Once the report was provided to the court, the judge ordered that the newborn be returned to Ms. Barrows custody in light of the risk assessment and proof that the conditions in her apartment were vastly improved. I had never been so scared in my life. 6, July/Aug. One such example involves what should happen when a parent is required to perform a certain service that is covered by Medicaid or other programs when the service provider will not commence the service until the funds are made available to it. in Political Science. The office created a community intake program, allowing residents in the community to secure legal representation before they have been charged in court with neglect and before they are legally entitled to court-assigned counsel. Admin. BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. See N.Y. Cty. mediarequests@bds.org. 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. Caseworkers are a critical player in each case. Richard LaFontaine. In those situations, there is no way to give credit to the kind of legal representation the parent was given when comparing outcomes of cases between those handled by panel lawyers and multidisciplinary offices. Beginning cautiously, New York City first awarded separate contracts for three of its five counties to three different not-for-profit organizations, each one authorized to accept court assignments in one county. Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. For current information on these offices, see Family Defense Practice, Bronx Defenders, https://www.bronxdefenders.org/our-work/family-defense-practice/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020); Family Defense, Brooklyn Defender Serv., http://bds.org/practice/family-defense/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020); Family Defense Teams, Ctr. Each of the cases described took place between 2015 and 2018. Among the reasons it is crucial that parent defenders actively participate in these conferences is that when an inappropriate case plan is developed, that plan may be in place for many months even before a court might review it. However, Ms. Anderson progressed so well that the hearing never needed to be conducted. & Youth Servs. 65. The representation she received simply would have been impossible for most individual panel attorneys to match. For better or for worse, preventing a parent from becoming homeless is not within the portfolio of the agency caseworker (even if it should be). Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 910. Apply to Staff Attorney, Family Medicine Physician, Project Supervisor and more! Federal law requires states to have written case plans for every child in care in order to ensure that an appropriate long-term plan is identified for each foster child. (June 5, 2008), https://perma.cc/L2CZ-Z64X. When the surgeon understood that Mr. Sanchez was willing to consent to the surgery if the next round of nonsurgical treatment in Mexico did not prove helpful, the surgeon concluded that Mr. Sanchezs choice was perfectly reasonable. At the next court date, the defense team presented the letter to the agency and the court. . When the doctor requested more x-rays, the caseworker explained that she could not remain for the conference after the tests came back. When parents are unrepresented at these conferences, the plans are more likely to be boilerplate, requiring parents to do things of little value. For new lawyers, the existence of these organizations means not only jobs, but jobs one can get straight out of law school that come with the kind of training and supervision only larger offices can provide. 67. 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 social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. Our Law & Appeals attorneys work on special legal proceedings, including appeals and special motions in family court. Despite a formal agency policy known as Child Safety Alert 14,74 which called for the agency to conduct a meeting prior to the birth in every case,75 agencies routinely fail to hold pre-birth planning conferences with pregnant women unless a client or her legal team advocates for or requests the court to order its convening.76 Even when such conferences do take place, experienced practitioners complain that the discussion and recommendation from the pre-birth conference is, in reality, largely irrelevant to whether the baby will be taken after delivery.77 Instead, the really important meeting takes place at the hospital, within hours of the babys birth. Press Inquiries. 205 were here. When Mr. Sanchez told the surgeon that he would not consent to the recommended surgery, the surgeon made a call to the New York Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment, which resulted in an investigation being commenced by the local child protection agency.84. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. One might reasonably suggest they are much more important than what happens in the courtroom itself. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. . Id. What follows is their story. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 4546. 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. Mr. Sanchez took his son to Mexico and completed the treatment. Lucas A. Gerber et al., Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, 116 Child. at 3940 (oral testimony of Caitlin Becker, MSW, Managing Dire., Soc. The teams social worker met with Ms. Barrows medication management provider to develop a plan for re-engaging with her medication upon the birth of the baby. Codes R. & Regs. