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In 1981, Shari F. Shink founded what became known as the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, a unique legal advocacy non-profit organization that serves maltreated and at-risk children in Colorado and nationally. Her life's work has been to better the lives of maltreated children -- one of the most helpless groups in society -- with high quality legal advocacy. After Ms. Shink graduated from Rutgers University Law School in 1975, she served as a staff attorney and then managing attorney for Child Advocacy Legal Aid, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1980, she began a pilot program in Colorado to represent maltreated children in the courts. This evolved and grew into the Children's Law Center.
As a practicing attorney for over 25 years, Ms. Shink has represented thousands of Colorado children, foster parents, biological parents, and grandparents in court. Ms. Shink also provides specialized training on children's issues to child welfare lawyers from across the country at national conferences; has intervened as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) in appellate courts in many States; teaches a year-long child advocacy legal clinic for law students at the University of Denver College of Law; and gives technical help to child advocates worldwide.
Under Ms. Shink's leadership, the Children's Law Center has developed many model programs that since have been adopted elsewhere. We are proud of our Pro Bono Attorney Program, which trains private lawyers to represent children exposed to abuse-neglect or domestic violence, and The Dandelion Project, a unique, therapeutic gardening project for foster children. The Children's Law Center also has spearheaded numerous pieces of child-centered legislation, including the Expedited Permanency Planning law, which speeds up the search for a permanent home for abused-neglected children under age six.
Ms. Shink has received dozens of honors recognizing her sustained work on behalf of
maltreated children. Most recently, she was honored by the National Child Labor Committee with their 2004 Lewis
Hine Award at a ceremony in New York City. She was named Child Advocate of the Year by the
American Bar Association in 2001, received a Wasserstein Fellowship from
Harvard University Law School in 2000, and was honored by the National Association
of Council for Children as "Outstanding Child Advocate of the Year" in 1999.
Contact Shari Shink at 303-692-1165 or sshink@law.du.edu.
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