The 10th District Chancery Court of Mississippi launched a first-of-its-kind program Tuesday afternoon at The Marquee. Thanks to a grant, Marion County will soon be hiring a family navigator whose role will be to connect families to key resources that keep children safe and bring an end to unnecessary Child Protective Services removals.
“When I applied for the grant and the assistance for Columbia, Mississippi, I said, ‘Columbia and Marion County will support us. They will step in and support families and support children.’ And folks, look here,” Youth Court Judge Renee Porter said as she looked around the room at more than 100 community leaders.
Porter got the news that Marion County received the grant on July 17, 2025, joining Bolivar, Jackson, Harrison and Hancock counties.
“Our grant specifically is to hire a family youth court navigator,” Porter explained. “No. 1, we keep children safe, we keep children fed, we keep children housed. But No. 2, we keep children from having to come to youth court and having to come into CPS custody, and that’s trauma. We don’t want to do that.”
Through community volunteers, the family navigator will connect families in need with resources that can impact children before they are considered for removal by CPS. The program will work alongside the Marion County Youth Court and CPS to “strengthen in-home safety planning” to keep children safe and out of the system.
“For the last decade, our court has worked very hard to prioritize community engagement, both with community leaders and with our church leaders,” 10th District Chancery Court Chancellor Rhea Sheldon said. “We have done that alongside CPS in order to work towards the safe reunification or long-term permanency for children that have been in state custody. That partnership achieved some very dramatic reductions in the number of children. When I took office back in February of 2016, almost 10 years to the day, we had over 300 kids in state custody for Marion County. We had one of the highest rates — we were fifth in the nation for kids in custody. And today, we have 27 kids in custody.”
Sheldon said while the youth court has come a long way in keeping children safe, the job isn’t done until that number drops from 27 to zero.
“Today represents a new chapter for us. We will have additional support that we have not had previously, and the newly awarded Family Navigator Grant is going to help us connect more resources earlier. It’s going to help us connect with families that are at risk for having their children removed and to be separated earlier,” she explained. “That’s what this is about, and that’s what we are all coming together for is to make sure that we can prevent children from coming into custody and we can keep kids safely with their families in their home. That’s our goal.”
Porter said she views the $65,000 grant as a “front-load grant,” and she hopes Marion County’s program becomes the start of something truly special.
“Our goal is that this kind of project and this kind of movement will take off, and Marion County will be where it started,” she said. “This grant was the only grant awarded of its nature in Mississippi. And this will be where it starts, in Marion County, and other counties and states will say, ‘Wait, let’s look at what they did in Marion County. Let’s look at what they’re doing. They’re connecting families with services. They’ve got somebody who connects them, and they keep children out of CPS custody.’”
Elizabeth Duryea with New Allies, who is based out of Connecticut, said when Porter highlighted her vision for the grant, it became clear Marion County was the right place to start something new during the grant approval process.
“We wanted to see that these were things that were really going to help move the needle,” she said. “The grant project, it’s small, but it’s really an exciting opportunity for courts to be innovative. Courts don’t always have the opportunity to do that.”
Porter said the youth court is currently in the process of hiring the family navigator, who will work in Marion County through the end of 2026. She said the hope is that the program is successful enough to keep it going into future years.
