Ms. Greens attorneys used this knowledge to start planning their settlement and trial strategy.73. 23. make applications for investigators or other experts where appropriate . We are the attorneys and advocates fighting injustice for individuals and families and protecting civil rights for all people. 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. Family defense has been transformed in New York City. In contrast, the family defender office attorney who worked with the parent during the late stages of her pregnancy is well prepared to advocate on the parents behalf from day one. at 23 n.179. 42. 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. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. See N.Y.C. 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. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 4546. It turned out the agencys support for releasing Ms. Barrows newborn did not last one week. The medications began working after only a few weeks and Ms. Barrow quickly regained her focus. Each of the three offices had a distinct corporate structure. Mr. Sanchez was charged with medical neglect after the agency learned that he refused to consent to surgery to fix his sons hip disorder. 84. The offices help parents negotiate all aspects of the process throughout the life of the case. Lauren Shapiro has been working as a Managing Director, Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services for 16 years. Brooklyn Defender Services: Employee Directory | ZoomInfo.com 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. SCO Family of Services Recognized by Brooklyn Defender Services for 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. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. We work alongside people harmed by unfair systems to fight injustice and change things for the better. Moreover, the amount of time the lawyer put on the case was a minor fraction of the time and attention the social worker gave the case. 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. L. & Soc. But the offices nonetheless prevented foster care entirely because of out-of-court advocacy. What the previous articles did not disclose in any depth is what is actually involved in representing parents in child welfare cases and what the staff do in individual cases. The teams strategy was to have two opportunities to present the judge with positive impressions of the mother even before conducting the formal hearing seeking the babys return to her custody. With this in mind, as the following case examples will reveal, the family defenders in the interdisciplinary offices devote considerable attention to all that is happening outside of court. See Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 56. for Child.s Servs., https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page (last visited Oct. 6, 2020). Rev. When Mr. Sanchez met with his lawyers and social worker, he provided the fuller picture. 69. Her mother took Sophia to the emergency room. of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . at 17, 3839 (oral testimony of Angeline Montauban, parent). They also develop training materials to enrich and support the Family Defense Practice. The team met with Ms. Barrow and began the task of coordinating the substantial support needed in managing Ms. Barrows mental illness and disability. In child welfare cases, victories often prove to be short-lived. Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 1215 (2019). 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. The strategy worked even better than expected. Brooklyn Defender Services. Instead of the family being reunited, the case might have resulted in a termination of parental rights. Commn on Parental Legal Representation, N.Y.C. The cases described in the previous section go well beyond demonstrating the importance of helping shape the services parents will be required to complete as a condition to regaining the custody of their children. Admin. 347-592-2500. 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. for Child. 2022 American Bar Association, all rights reserved. N.Y. Soc. 71. The court ordered the children to be placed in foster care at the first court appearance and limited the mothers access to them to twice-weekly visits supervised at the agency. Brooklyn Defender Services177 Livingston Street, 7th FlBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services156 Pierrepont StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. Whether it is the removal of children, incarceration, deportation, eviction or houselessness, the people we represent face long periods of forced family separation. 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. Above all else, what characterizes the differences between the family defender offices and their solo practitioner counterparts in New York City is the purposeful assembly of a holistic team designed to work closely with clients throughout the proceedings. 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. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 5. Even worse, when parents are unrepresented, the plans may fail to identify services the agency should be providing for the particular needs and circumstances of the family. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, N.Y.C. Medical neglect is a common charge brought against parents in child welfare cases.82 Depending on the severity of the claimed neglect, the local child welfare agency may be seeking to place the child in foster care to protect the child from the parents failure to provide the child with adequate treatment or, less drastically, to secure court authorization to require that a child have a medical procedure it believes is necessary but that the parent refuses to allow. 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. If Mr. Sanchezs lawyer had been a very good solo practitioner from the court-assigned panel, he would have advised Mr. Sanchez to get the surgeon to write a letter saying that Mr. Sanchezs preference to take his son to Mexico for another try at nonsurgical treatment was reasonable. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. Easily apply. Social hold is a colloquial term used to describe the practice of a hospital separating new parents from their child immediately following birth while a report to the State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment or an ACS investigation is pending. If you are not a current client and need assistance, click here to get help. The true meaning of the findings in the quantitative study that these offices secure the return of children to their families significantly sooner than would happen without them is that child welfare practice without the kind of oversight accomplished by the offices wrongfully separates children from families in a significant percentage of cases. 26 days ago. Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. $65,000 - $87,880 a year. 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. 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. 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. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 8 (emphasis in original). When these errors are not revealed, the official record supports the erroneous conclusion that a child was removed from a parents home for a substantial reason. As soon as this case was assigned to Ms. Greens counsel, her team of attorneys and social work professionals began to put in place a strategy to try to have Sophia returned to her care as soon as possible. BDS | Home Very commonly, abuse petitions involving physical injuries to children are filed in the absence of direct evidence concerning how the injury was sustained. Davis. On the judicial side, petitions are filed in family court and the allegations in the petitions are (sometimes) resolved through contested evidentiary hearings. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin, Child Welfare Watch, Tough Decisions: Dealing with Domestic Violence, N.Y.C. In addition, the social work staff helped Ms. Green coordinate and expand visitation. 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. 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). At the next court date, the defense team presented the letter to the agency and the court. See About Us, Casey Fam. However, Ms. Anderson progressed so well that the hearing never needed to be conducted. 