Each assignment judge is left to structure CPR board schedules to meet the requirements of the mandatory court placement review. Many boards meet in the evening, while others meet during the regular court day. Duration and method of conducting the meetings vary from vicinage to vicinage, and even from board to board within the same vicinage. While many boards have each member review all cases, others assign a particular case for preparation to a subcommittee or an individual member, and then have them report to the entire board. Reports on each case are mailed in advance of the meeting, and in this writer's county are included with a list of cases preassigned to each member for preparation.
Volunteers spend several hours at home reading, studying, and taking notes on each case.
They arrive informed, and the discussion focuses on the particular issues in each case and the group decisions they must make to prepare written recommendations to the judge. The board may invite others to attend particular portions of its meeting. Generally, CPR boards will conduct at least a preliminary review of the available reports before hearing an interested party such as a parent, guardian, or temporary caretaker. A DYFS staff member nearly always attends each meeting as a representative of the agency. He or she has some familiarity with each of the cases, and occasionally presents new information.