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 43. If the study discussions in the previous section show anything, it is that being at the table when the agency fashions the case plan is a critical stage in the proceeding with profound long-term implications for all that follows. Each of the four family defender offices in New York City has created specialized projects of one sort or another. Our Approach. The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. Brooklyn Defender Services corporate office is located in 177 Livingston St Fl 7, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States and has 609 employees. But the offices nonetheless prevented foster care entirely because of out-of-court advocacy. Hearing (Sept. 27, 2018) (written testimony of Ctr. In many cases when parents are well-represented at the administrative level, what happens in court is anti-climacticthe outcome of all that went before at the agency meetings. 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. L TO LIVONIA AVENUE. Admin. The goal was to secure evidence from an independent, well-respected therapist that Ms. Green possessed the temperament and capability of raising her child safely. 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. 78. The notes of the interviews are on file with the author. 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. 30+ days ago Full Time. For most panel lawyers, if a matter is continued on the court calendar for six weeks, the lawyer is able to put the case in a folder and reopen it one or two days before the next court date. Without the defense teams constant communication with Ms. Barrow and her providers about her service plan, she would not have had the support necessary to achieve the progress in her mental health treatment. Mr. Sanchez was permitted to take his son to Mexico for the treatment he preferred. 95. As a result, a second meeting was scheduled with the surgeon, Mr. Sanchezs defense team, and the agency. 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. These reviews are essential to the success of reunification efforts. View info about Brooklyn Defender Services (bds.org). Office of Research & Analysis, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? What insights have they gained? Under New York law, the definition of [n]eglected child includes a child less than eighteen years of age (i) whose physical, mental or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his parent or other person legally responsible for his care to exercise a minimum degree of care (A) in supplying the child with adequate . FAMILY DEFENSE. 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. If I hadnt had the support of BDS, I wouldnt have been able to stop ACS from removing my kids. 2022 American Bar Association, all rights reserved. By planning carefully with the mother during the pregnancy and preparing for the child to come home with her, the team ensures that living arrangements are set and baby paraphernalia (cribs, diapers, food) are at the ready. 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. Brooklyn residents are harmed and impacted by government policies and practices that fuel mass incarceration and the destruction of families. Ct. Act 1089 (McKinney 2020). 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. 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. Popular Searches Brooklyn Defender Services Bds Ms. Barrow disclosed to her defense team that she was pregnant. Senior . P 646-971-2722. The defense team then went into action. 12. Brooklyn, NY . To be eligible for assignments from the panel, lawyers must have a certain number of years of experience in the field and apply to be placed on the panel by a committee that reviews applications. . BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Our staff of 300 includes 180 attorneys as well as social workers, investigators, paralegals, re-entry specialists, jail liaisons, education, community organizers and policy specialists. N.Y. Soc. These case summaries were provided by the professionals employed by various family defender offices in New York City. With the housing crisis abated, the rest of the family defense team could keep its focus on the family court case. 70. Director of Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice. Only six babies (8 percent) were placed in foster care with strangers. It also is important to appreciate how the offices support the professionals emotionally. 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. Our attorneys, social workers and other staff work together to advise, assist and represent parents every step of the way. 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. See N.Y. County Law 722(3) (McKinney 2020). 80. He gratefully acknowledges the outstanding research assistance provided by Sean Eagan, New York University School of Law Class of 2019, and also thanks Luke Gerber, Chris Gottlieb, Sue Jacobs, Peter Pecora, and Tim Ross for their support and the careful attention they gave to this Article. Easily apply. 28. . We find safe, temporary families for children and teens throughout New York City and Long Island. