The family defender offices organize themselves around the real-world needs of their clients and continue to work closely with them even when the next court appearance is not scheduled in the immediate future. at 23 n.179. The father abused her after the babys birth and the agency brought a case against Ms. Anderson for failing to protect her child. The family defender offices met regularly over the first decade of practice to strategize how to challenge unacceptable practices engaged in routinely by child welfare agencies. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. 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. 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. See N.Y. County Law 722(3) (McKinney 2020). Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. Brooklyn, NY. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. 66. The first article, Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, was published in 2019.1 It described the results of a multiyear study in New York City that compared the outcomes of child welfare cases in which parents were represented by multidisciplinary family defender offices with cases in which parents were represented by solo practitioners assigned from a rotating panel of lawyers.2 The outcomes were dramatically better in cases handled by these offices, as measured by the reduced amount of time children were kept from their parents custody as compared with parents whose lawyers were solo practitioners.3 The second article was a qualitative analysis that described the interviews conducted of a wide group of professionals and former clients who work closely with the two different kinds of legal representation models that were compared.4 That article revealed the opinions of a broad range of professionals working in the courts on what distinguishes the family defender offices practice from the work done by panel lawyers.5. . The team successfully persuaded the agency to agree to release the newborn to Ms. Barrows care with court-ordered supervision. . (June 5, 2008), https://perma.cc/L2CZ-Z64X. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. Through these discussions, they connected her to a social services organization in the community. Criminal, Family, Immigration and Civil Defense. 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. The unit is staffed by trained social workers with deep experience negotiating the complexities of child welfare investigations during the time a woman is pregnant and immediately after she gives birth. A detailed description of strategic uses of court appearances, including the opposition of out-of-court removals; the filing of motions for discovery, for visitation, and for early release from foster care; and the conducting of contested evidentiary hearings, is provided in Accidents Happen, supra note 73, at 40624. If you are arrested, face deportation, or your children are threatened with the foster system, you can rely on us to fight for you. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin (July 16, 2019) (on file with the author). Each of the cases described took place between 2015 and 2018. for Child.s Servs. 72. That was the critical step that led to the successful resolution of the case. 3 TO PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. Then the team strategically planned with Ms. Barrow how to share the information with the agency and the court. As her due date neared, the defense team turned its focus to planning with Ms. Barrow for the babys arrival. After hearing these positive developments, the judge set a hearing to be held in one month, signaling that if things continued to go well, the judge would likely return the child then. 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. The teams lawyer then filed a motion for an immediate court hearing to determine whether removal was necessary to protect the childs safety. This is among the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of daily defense advocacy these offices employ. 23. 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. Full-time. Hearing (Sept. 27, 2018) (written testimony of Ctr. 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. Id. Livingston St / Smith St. We push for equitable and humane policies by advocating for better laws, filing systemic litigation and educating the public. As defenders, we represent people accused of a crime, parents threatened with child removal, immigrants facing deportation, and students, workers and tenants whose education, employment and housing are at risk due to legal cases. 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. Instead, the judge told Ms. Anderson that it would be in her interest for her to agree to undergo a mental health evaluation and to cooperate with the agency over the coming weeks. Because the agency caseworker failed to attend this medical conference, however, the agency continued to insist in court that the surgery was required and assert that the surgeon considered Mr. Sanchezs refusal to consent to the surgery as placing Eduardo at serious risk of harm. These factors included demographic characteristics of parents and children, family size, severity of allegations and types of allegations, judge, court borough, and prior involvement with the child welfare system. See N.Y.C. (citing N.Y. State Admin. 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. Even when the outcome of cases like this do not involve termination of parental rights or placement for an extended period in foster care, these cases should be viewed as an extremely important example of a clash between the right of parents to make the important decisions regarding their childrens upbringing and the states independent power to make decisions for children over a parents objection. The teams social workers attended many visits with Ms. Anderson and her daughter to ensure a member of the team was there to witness the successful interactions for reports back to the judge. is a public defense office that provides outstanding representation and advocacy to people facing loss of freedom, family separation and other serious legal harms. . 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. 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. $68,640 a year. of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . When the agency interviewed her, Ms. Green told the investigators the same thing she told the doctors at the hospital. We demand accountability from government institutions in court and work to reduce the government's reliance on harmful legal systems to address problems caused by poverty and racism. Instead, in New York City, the task was given to the Mayors Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator, which had deep knowledge of the criminal justice system but no experience with the child welfare system. 1. Had Ms. Barrow not had a team committed to being with her when she gave birth, to preparing assiduously for the conference held when the baby was born, and to being ready to fight for her when the baby was removed less than a week later, her case would surely have come out differently. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. But those studies included comparisons between counties (some of which had the program and some of which did not) in addition to comparisons within counties (pre- and post-implementation of the new model). The offices help parents negotiate all aspects of the process throughout the life of the case. Ct. 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. at 4648. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children.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 15,000 children.25 Between 2007 and 2017, the Bronx Defenders represented more than 11,000 parents and, as of 2018, had a staff of more than 50 attorneys, social workers, and parent advocates. Our work with clients is focused on the intersection . 32. Emily (she/her/hers) received her J.D. 347-592-2500. Richard LaFontaine. Director of Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice. 12. Noran attended and graduated from CUNY School of Law where she worked with CLEAR to counter post-9/11 policies . 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. 79. Our team is able to navigate the science, medical diagnosis and documentation, retain appropriate medical experts, and contest the validity of some of the questionable science that leads to diagnoses that in turn lead to family separation. 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 investigator also met with Eduardos primary care physician, but not with the orthopedic surgeon. Office of Research & Analysis, Emergency Removals Subcommittee (Sept. 16, 2015). 262(c); Merrill Sobie, Practice Commentaries (McKinney 2020). If you are a current client of BDS, contact your lawyer, social worker, or other staff for an appointment. Sophia sustained a new facial injury after tripping on a door frame when attending a birthday party at Ms. Greens sisters home while under Ms. Greens supervision. Such services might include attending parenting skills or anger management classes, or participating in therapy, counseling, or drug treatment programs. See supra note 18. 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. Among jurisdictions other than New York City that have been national leaders and innovators in parent representation is Washington State under the leadership of Joanne Moore. 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. 80. Until such assistance is available, the CPS or case planner must ensure that appropriate services are provided, including payment for such services. N.Y.C. Other times, the agency has been involved with the person in other ways, for example, when a young woman in foster care becomes pregnant. Id. 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. 31. The social worker, fluent in English and Spanish, also served as a translator for Mr. Sanchez whose primary language is Spanish and whose command of English is limited. . 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. for Child. Since the family defender offices opened in 2007 in New York City, the community whose children have been wrested from poor families has had a collective voice in the form of lobbying efforts by the newly created family defender advocates. Serv. & Youth Servs. Brooklyn, NY. for Child.s Servs., Children in Foster Care by Borough/CD of Foster Care Placement (Dec. 31, 2019), https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs/pdf/data-analysis/2020/incarefostercare.pdf. In the weeks leading up to the status conference, Ms. Anderson and the team worked to ensure she was able to attend all visits with her daughter, that she completed the mental health evaluation the judge requested, and that her service providers were serving her well. 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 offices also are likely to have expertise in immigration, housing, and criminal court practice, areas of the law in which their clients are likely to become involved. At her conference, Ms. Anderson was accompanied by a parent advocate who had lived the child welfare experience and a social worker from the defender office who carefully laid out the details of the efforts Ms. Anderson had undertaken in recent weeks. Brooklyn Defender Services 177 Livingston St., 7th Fl. They provide the opportunity to enter a field with an ambitious social justice vision.62. Missing from the quantitative study are the number of times out-of-court advocacy persuades the local child welfare agency not to file a court case in the first place. They communicate frequently with caseworkers to rearrange meetings and services, to plan for the next steps, and for many other reasons. Hum. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. 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. 70. 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. See In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d at 172. See Mark E. Courtney & Jennifer L. Hook, Evaluation of the Impact of Enhanced Parental Legal Representation on the Timing of Permanency Outcomes for Children in Foster Care, 34 Child. 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. 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. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. 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. .). 83. 4. 1337, 133839 (2012). 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. 63. Prior to joining If/When/How, Noran began her legal career as a public defender in 2018 at Brooklyn Defender Services in the Family Defense practice representing parents and families who were impacted by the family regulation system. See N.Y. Cty. 97. Codes R. & Regs. 89. 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. Id. L TO LIVONIA AVENUE. Generally, two of the most important factors in securing the return of a child to parental custody are participation in agency-recommended services and favorable foster care agency reports about parent visits with the child. Child welfare has long been in search of evidence-based programs designed to keep children safely in their own homes. 2 (. 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. 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. But no one in the court administration or local government positions in New York had any experience designing or maintaining a legal services delivery system for parents in the child welfare field. Rev. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. This kind of advocacy can only be implemented by multiperson offices. None of this work is possible when parents are assigned panel attorneys who work as solo practitioners on their cases. He was kind and understanding. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. 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. 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. 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. To counter this concern, the team asked that the court order an additional service calculated to provide the best opportunity to demonstrate that Sophia should be in Ms. Greens care. Services Provided:NA Specialties: Other Address: 195 Montague Street, 5th Floor, is Brooklyn, is New York 11201 Phone: (347) 592-2500 Email: lshapiro@bfdp.bds.org . Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States.
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