ALPENA — Pandemic or no pandemic, kids need courts to keep them safe.

Child abuse and neglect cases, which temporarily hit a wall when the coronavirus made its way to Michigan, are still being addressed by attorneys transitioning to the use of technology.

Hearings for Michigan Children’s Protective Services cases ensure parents are following judges’ orders to improve themselves and their situation for the sake of their kids and ensure parents get their assigned parenting time and the resources they need to make a safer home for their children.

Those hearings — with the exception of emergency hearings where child safety was at immediate risk — were all postponed in mid-March, when the Michigan Supreme Court urged all courts to limit operations to all but the most pressing hearings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

A month later, family court is ready to open for business once again.

While area district and circuit courts have already held hearings via teleconferencing platforms, family court is just getting on track with going digital, according to Family Court Referee Kim Schultz.

The court’s first motion day since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s March 23 stay-at-home order will be Thursday, Schultz said.

As with other area courts, hearings will be conducted via Zoom, a videoconferencing tool, with parents, case workers, attorneys, and court staff calling in from remote locations while Schultz appears from the family court courtroom. The proceedings will air online via YouTube livestream.

Most of the time, children themselves don’t appear in court, Schultz said.

Chelsea Wallace, an Alpena attorney, serves as the court’s guardian ad litum, a lawyer who works in the best interest of the child in a family court case.

Usually, Wallace would meet with her young clients — from infants to 18-year-olds — in person whenever possible.

Those meetings have been replaced with phone calls and videoconference chats.

That’s been an adequate way of talking with them or their guardians, Wallace said — especially when working with the older children, for whom on-screen communication is a normal way of life.

Social workers are considered essential employees and continue to investigate all allegations of abuse, Wallace said.

As hearings resume in family court using new technologies, “there will be growing pains,” Schultz guessed.

However, she added, the ability of courts to move forward regardless of circumstances is crucial to lessening the impact of delays and uncertainties on the children they are tasked to protect.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.