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Quite often, the family defender offices in New York City achieve results for their clients that meaningfully advance childrens interests that could not have been achieved without spending considerable amounts of time out of court. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Emma S. Ketteringham & Caitlin Becker, at 2) [hereinafter Ketteringham & Becker written testimony]. in Political Science. 11. Brooklyn Defender Services Aug 2017 - Aug 2019 2 years 1 month. Prior to joining the Center, Alice worked as a Staff Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice, where she represented indigent parents charged with neglect and abuse. 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. And when trouble brews and the local newspapers criticize government officials for failing to protect a child from harm (an unavoidable part of this work), the defender community actively participates in supporting the relatively low foster care population. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin, Child Welfare Watch, Tough Decisions: Dealing with Domestic Violence, N.Y.C. This Article is dedicated to the outstanding professionals who work in the family defense practices at the Bronx Defenders, the Brooklyn Defender Services, the Center for Family Representation, and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. N.Y. Soc. Richard LaFontaine. Brooklyn, NY. 3 TO PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. Full-time. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. 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. Family Defense Practice. 42 U.S.C. Although the agency does not permit lawyers to attend these conferences, it does allow parents to bring anyone else to be present. 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. 78. The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. 80. 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. 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. 85. When Mr. Sanchez met with his lawyers and social worker, he provided the fuller picture. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. 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 father abused her after the babys birth and the agency brought a case against Ms. Anderson for failing to protect her child. .). 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. In 41 cases, the children were placed with one of their parents, and in 17 cases children were placed with relatives of their parents choosing. Instead of the family being reunited, the case might have resulted in a termination of parental rights. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 8 (emphasis in original). Admin. The Brooklyn Officethe Brooklyn Family Defense Projectwas a project of the largest civil legal services organization in New York City, Legal Services for New York, now Legal Services NYC. Very commonly, abuse petitions involving physical injuries to children are filed in the absence of direct evidence concerning how the injury was sustained. 30+ days ago. The hospital then called Ms. Green and asked her what she could tell them. 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. Hum. . They also reveal the critical importance of addressing the needs of clients concerning matters beyond the child welfare system itself. See, e.g., In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d 168 (N.Y. 1993). Ct. Brooklyn Defender Services is a company located in Brooklyn, NY, United States. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. See, e.g., N.Y. Soc. Many of those changes need to happen upstream from the time and place children are reported to child welfare officials as being at risk of harm. It requested that Ms. Green participate in dyadic therapy with Sophia, in which a licensed therapist participates in visits between parents and children to develop a healthy attached relationship. Mr. Sanchez was charged with medical neglect after the agency learned that he refused to consent to surgery to fix his sons hip disorder. 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. 718-564-6290. brooklyn defender services bds brooklyn defender service brooklyn defenders family defense practice bds associates inc Brooklyn Defender Services Global Presence Search All Employees Her mother took Sophia to the emergency room. Before she left, the defense teams social worker called the caseworkers supervisor requesting that she be permitted to remain in the conference because the x-ray results were due in another half hour. Panel lawyers may be assigned to represent adult parties in a large range of other types of family court cases, including custody and visitation disputes, paternity proceedings, child support contempt proceedings, and cases involving domestic violence, in which the represented party might be the accused batterer or the alleged victim. Even these remarkable efforts would have been insufficient. 24 Public Defender jobs available in Bay Terrace, NY on Indeed.com. 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. . Law 409-e(2) (McKinney 2020) (mandating preparation of case plans by the social services district in active consultation with the childs parent or guardian). Rev. Serv. Keeping families together requires striving to establish understanding and ensuring that the parents voice is heard through support and advocacy. Id. 79. Davis. Find out what works well at brooklyn defender services from the people who know best. We fight to protect New Yorkers from the trauma of separation from their loved ones and to reunite families as soon as possible. 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. 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. Brooklyn, NY, US. Brooklyn, NY 11201. 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. Based on the allegations alone, the agency believed that Ms. Green needed to complete both anger management and a parenting class to secure the return of her daughter. [email protected]. In addition, major improvements have been made to parental representation systems in a number of other states, including Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, and North Carolina. For these and many more questions, we may be able to help, even if you are not a Brooklyn Defenders client. 