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. If you are a current client of BDS, contact your lawyer, social worker, or other staff for an appointment. 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 . Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 53. 68. 74. See also id. This figure, eight percent placed in foster care, compares with the most recent data maintained by New York State, indicating that 64 percent of newborns born to women with children already in foster care in 2015 were placed in foster care. Several years earlier, she gave birth when she was still in foster care. Ms. Green was a single parent of an eight-month-old daughter, Sophia. BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. See N.Y. County Law 722(3) (McKinney 2020). The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Lisa Schreibersdorf, Exec. Rts., Your Rights While Pregnant, Breastfeeding, or Caregiving: A Report on the 2019 Commission Public Hearing on Pregnancy and Caregiver Discrimination, N.Y. State Admin. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. Office of Research & Analysis, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? 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. 30. Fighting for you, your family & our community. Brooklyn Defender Services | LawHelpNY As the qualitative study revealed, solo practitioners who were interviewed explained that they do not work with their clients out of court and, if matters involving their service plan ever arise, they will speak with the ACS attorney to look into the matter.86 When one solo practitioner was asked, is there any other type of out of court support you provide to your clients, like talking to their landlords or helping them maintain childcare, the simple answer was No, to be honest, no.87, Two people who were the subject of child welfare proceedings in the New York City courts and were represented by several different panel attorneys over the course of several years testified before the New York State Commission on Parental Representation in 2018. When Ms. Barrow went to housing court, her housing attorney presented a letter showing the Citys commitment to pay the arrears, and the case was settled in Ms. Barrows favor. Ct. Apr. The father abused her after the babys birth and the agency brought a case against Ms. Anderson for failing to protect her child. Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. See N.Y. Fam. Instead, she would have met her lawyer for the first time minutes before her first hearing, and that lawyer would have to make the argument for the return of her baby knowing only what could be learned in that short time. 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. See N.Y. Cty. 42 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022 [hereinafter Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. Homicide Unit Mitigation Social . Recruitment - ADP Ct. Act 1046(a)(ii) (McKinney 2020) ([P]roof of injuries sustained by a child or of the condition of a child of such a nature as would ordinarily not be sustained or exist except by reason of the acts or omissions of the parent or other person responsible for the care of such child shall be prima facie evidence of child abuse or neglect, as the case may be, of the parent or other person legally responsible.). Commn on Hum. 60. Skip to main content. Res. Easily apply. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). J. Juv. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. Admin. Ms. Barrow was assigned a family defender office. Brooklyn Defender Services, Family Defense Practice Main Industry Manufacturing, Test & Measurement Equipment Website www.bfdp.org Contact Information Headquarters 195 Montague St Fl 5, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States (347) 592-2500 Brooklyn Defender Services, Family Defense Practice Profile and History See, e.g., N.Y. Soc. 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. 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. Other times, the agency has been involved with the person in other ways, for example, when a young woman in foster care becomes pregnant. Natl Council of Juv. We find safe, temporary families for children and teens throughout New York City and Long Island. 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. 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. The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. Family Defense Practice Seeks Entry Level Attorney Candidates Serv. Our Preserving Family Bonds team enhances the representation we provide to clients at the later stages of a case, including termination of parental rights, should a parent be faced with this possibility. In every example, the key to this success is the extraordinary amount of out-of-court time spent on each case and the proactivity engaged in by the defense team.85, The critical characteristics of each of the cases described in the previous section concern the defender teams proactive planning, anticipating next steps, and developing a plan for success calculated to persuade either the agency caseworkers investigating the case or the court. 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. By 2014, five family defender offices had contracts to represent parents.93 In some parts of New York City, family defender offices handle the vast majority of new cases filed. Approximately 20 percent of the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice clients are immigrants, and many do not speak English as their first language. Brooklyn Defender Services had to scramble to find a new, stronger cloud system something many smaller public defense offices and private attorneys contracted for public defense work lack the capacity to do. Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. Then the team strategically planned with Ms. Barrow how to share the information with the agency and the court. Our team works to find temporary custody arrangements, refute false allegations and help inform parents of their rights at early stages of an ACS investigation about their family. Part III briefly describes the findings in the qualitative study. Def., https://neighborhooddefender.org/services/family-defense/ (last visited Sept. 19, 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. Ms. Green did not provide a clear answer, and she said she wondered whether it happened when Sophia fell off a bed. Brooklyn, NY. .). It set up a meeting with the surgeon and invited the child protection agency to attend so that it could hear the more complete picture. BDS | Get Help 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. He was just what we needed in a lawyer. 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. 29. 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. The lack of out-of-court work that characterizes panel attorney legal representation in New York City goes well beyond leaving parents to fend for themselves in emotionally challenging meetings such as family team conferences and case planning conferences. See, e.g., In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d 168 (N.Y. 1993). 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. Brooklyn, NY, US. Brooklyn, NY, US. 10. 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 . 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. BDS attorneys, social workers, paralegals, investigators and administrative professionals have an unwavering commitment to the people we represent. 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. The agency sent an investigating caseworker to meet with Eduardos teachers at school. 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. The social workers on Ms. Greens defense team tapped into their knowledge of local community resources and helped Ms. Green find accessible services that would fit into her busy school and work schedule. At this appearance, Ms. Andersons lawyer presented the arguments supporting the application that the baby be allowed to remain in Ms. Andersons care, highlighting all the work she had done and providing the court with stacks of supporting documentation. 1. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these agency meetings. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. After consulting with an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, Mr. Sanchez opted for a nonsurgical option to be secured in Mexico. 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.
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