Off The Bench: Twelve Rules by Steve Rideout

In the mid 1990’s when our court was part of a Model Court Project for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), I was asked to make a presentation at a conference held at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria about what we were doing. The Plenary Speaker that day was Jim Wallis of the Sojourner’s Ministry. His talk was on his Twelve Rules of Mission. 

As I listened to him, I heard his twelve rules as the twelve rules on how to make systems work better together. Since hearing that presentation, I adopted those twelve rules as the guidepost for how I worked to improve outcomes for children and families involved with our court. After my retirement I used them in the work that I did around the country with courts, child welfare agencies, and the agencies and nonprofits with which they worked to help them obtain better outcomes for the children and families with whom they worked.

While I was not successful in every instance, I found these rules to be helpful in maintaining my focus on what I needed to do off the bench to achieve positive outcomes in the work that I was doing. To have some straightforward hints on how to overcome the challenges that one might face in whatever the effort that is undertaken, these are rules that will help with any volunteer effort or social change effort that one might undertake.

As you think about what you might like to see happen in your community to make a difference for those who will benefit from a new idea or working together differently, perhaps these might be helpful:

Rule 1 – Get out of the house (or the office)

Rule 2 – Start by doing something as that leads to something else

Rule 3 – Throw away old labels – its values that matter

Rule 4 – Change the culture

Rule 5 – Listen to those closest to the problem

Rule 6 – Find new allies and search for common ground

Rule 7 – You can’t do it alone

Rule 8 – Get to the heart of the problem

Rule 9 – It’s not easy but worth it

Rule 10 – You can do it

Rule 11 – Changing the world should be fun

Rule 12 – Changing the world is a spiritual task

Thanks for reading. Please be in touch.

Judge Rideout is the former Chief Judge of the Alexandria, VA Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court (1989-2004). From 2004 until the present he has consulted in different states to support their efforts to improve their child welfare systems. From 2016 to early 2021, he was the Ward 1 Commissioner on the Cambridge City Council. Throughout his career, he has been an advocate for improving the lives of children in his and other communities. He can be reached at [email protected].