Email Us. The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Between 1975 and 2007, this was the kind of representation most parents were able to receive when they were eligible for court-assigned counsel.17 In 2007, the then-named Mayors Office of Criminal Justice agreed to engage in an experiment that had a dramatic impact on child welfare practice in New York City: it offered contracts to three offices to become the primary lawyer assigned to represent parents in child welfare cases. The parent advocate from the defense team working with Ms. Greens case provided an invaluable role in buffering the relationship with the caseworker, acting as a bridge and facilitating communication between the two. 85. Brooklyn Defender Services is a public defense office that provides outstanding representation and advocacy to people facing loss of freedom, family separation and other serious legal harms. Ct. Act 1089 (McKinney 2020). Instead, her lawyers requested that the court order an Imminent Risk Assessment with the courts mental health clinic once the defense team was convinced that Ms. Barrow would be evaluated to present no risk to her newborn. Every administrator of New York Citys child welfare system in this century has been committed to the principle of eliminating the unnecessary placement or retention of children in foster care. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. Undeterred by failing to achieve success at the conference, the defense team looked toward the first court appearance as a new opportunity to argue for the newborn to remain in Ms. Andersons custody as well as the first opportunity to leave the judge with a positive impression of the mother. In late 2016, Ms. Barrow, the parent of a ten-year-old child and a one-year-old child, was charged in family court with neglect resulting from her struggle to manage the challenges of mental illness and a cognitive disability.68 The petition was filed shortly after she was discharged from a short-term hospitalization for mental health treatment. Part IV, the heart of the Article, describes accounts of actual cases undertaken by this new breed of family defenders, to help explain their superior ability to achieve the objectives of keeping children safely with their families. When the meeting ended, the surgeon continued to recommend surgery, but he now acknowledged that there are many children with this hip condition who can participate in sports, live happily, and never receive surgery. Press Inquiries. The strategy worked. Commn on Hum. What services have they completed? (citing N.Y. State Admin. To provide even a sense of the breadth of this work, the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice litigates more than forty emergency hearings each month (or about 500 a year) to keep children home or have them returned from foster care sooner than the agency is prepared to allow. Brooklyn Defender Services177 Livingston Street, 7th FlBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services156 Pierrepont StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. If I hadnt had the support of BDS, I wouldnt have been able to stop ACS from removing my kids. These lead to tragic outcomes, such as death at the hands of police or in jail and oppressive environments in schools and neighborhoods where low-income people of color live. E communityoffice@bds.org. After three years, the agency successfully prosecuted a termination of parental rights case against her. Thousands of families face the possibility of separation due to a wide range of circumstances, mostly stemming from poverty, lack of stable housing or child care, mental health or health diagnoses or intellectual disabilities. Are you concerned that you or someone you know may be arrested by ICE? Of the 135 (35%) cases filed in Family Court, 61 families remained together throughout the investigation and subsequent court filing, the children never removed from their homes. Gottlieb et al., supra note 60, at 559. There are still other differences between the offices, including the number of staff employed and the various positions each office created. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 43. For these and many more questions, we may be able to help, even if you are not a Brooklyn Defenders client. Similarly, preventing a parent from being removed from the country for an immigration-related reason is also beyond what agency caseworkers do.92 But real-life events such as these must be given the highest possible priority if parents are to achieve their objective of regaining the custody of their children from foster care. Law 409-e(2) (McKinney 2020) (mandating preparation of case plans by the social services district in active consultation with the childs parent or guardian). The Bronx Office was part of a larger organization whose principal work was indigent criminal defense. Altogether, Ms. Anderson was separated from her baby for less than nine weeks. The units signal distinction is making sure that someone from the defense team is present at the hospital when the baby is born and is available to participate in all meetings the agency will arrange to discuss the plan. Lawyers Assn, 763 N.Y.S.2d at 407 (finding that because of the rate levels assigned counsel do not . The supervisor denied the request, approved the caseworkers leaving the conference, and explained that the agency had all the information it needed. Compare Child Welfare Watch, Tough Decisions: Dealing with Domestic Violence 15 (2003), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee4f0be4b015b9c3690d84/t/54138debe4b037d2d5803f6b/1410567659179/CWW-vol9.pdf [https://perma.cc/P79M-8T6A], with N.Y.C. Skip to main content. Founded in 1996, Brooklyn Defender Services operates as a nonprofit organization that provides legal services in the areas of family, civil, criminal, and immigration. Hum. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. What insights have they gained? They specify the steps an agency must undertake to reunify a family and the tasks the parent must perform as the condition for keeping or regaining custody of his or her child. Part I provides a brief history of parental representation in New York. Res. All names used throughout this Article are fictitious. Brooklyn Defender Services, Family Defense Practice - AFFCNY A goal of this Article is to lay the groundwork for leaders in child welfare throughout the United States to embrace the work new family defenders do.59 There are many ways to reform child welfare practice and policy in this country. The goal of our early intervention is to avoid court filings that have a harsh impact on families. See Will ACS Take My Child?, N.Y.C. When the doctor requested more x-rays, the caseworker explained that she could not remain for the conference after the tests came back. She was facing eviction after she had fallen into rental arrears for six months because she was under the mistaken understanding that the rental subsidy she recently secured from New York City covered her entire rent.69 In fact, she was responsible for the portion not covered by the subsidy. Law 424 (McKinney 2020). $65,000 - $87,880 a year. SCO Family of Services Recognized by Brooklyn Defender Services for For an excellent recent article describing the sophisticated family defense practice The Bronx Defenders has established when representing parents charged with child abuse based on unexplained serious injuries sustained by children, see Jessica Horan-Block & Elizabeth Tuttle Newman, Accidents Happen: Exposing Fallacies in Child Protection Abuse Cases and Reuniting Families Through Aggressive Litigation, 22 CUNY L. Rev. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. 82. 42 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022 [hereinafter Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. But it simply could not have happened without an interdisciplinary team assigned to the case. make applications for investigators or other experts where appropriate . Ct. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. for Child.s Servs. The agency then filed a neglect petition in family court charging Mr. Sanchez with failing to provide his son with medically necessary treatment and seeking an order that the agency be granted permission to consent to the required surgery. Our Work. But, arguably even more importantly, there is an administrative process that, in many cases, begins before the court proceedings and, in all cases, continues on a separate path during the court process. Mr. Sanchez further explained that he did not rule out giving his consent to the surgery, only that he wanted one more time to see if it could be avoided by securing alternative treatment. The offices social work team, along with the Brooklyn Defender Services immigration practitioners, have developed close relationships with community-based programs serving New Yorks immigrant communities and [are] able to connect clients to culturally competent service providers and access to services in their native language. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 9. The study was the first of its kind ever conducted, although two previous studies were undertaken in Washington State that compared cases in which parents were represented by a new Parent Representation Program with the outcomes of cases in which parents were represented by traditional parent lawyers. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 11. . Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. Res. 2 (updated July 2019), https://caseyfamilypro-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/media/SF_Quality-parent-representation_fnl.pdf; see also Martin Guggenheim & Susan Jacobs, Providing Parents Multidisciplinary Legal Representation Significantly Reduces Childrens Time in Foster Care, Child L. Prac. Even when the defenders were unsuccessful in preventing a case from being filed in court, the defender office was already familiar with the facts of the case and had a relationship with the parent. Because the qualitative study focused so much on what the new family defender offices did in court, the case descriptions that follow focus on the out-of-court work that is crucial to the holistic model employed by the offices. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 5253. This is the third in a series of articles discussing the results of child welfare cases in which parents in New York City were represented by a new form of legal services provision: family defender offices whose staff include social workers, parent advocates, and lawyers. In an effort to settle the case promptly, the defense team requested a court conference where they explained to the agency attorney and caseworker, as well as Eduardos court-appointed lawyer, what transpired since the petition was filed. Instead, the agency staff members told Ms. Anderson and her team that they would not allow Ms. Anderson to leave the hospital with her baby and to prepare to go to court the next day when they would be filing a petition alleging neglect based on the allegations in the case of Ms. Andersons previous child. 6 days ago. The family defender offices in New York City do not settle for inadequate plans, nor do they encourage their clients to engage in services that are unlikely to ameliorate the barriers to regaining the custody of their children. See Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1; see also Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4. Whether it is the removal of children, incarceration, deportation, eviction or houselessness, the people we represent face long periods of forced family separation. . Before she left, the defense teams social worker called the caseworkers supervisor requesting that she be permitted to remain in the conference because the x-ray results were due in another half hour. for Child.s Servs., https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page (last visited Oct. 6, 2020). In most of these cases, the mother is already represented by a lawyer. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, N.Y.C. The defense team not only was able to achieve the return of Ms. Andersons daughter to her custody, it resolved the entire case, eliminating further need for court appearances. The defender offices employ a wide range of professionals on each clients legal team, including social workers, parent advocates, interpreters, specialized attorneys, experts, and investigators. Brooklyn Defender Services. You will receive assistance in areas impacting your life, such as immigration, housing, benefits, education and employment. 74. When the case was first filed in court, the judge only permitted Ms. Green twice-weekly supervised visits at the foster care agencya sterile environment unconducive to an engaging opportunity for parents and children to maintain ties. These team members support the families they serve in everything from applying for public benefits to representing a client in criminal court to finding employment training, mental health counseling, and substance abuse treatment. Experienced Attorney, Criminal Defense Practice - ZipRecruiter Finally, in Part V, the Article clarifies the leading characteristics of successful parent representation in child welfare cases with a particular emphasis on proactive representation out of court. Fighting for you, your family & our community. at 23 n.179. is a public defense office that provides outstanding representation and advocacy to people facing loss of freedom, family separation and other serious legal harms. View job. Child welfare cases are prosecuted along two tracks: the judicial and the administrative. The problem, of course, is that the surgeon would not have written that letter without the very effective advocacy Mr. Sanchezs team brought to the meeting with him. An X-ray revealed that Sophia sustained a skull fracture. 30. The previous studies limited their focus to quantitative outcomes achieved at court or to reporting the views of stakeholders focused on the differences between the two kinds of representation made available to parents in New York City.58 This Article starts where the prior two articles left off. In response to persistent advocacy, the agency agreed to permit the visits to take place in a more hospitable environment so long as the visits were supervised by Ms. Greens mother. When this happened, not only did she visit her children regularly, her defense team succeeded in persuading the judge (over the agencys objection) to permit unsupervised visits, commonly a necessary interim stage before courts will return children to a parents custody. Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. at 17, 3839 (oral testimony of Angeline Montauban, parent). In testimony presented to the New York State Commission on Parental Representation, Bronx Defenders presented fiscal year 2018 data concerning the outcomes for 381 parents the office advised during their ACS investigations: Of those parents, 164 (43%) were never charged with abuse or neglect in the Family Court. Change 539, 559 (2017). 29. But among the most important reforms needed in child welfare once investigations into families are started is to offer the family the services of a committed preventive and reunification service, precisely what the family defenders in New York are. N.Y.C. . 67. Livingston St / Smith St. The hospital then called Ms. Green and asked her what she could tell them. If you are arrested, face deportation, or your children are threatened with the foster system, you can rely on us to fight for you. See N.Y. County Law 722-c (allowing judges to authorize counsel assigned through the 18-b panel to engage social workers to assist in the representation of indigent clients); N.Y. Cty. . In sharing some of these accounts, the reader should pay particular attention to the frequency with which investigators from the child welfare agencies make mistakes, get facts wrong, fail to show up for critical meetings, or base recommendations on faulty information that is either flatly wrong or materially incomplete. BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal services, social work support and advocacy, for tens of thousands of clients in Brooklyn every year. 99. The family defender office assigned to represent Ms. Green handles many of these cases each year and has become expert both in cross-examining medical experts called by the agency and at engaging and communicating with knowledgeable physicians able to provide their expert medical opinion on whether an injury is more likely to be the consequence of abuse or an accident. After family defender offices complained about the problem and lobbied for a solution, the New York City Administration for Childrens Services changed its policy in 2019 in an announced All Staff Bulletin clarifying that If the parent is eligible for coverage, or assistance that they are not receiving, such as Medicaid or private insurance, the CPS or case planner must assist the family with applying for such assistance. In exchange for Ms. Anderson consenting to a finding that she neglected her child, the parties agreed to what is known in New York as an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal.81 The parties agreed to a settlement order that ensured that Ms. Anderson would have custody of her daughter and be subject to supervision for nine months on the understanding that the finding of neglect would be vacated and the petition dismissed in nine months unless the agency could show that Ms. Anderson placed her daughter at risk in the interim.