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. With the positive evaluation from the court mental health clinic and letters the team gathered from Ms. Barrows service providers, the judge agreed to allow the children to return home for overnight visits, commonly a crucial step that leads to the eventual return of children to their parents custody. After the baby was born, the agency convened the anticipated child safety conference. And by so doing, these defenders improve child welfare practice for everyone: the agencies, the court, and, of course, the families who are brought into the system. . John B. Mattingly, Safety Planning for Newborns or Newly Discovered Children Whose Siblings Are in Foster Care: Child Safety Alert #14 (Revision), N.Y.C. Because Ms. Andersons parental rights to her older child had only recently been terminated, the agency took the position that it was premature to allow her to take custody of her newborn child. Unlike the other two offices, which were part of larger organizations that secured income from multiple sources, CFRs only work was in parent representation. The three officesBrooklyn Defender Services (Kings County), The Bronx Defenders (Bronx County), and the Center for Family Representation (New York County)are each structured somewhat differently.19 The characteristic all three offices have in common is that they are multidisciplinary: they employ lawyers on their staff along with social workers and/or parent advocates (individuals who themselves experienced the child welfare system as a parent accused of neglecting their child).20 Each office spends considerable time on their cases out of court, working closely with their clients and advocating for and with them at child welfare agencies meetings.21 Several years later, a fourth officethe Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlemwas awarded a contract to share the representation of parents in Manhattan with the Center for Family Representation, using their community-based model to represent families living in Harlem zip codes.22 In 2011, the Center for Family Representation was awarded a second contract to provide parental representation in Queens County.23 To date, these four providers handle the vast majority of parental representation in New York, Kings, Queens, and Bronx Counties. tit. My professional experiences in New York City include founding and co-directing the Family Defense Clinic at New York University School of Law; serving as a Founding Board Member for the Center for Family Representation; being a member of the Board of Advisors for the New York City Administration for Childrens Services from 1996 to 2013; and, most recently, since 2017, serving as a member of the New York State Commission on Parental Legal Representation. Criminal, Family, Immigration and Civil Defense. If you are a current client of BDS, contact your lawyer, social worker, or other staff for an appointment. These criminal justiceoriented officials gave the role of representing parents in child welfare cases to solo practitioners from an assigned panel of available lawyers.10 These lawyers, known colloquially as panel lawyers, were already being used to represent parties eligible for court-assigned counsel in juvenile delinquency proceedings, among a number of other specialized areas of the law.11 These lawyers generally did not work in an interdisciplinary way. Serv. Commn on Hum. $65,000 - $87,880 a year. 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. 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). Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. Today (A.B.A., June 4, 2019), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/january---december-2019/providing-parents-multidisciplinary-legal-representation-signifi/. Even when these lawyers are skilled courtroom advocates, their advocacy is too frequently hamstrung by antecedent deficits engaged in by the agency when, for example, it proposed and implemented an inadequate case plan. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Public Hearings 38 (Sept. 27, 2018), http:/nycourts.gov/ip/Parental-Legal-Rep/PDFs/NYCPublicHearing9-27-18_F.pdf (oral testimony of Jeanette Vega, Training Dir., RISE). for Child.s Servs., https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page (last visited Oct. 6, 2020). Today, we are the primary provider of legal representation to parents facing the removal of their children to the foster system in Brooklyn Family Court. Very commonly, abuse petitions involving physical injuries to children are filed in the absence of direct evidence concerning how the injury was sustained. This is among the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of daily defense advocacy these offices employ. 18, 428.6 (2020). The parent organization employs a large number of poverty lawyers who represent clients in a broad swath of legal matters, including housing, immigration, social security benefits, and custody and divorce, among others. The third office, the Center for Family Representation (CFR), was a relatively new start-up 501(c)(3) office whose only purpose was to provide legal representation for parents in child welfare cases. The prior quantitative and qualitative studies focused exclusively on outcomes of cases and on the views of professionals who see the work of the family defenders in family court. Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 1215 (2019). Her defense team at first consisted of a family court lawyer and a social worker. 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. The medications began working after only a few weeks and Ms. Barrow quickly regained her focus. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. for Child.s Servs. Ct. Act 261, 262 (McKinney 2020). For over 50 years, SCO's Foster Care practice has been helping children and their families grow, heal and thrive. Work Prac., The Bronx Defenders). But the defender community maintains meaningful pressure on the system to live up to this rhetoric. 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. When the new tests were made available to the surgeon later that day, he continued to support Mr. Sanchezs plan for treating his son. Additional data from The Bronx Defenders presented in testimony to the New York State Commission on Parental Representation indicated that of the 81 children born to clients who already had children in foster at the time they gave birth to the newborn, the office was successful in ensuring that 58 (72 percent) remained at home with their mothers and 17 (20 percent) were placed with caretakers of their mothers choosing. 71. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. 