Washington Courts: Press Release Detail

Innovating Justice Awards Recognize Creative Problem-Solving for Local Court, Families

The state Board for Judicial Administration (BJA) presented Innovating Justice Awards on May 21 to Wahkiakum County District Court Administrator Kristy Hendrickson, state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen, Court Improvement Program Supervisor Cindy Bricker and the COVID Rapid Response Workgroup members for their work responding to urgent problems caused by the COVID pandemic.

Hendrickson worked tirelessly to keep her court open for people who had little or no access to the internet, and to assist a judge with serious health issues. Justice Madsen, with Bricker and family welfare experts, worked to create a response team to maintain family visitation and connections during the pandemic, helped create new court guidelines and other new processes to help courts and families.

“This is a chance for us to recognize those who have gone well above what was expected, especially those who found creative solutions to the problems created by the pandemic,” said Clark County Superior Court Judge Gregory Gonzales, BJA co-chair. 

The Innovating Justice Awards were established in late 2020 by the BJA to recognize leadership during the COVID crisis that promotes judicial branch innovation as well as responsiveness to racial equity and access to justice issues.

The letters of nomination for the May 2021 Innovating Justice Award included:

• Kristy Hendrickson – “In Wahkiakum County, access to high speed internet is by far the exception rather than the rule. Ms. Hendrickson worked hard to ensure that those without high speed internet were given alternatives that allowed them to participate. She worked to set up a ‘Zoom station’ in our courthouse by April 2020 and arranged for people to use it. She spent hours coordinating telephonic appearances for Zoom when video appearance was not possible, and assisting attorneys to get court paperwork to digitally-challenged clients,” wrote Judge Heidi Heywood in her nominating letter. In addition, when the court’s one judge was diagnosed with a serious illness, Hendrickson ensured the judge continually received needed materials in order to continue working, stepped in as the judge’s “eyes and ears” with health department modifications required for pandemic safety, created new processes to ensure in-custody defendants had access to counsel at preliminary hearings, and more. “This all speaks to the dedication of one woman who, for more than a year, kept our court system functioning,” wrote Judge Heywood.


• Justice Barbara Madsen, Cindy Bricker and workgroup team – “The importance of timely hearings, visits between parent and child, and access to services has been extremely challenging during the pandemic. Justice Madsen provided judicial leadership by convening multidisciplinary workgroups to address these challenging issues and promote access to justice for these families,” wrote a group of nominators from judicial and child welfare offices. The nominators also highlighted the key role of Cindy Bricker in working with Madsen to develop and implement response plans.  As co-chair of the Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care, Madsen brought together experts from several agencies to craft an emergency court order for family court processes involving shelter care hearings, counsel for children, visitation motions and more. After the new court order was crafted, she chaired a group of experts to create comprehensive guidelines for implementing the orders and reestablishing court proceedings, which have been used by many courts throughout the state to ensure fairness for families. Madsen and Bricker created a multi-disciplinary COVID Rapid Response Work Group to quickly address pandemic issues as they arise and to get uniform information out across the child welfare and court systems. One rapid response document, the Temporary COVID Aware Family Time Plan, is a guide for developing individualized plans for family visitation during COVID that has been shared nationally. Nominators praised the support team working with Madsen for their quick, collaborative work in responding to important family welfare issues.

“It’s important for us to take time to celebrate the good work being done across the state to respond to the pandemic and keep the justice system working,” said Supreme Court Justice Steve González, who serves as co-chair of the BJA.

The Board for Judicial Administration plans to present Innovating Justice awards several times a year in order to highlight the creative, dedicated work being done in Washington courts to respond to the pandemic and issues of equity and access to justice. The BJA includes judges from all court levels in the state, along with officials from other judicial branch agencies, and is charged with developing policy and providing leadership to the state judicial branch.