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2019, https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=208ionid=2&articleid=5378. 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. 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. Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. 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. is a public defense office that provides outstanding representation and advocacy to people facing loss of freedom, family separation and other serious legal harms. It also means that parents represented by panel attorneys almost never are able to benefit from creating pushback by their legal team to reshape a proposed case plan to better address the particular needs of each client. Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 2629 (2019), http://www.nycourts.gov/ip/Parental-Legal-Rep/PDFs/InterimReport-FINAL.pdf. The staff lawyers also benefit by having access to motions previously filed by colleagues in other cases and an administrative staff to help them efficiently file motions with the court.61 These offices have developed a deep knowledge of the communities their clients live in and strong ties with local resources and service providers. Lauren Shapiro has been working as a Managing Director, Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services for 16 years. No case is filed; no court time is taken up; no court personnel are assigned to the matter. Because Ms. Green was unable to provide a clear explanation for the injury, the hospital called the child protection agency, which immediately began an investigation. A case like this would not even show up in the results found in the quantitative study, which focused on the length of time children remain in foster care and other outcomes of cases. 94. Full-time. 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. Prior to joining the faculty at Brooklyn Law School, Professor Lorr was a Supervising Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice, providing free legal representation to parents at risk of losing their children to foster care. Her child was placed in foster care. The ongoing relationship may mean the mother became pregnant during the pendency of an ongoing court case (a frequent occurrence). (June 5, 2008), https://perma.cc/L2CZ-Z64X. The notes of the interviews are on file with the author. Admin. This may contribute to unwarranted requests by the agency for the hospital to place a social hold on the baby, preventing the mother from taking the baby home.78 This practice is opposed by the family defenders in New York as causing inappropriate disruption of parentinfant bonding and imposing unnecessary stress and anxiety on parents and families at a precious moment in their lives, often resulting in the needless and wrongful separation of children from their families.79. 30+ days ago Full Time. 30+ days ago. His son, Eduardo, suffers from a genetic hip disorder and, as a consequence, he is highly prone to injury. All of the family defender offices in New York City either have special units to represent parents in housing-related matters, in immigration proceedings, and/or in criminal proceedings, or have made alliances with legal offices that do that work. Several days after Ms. Barrow was permitted to bring her baby home with her from the hospital, the agency removed the infant and placed her in foster care after a caseworker visited the apartment and found it to be excessively dirty and filled with cockroaches. Rev. Before going to housing court, the defender offices housing specialist contacted the City office that was providing the rental subsidy to explain the problem and was able to get the office to write an additional check to her landlord to eliminate all arrears on her rent. Accepting these conditions, Ms. Andersons lawyer requested that the court hold a status conference for the case within the following month to be convened by the judge. 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. For most parents, this conference, occurring at one of the most emotionally laden moments of their lives, and which will fatefully determine whether they will be allowed to bring their child home with them from the hospital, is something they endure alone without representation or support. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, N.Y.C. The clogged courts calendar, however, meant that the court could not conduct the evidentiary hearing immediately. 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. Hum. Once these favorable reports were introduced, the team focused on settling the case instead of undergoing a highly contested trial focused on whether the original injury was sustained as a result of an accident. Ct. Act 1089 (McKinney 2020). Admin. 262(c); Merrill Sobie, Practice Commentaries (McKinney 2020). 1337, 133839 (2012). . Only six babies (8 percent) were placed in foster care with strangers. This sometimes happens when the mother has no prior involvement with the child welfare system but behaves at the hospital in a manner that leads hospital personnel to call in a report of suspected child abuse. The supervisor denied the request, approved the caseworkers leaving the conference, and explained that the agency had all the information it needed. See Paredes v. City of New York, No. They also reveal the critical importance of addressing the needs of clients concerning matters beyond the child welfare system itself. It is used whenever the office is representing a mother who becomes pregnant during the course of the case, whether she already is court-involved or not. See Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 1215 (2019), http://ww2.nycourts.gov/sites/default/files/document/files/2019-02/PLR_Commission-Report.pdf (discussing history of parental representation in New York State). 