience.
Who are your key community partners/stakeholders, and how do they complement your work?
I work closely with the Statewide Kinship Care Oversight Committee. It was created by statute 20 years ago, and 30% of the members are kinship caregivers. We meet monthly and a subcommittee works on a legislative agenda. I also work closely with the various kinship navigator programs, which provide social services in every region of the state. Kinship navigators work closely with caregivers, facilitate support groups, help caregivers apply for benefits, and refer cases to LAARK. The LAARK team and I consult with the kinship navigators about how to increase legal help and resources for kinship caregivers in Washington and receive feedback about LAARK policies. The navigators are connected to the caregivers, and many are caregivers themselves and know how difficult it is to navigate complex systems, custody, benefits, and family dynamics.
As a statewide program, LAARK also partners with volunteer-lawyer programs so clients are able to access services closer to where they live. For example, a client may be referred to LAARK for initial assessment and advice about steps to take and then be referred to their local program, such as in Clark County, to find an attorney to support the client locally.
Can you describe your role in creating and developing the LAARK program, which launched at KCBA in 2022? What needs does it address?
The Kinship Care Oversight Committee is required by statute to present recommendations to the Legislature every year. The Committee has wanted more legal help for kinship caregivers since its inception. I saw it as part of my job to lead the proposal to develop a legal help line. I worked with the legislative subcommittee to develop a program focused on providing legal advice to as many caregivers across the state as possible within budget constraints. We were able to successfully obtain funding for LAARK, which is staffed by two attorneys and will soon include two legal assistants. LAARK doesn’t do direct representation but provides important legal advice and both brief and extensive services, such as drafting legal documents, helping with filing, advising on how to prepare for court, and helping clients navigate county-specific procedures and rules.
LAARK aims to address the need for specific legal advice for kinship caregivers. A kinship caregiver’s legal situation can be very complex, especially with the new minor guardianship law enacted in 2021 and the intersections with child welfare and dependency law, housing, benefits, and estate planning.
Kinship caregivers are a specific and large potential client group in the state. In Washington, approximately 50,000 children live with relatives who are not their parents. Only about 4,000 of these children are in the foster care system. The rest are living with a relative who is getting by on their own without financial support or state services. So, while LAARK is a small legal aid program with a very specific focus, it has a large client base. Before I started this kinship care work, I did not realize how many people are raising relative children in our state and in our country.
What are some highlights of your work as the Coordinator? What lessons have you learned?
I really like knowing that this job is supporting people who are motivated to protect their family members. Sometimes cases are agreed and sometimes not. Kinship caregivers are just trying to make sure kids are safe until the parents can do so. Helping to ensure their stability and support caregivers in protecting kids feels very valuable and fulfilling. I hear from people around the state. I grew up in a rural area in Oregon, so I have a special interest in rural counties and understand what it may be like for the local courthouse to be an hour or longer drive away, or for a caregiver to not have a car, internet, or a computer. Although housed at KCBA, LAARK is not Seattle-focused, and we try to make it accessible and eliminate barriers.
I know there is a large demand for services so we’re always trying to figure out what we can do with our capacity and how to prioritize eligibility. We have great community partners who appreciate the services and are ready to give feedback. Prior to my role, I was not as knowledgeable about the legislative advocacy process and I’ve learned not to give up. What may seem impossible can be possible.
What are your goals for the next year?
For LAARK, it’s to increase the number of clients we’re able to serve. We will have another legal assistant, which will add more capacity. For my Coordinator role, it’s to have more specific projects in collaboration with other partners, VLPs, possibly a new legal clinic somewhere outside King County, and help provide more CLEs on minor guardianship and other legal issues to volunteer attorneys. One idea we are exploring is for LAARK to mentor volunteers who can provide services at a more local level. Then LAARK could refer straightforward cases and keep the more complicated cases in-house, which would expand LAARK’s capacity to help the caregivers with the most barriers.
What would you like people to understand about kinship care and the challenges/barriers caregivers face? How can others help?
Kinship caregivers encounter intersecting legal issues and financial barriers. People don’t realize that most caregivers are not foster parents; they don’t get financial support from the state except possibly Child-Only TANF, which is much lower than a foster care rate. There is a misconception that everyone is a foster parent and getting a lot of services when most are not.
Kinship caregivers are often at retirement age or older and living on fixed low incomes. They weren’t planning to raise young children. They can’t afford to hire attorneys, and the new minor-guardianship law is confusing to them, just as it is for lawyers and the courts.
People can help by offering support to a kinship caregiver. Or you can volunteer with a local volunteer-lawyer program, including KCBA’s Kinship Care Solutions Project. But there are many other volunteer programs across the state that could use your help. You can find a list of them at probonocouncil.org.
You may reach Celeste at celestem@kcba.org. To learn more about LAARK, visit www.kcba.org/LAARK. To volunteer with Kinship Care Solutions Project, contact Paul McVicker at paulm@kcba.org.