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. How, if at all, have they addressed the concerns that led to the initial placement? 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. 30. The active family defender community cannot take full credit for this this dramatic shrinking of the foster care population. You will receive assistance in areas impacting your life, such as immigration, housing, benefits, education and employment. One day, Ms. Green noticed a bump on Sophias head that concerned her. The Article ends with the conclusion that those committed to a child welfare system that avoids the needless separation of children from their families should embrace the new family defender model exemplified by the New York City offices whose work is described and celebrated in the Article. . 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. That is what it prepared for when it represented Ms. Anderson. Funding for the study was secured from Casey Family Programs,28 one of the leading child welfare foundations in the country committed to supporting practices designed to ensure that children are able to be raised safely in their families of origin.29 An important question the study hoped to learn was whether the kind of legal representation made available to parents would have any impact on reducing the time children spend in foster care.30, The quantitative study was a multiyear study of child welfare cases brought in the New York City courts to determine whether the kind of legal representation provided to parents can make a difference in the outcome of cases.31 The researchers examined child welfare cases filed in New York City Family Court between 2007 and 2014; the final sample involved 9,582 families with 18,288 children.32 They used Propensity Score Matching as the statistical design, which equalized the groups of families compared on nearly twenty factors or covariates split into variables.33 This methodology allowed the researchers to attribute differences in outcomes between the two groups to the type of representation the parents received.34, The study compared the outcome of cases based on whether parents were represented by panel lawyers and parents who were represented by one of the family defender offices.35 Ultimately, the researchers traced the outcomes of nearly 10,000 families and their more than 18,000 children through a four-year follow-up period.36, The study found that the kind of representation afforded to parents makes a dramatic difference in the length of time children spend in foster care.37 Giving parents the right kind of legal team results in families being reunited far sooner than would otherwise happen.38 The family defense offices were able to secure the safe return of children to their families 43 percent more often in their first year than panel attorneys, and 25 percent more often in the second year.39 Giving parents lawyers from family defense offices allowed children to be permanently released to relatives more than twice as often in the first year of a case and 67 percent more often in the second year.40 These families may otherwise have been permanently dissolved or the children may have spent their childhood separated from their family. The Bronx Defenders was awarded the contract in The Bronx. The teams successful representation of Mr. Sanchez began with a careful, nuanced interview with him allowing the social worker, who was fluent in Mr. Sanchezs native language, to grasp that he never was unalterably opposed to the surgery but merely wanted one more opportunity to see if it were preventable. We work alongside people harmed by unfair systems to fight injustice and change things for the better. Ct. Act 262. One of the family defender offices responded to this practice by creating a special unit assigned to handle cases of this kind.80 The special unit is designed to better represent pregnant mothers who become enmeshed with the child welfare system. 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. The investigator also met with Eduardos primary care physician, but not with the orthopedic surgeon. Brooklyn, NY. 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. 30+ days ago Full Time. If you are arrested, face deportation, or your children are threatened with the foster system, you can rely on us to fight for you. Def., https://neighborhooddefender.org/services/family-defense/ (last visited Sept. 19, 2020). This case reveals the amount of time and attention the holistic offices give to their clients and reveals what is needed to serve parents well when they become enmeshed in the child welfare system. Succinctly summarizing the advantages of the multidisciplinary offices to clients, Chris Gottlieb wrote: For clients, being represented by organizations rather than solo practitioners means having a team on your side: an advocate you can reach on the phone when your lawyer is in court; another lawyer from the office available to step in when yours is on leave or stuck in a different courtroom; the benefit of a brief bank so your lawyer doesnt have to draft every motion from scratch; and office space where your kids can play while you meet with your lawyer. Chris Gottlieb et al., Discovering Family Defense: A History of the Family Defense Clinic at NYU School of Law, 41 N.Y.U. & Fam. 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. The strategy worked even better than expected. As Chris Gottlieb explained: Perhaps most important for staff, these organizations offer the emotional support and grounding needed to do extremely hard work in the trenches: a professional home to go back to after a difficult day in court; knowing your colleagues will listen and understand; being part of a team.
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