41. See N.Y. Cty. When that happens, the impact of the defender offices is invisible. But the team was unable to secure the agencys support for unsupervised visits. The Center houses the National Alliance for Parent Representation, a leadership group of more than thirty professionals committed to upgrading the quality of legal representation made available to parents in child welfare proceedings throughout the country. The teams social workers worked with Ms. Anderson to identify what she needed to support her child and advised her on what the agency and family court judge would want to see. 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. In this sense, family defenders make child welfare work better. .). They communicate frequently with caseworkers to rearrange meetings and services, to plan for the next steps, and for many other reasons. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. The office added one of its attorneys with expertise in housing court to the case. Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin (July 16, 2019) (on file with the author). Find A Defender; Get Help; Donate; en What do you need help with? Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation. Brooklyn Defender Services177 Livingston Street, 7th FlBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services156 Pierrepont StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. However, Ms. Anderson progressed so well that the hearing never needed to be conducted. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. According to Tina Luongo, chief attorney for New York City's Legal Aid Society's criminal defense practice, new crime trends . Add to those situations the countless cases where, even though the out-of-court advocacy failed to dissuade the agency from filing a petition, the agency was persuaded not to seek a removal of the child. After three years, the agency successfully prosecuted a termination of parental rights case against her. Agencies too often offer parents little help or guidance in obtaining services, commonly doing little more than providing a parent an address and expecting the parent to find the service, make the appointment, and wind his or her way through a maze of confusing requirements. If I hadnt had the support of BDS, I wouldnt have been able to stop ACS from removing my kids. Because the new offices ethical duty is to strive to accomplish their clients objectives, and because almost all of their clients want to keep or regain custody of their children as quickly as possible, family defender offices are in the business of trying to achieve the identical objective everyone else in the child welfare field has: keeping children safely with their families and avoiding the needless placement of children into foster care.95, The interdisciplinary approach is recognized as a best practice.96 In 2019, a panel commissioned by Judge Janet DiFiore, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals in New York, recommended an expansion of interdisciplinary law offices from New York City throughout the state of New York due to their success.97, The impact created by high-level law offices devoted to representing parents in child welfare cases goes well beyond the statistics from the study. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem shares cases in New York County with the Center for Family Representation, and the Center for Family Representation has a second contract to provide parental representation in Queens. See Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 56. An X-ray revealed that Sophia sustained a skull fracture. Disclosing the news of her pregnancy and her decision to stop taking the court-ordered medication was an extremely delicate action risking not only her right to continue visiting with her children but losing custody of the newborn upon birth. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). 8. Each office was expected to accept approximately half of the new case assignments to represent parents charged with abuse or neglect of their children (what this Article calls child welfare cases).18 The remainder of the filings were to be assigned, as before, to panel attorneys. 30+ days ago Full Time. As her due date neared, the defense team turned its focus to planning with Ms. Barrow for the babys arrival. Ultimate success in many cases can be achieved by creating and developing plans designed to keep children safely at homeor to return them home as soon as can safely be accomplishedand by pushing hard for the plans prompt implementation. . Hum. . Id. Lawyers Assn, 763 N.Y.S.2d at 407 (finding that because of the rate levels assigned counsel do not . Family defense has been transformed in New York City. American law protects a parents constitutional rights to make critical decisions concerning a childs upbringing, including decisions involving medical care for their children.83 But in my experience, it frequently happens that poor parents are deprived of the same rights accorded to wealthy parents and are charged in court with failing to provide a specific kind of medical care for their child even when the parent is not entirely ignoring his or her childs health needs. Each of the three offices had a distinct corporate structure. At this point, the court appointed one of the family defender offices to represent Mr. Sanchez. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/downloads/pdf/CITYFEPS/CITYFEPS-fact-sheet.pdf. 98. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law where she was a Graduate Fellow, participated in the Defenders clinic and interned with the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Defenders of Philadelphia, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem's Family Defense Practice, the Brooklyn Defenders . BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Instead of striving to win on a case-by-case basis in court, the defender community insisted on securing a seat at the table to discuss poor practices with the officials in charge of child welfare in New York City. The petition alleged that the skull fracture could only have been the result of child abuse and Ms. Greens failure to provide a sufficient explanation for the injury justified placing Sophia in foster care. Then she engaged a cleaning service to address the roaches and the condition of Ms. Barrows home. