Help is on the way for bar associations and court personnel who are interested in dedicating supervised courthouse waiting rooms for children of litigants and witnesses.

Oak Brook attorney Angela Imbierowicz, who chairs the ISBA Task Force on Children's Waiting Rooms in the Courts, told the Board of Governors on Jan. 26 that written materials and an informative DVD are being assembled to provide guidance.

The experiences of groups that already have established waiting rooms in four county courthouses will be organized in a binder for distribution to chief judges and bar leaders throughout the state. The information also will be posted on the ISBA Web site.

The four operating facilities are the DuPage County Safe Harbor in Wheaton, The Lake County Kids Korner in Waukegan, the Winnebago County Kids' Place in Rockford, and the Kane County Bar Foundation Children's Waiting Room in St. Charles.

A fifth facility, the McLean County Children's Room, is expected to open soon in Bloomington.

Safe Harbor activities were taped in October for the DVD. Taping of the Kane County room is planned on Feb. 23, and those in Lake and Winnebago County within two months.

The purpose of the project is to provide safe havens for children, away from potentially stressful courtroom environments, Imbierowicz said. They are not day-care centers, nor are children of court personnel and lawyers accepted.

“We hope to encourage decision makers in counties throughout the state to create such rooms,” she added. “This public outreach project will benefit everybody who uses the court system.”

Funding for the task force materials and DVD is covered in part by a grant from the ISBA Young Lawyers Division Children's Assistance Fund, through the Illinois Bar Foundation.

The ISBA Board of Governors on Jan. 26 reappointed five members of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation board to two-year terms, and appointed Belleville attorney Mary Ann Hatch to an at-large vacancy.

Reappointed to at-large board seats are Judge Kathleen P. Moran of Carlyle, Benjamin F. Edwards of East St. Louis and Donald J. Hanrahan of Springfield.

Julie Keehner Katz of Belleville represents the five-county Western Region, officed in East St. Louis. David M. Frisse of Paris represents the 14-county Eastern Region, with main office in Champaign and satellite office in Charleston.