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children. 28. Apply to Staff Attorney, Family Medicine Physician, Project Supervisor and more! Brooklyn Defenders provides a wide range of services, including assisting people who are facing an investigation, providing legal representation to people who are brought to court and helping to clear the records of people from databases that impact employment. E communityoffice@bds.org. 24 The Center for Family Representation represents approximately 1,300 new clients each year in child welfare cases and between 2007 and 2018 has represented more than 7,000 parents with more than . New York law does not require that the agency prove how certain injuries were sustained.71 Instead, when the injuries appear to be the result of abuse, it is sufficient for the agency to allege that the child sustained an injury that most likely was the result of child abuse, creating a rebuttable presumption where the parent may present evidence either proving how the injury was sustained or why the parent should not be held legally accountable for the injury.72 When a petition alleges no direct evidence of abuse, but rather that the nature of the injury is such that it must have been the result of abuse, parents and attorneys are placed in a difficult position. Consider this: In 2003, there were over 28,000 children in foster care in New York City; at the end of 2019, there were approximately 7,800.99. Brooklyn, NY, US. We find safe, temporary families for children and teens throughout New York City and Long Island. About BDS Our Commitment Defend People and Society We are the attorneys and advocates fighting injustice for individuals and families and protecting civil rights for all people. Nonetheless, Ms. Barrows defense team ensured that it was fully prepared for the conference, having secured letters from Ms. Barrows mental health providers laying out her treatment plan and documenting her increased engagement in services and subsequent progress in her mental health. Programs, https://www.casey.org/who-we-are/about/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020). This dedicated team works closely with parents to achieve family reunification even when their children have been in the foster system for a long time. Contacting a BDS Staff Member . When the doctor requested more x-rays, the caseworker explained that she could not remain for the conference after the tests came back. See N.Y. County Law 722(3) (McKinney 2020). Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. Martin Guggenheim is the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. View job. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. Other times, the agency has been involved with the person in other ways, for example, when a young woman in foster care becomes pregnant. 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. Legal Services of New York was awarded the contract in Brooklyn. 11. FAMILY DEFENSE. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. All names used throughout this Article are fictitious. But often the agency seeks to remove newborns from the hospital in a case in which the agency has an ongoing involvement with the mother. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) represents over 35,000 clients in criminal, family, immigration and civil cases annually. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Hearing (Sept. 27, 2018) (written testimony of Ctr. The case examples described in the previous section were provided to give the reader some sense of how the defender offices are able to achieve dramatically better results for their clients as compared with the panel members assigned to represent parents. When the new tests were made available to the surgeon later that day, he continued to support Mr. Sanchezs plan for treating his son. Serv. After the second injury, he explained, he brought Eduardo back to the same surgeon with whom he met the year before. Wholly apart from holding conferences during the time a case is being prosecuted in court, an even more critical component of the administrative process is ongoing. & Lauren Shapiro, Dir., Family Def. Our Law & Appeals attorneys work on special legal proceedings, including appeals and special motions in family court. 6, July/Aug. 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. Then the team strategically planned with Ms. Barrow how to share the information with the agency and the court. Founded in 1996, Brooklyn Defender Services operates as a nonprofit organization that provides legal services in the areas of family, civil, criminal, and immigration. . Easily apply. From $74,000 a year. If you are not a current client and need assistance, click here to get help. The Bronx Defenders was awarded the contract in The Bronx. See, e.g., In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d 168 (N.Y. 1993). The last 15 months have taken a toll on all of us. Parent lawyers who fail to participate in the development of a case plan and who wait until going to court to advocate for their clients often discover that the original plan developed at the case conference will remain in place throughout the proceeding.66. In 2013, the Legal Services NYC contract ended, and the South Brooklyn Services Office that was handling the Brooklyn Family Court caseload merged with Brooklyn Defender Services, a preeminent public interest law office with contracts to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases as well as immigration and other matters. Practice, Brooklyn Defender Serv., at 2), http://bds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018.08.16-BDS-testimony-to-the-Commission-on-Parental-Representation-FINAL.pdf [hereinafter Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony]. What insights have they gained? & Fam. Rev. 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.