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. When parents are unrepresented at these conferences, the plans are more likely to be boilerplate, requiring parents to do things of little value. 12. The leading characteristic of the offices method of representing parents is to participate actively in the case conferences held at the agency where the case plan for each case is established.65 These plans set the stage for all that follows and are often the single most important factor in a cases outcome. for Child.s Servs., https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page (last visited Oct. 6, 2020). BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal Read more about this organization Issue Areas Include Family Immigrants or Refugees Legal Assistance Location Senior . 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. That was the critical step that led to the successful resolution of the case. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. Admin. 81. However, the defense team knew that having this conference in front of the judge provided another advocacy opportunity to build on the judges favorable impression of Ms. Anderson. 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. Even though Ms. Green had completed all required services and her visitation rights had been substantially expanded, the agency was now arguing that this new injury proved that Ms. Green lacked the capacity to raise her child safely. A goal of this Article is to lay the groundwork for leaders in child welfare throughout the United States to embrace the work new family defenders do.59 There are many ways to reform child welfare practice and policy in this country. 13. See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? In addition, by being such a careful listener and advocate, the defender team also ensured that Mr. Sanchez felt supported during an especially challenging time in his life when he was forced to divert his attention from taking care of his son to defending his right to remain his sons parent. Emily (she/her/hers) received her J.D. For over 50 years, SCO's Foster Care practice has been helping children and their families grow, heal and thrive. (June 5, 2008), https://perma.cc/L2CZ-Z64X. 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. Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. 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 strategy worked even better than expected. Thousands of families face the possibility of separation due to a wide range of circumstances, mostly stemming from poverty, lack of stable housing or child care, mental health or health diagnoses or intellectual disabilities. Codes R. & Regs. Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. I think that every parent should have an advocate. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. 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. As we will see, the lack of anyone in that office with substantive knowledge of family court or child welfare deeply disadvantaged parents and families for the next forty years. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. 64. Most importantly, the team also began planning for the Initial Child Safety Conference that the agency would certainly convene when the baby was born.70 Unfortunately, the New York City child protection agency would not conduct the conference before the child was born (because New York does not recognize fetuses as within the purview of child welfare law). As this case discussion reveals, the amount of out-of-court advocacy involved is well beyond what panel lawyers generally are able to provide or have ever been able to provide in New York Citys history of parental representation. This meant the team not only had to work towards regaining the custody of her two children; it would have to prepare for the possibility that the agency would seek the removal of her newborn. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children. 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. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 5. 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. & Fam. Whether it is the removal of children, incarceration, deportation, eviction or houselessness, the people we represent face long periods of forced family separation. 10. 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. 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. As Ms. Barrow and her defense team were making these strides, two intervening actions were taking place, either of which had the potential to negatively impact the prospects of a successful outcome. J. Juv. 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. 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. 14. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. The previous studies limited their focus to quantitative outcomes achieved at court or to reporting the views of stakeholders focused on the differences between the two kinds of representation made available to parents in New York City.58 This Article starts where the prior two articles left off. . Commn on Hum. But, as the examples in this Article show, the offices undertake significant out-of-court work that dramatically impacts the child welfare practice in New York City. Family defense has been transformed in New York City. 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. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. Martin Guggenheim is the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. Although the courtroom remains an important site for excellent representation of parents in child welfare cases, no less important legal work needs to occur elsewhere. See also In re Hofbauer, 393 N.E.2d 1009 (N.Y.1979). The units signal distinction is making sure that someone from the defense team is present at the hospital when the baby is born and is available to participate in all meetings the agency will arrange to discuss the plan. [Our lawyer] was a friend. On the morning the hearing was to be held, the agency attorney agreed that there no longer was a risk to returning the baby to her mother. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Experienced Attorney's for the Criminal Practice's legal team. 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. 22. In countless cases over the past decade in New York City, pregnant parents have had the benefit of representation by one of the family defender offices before any case was brought against them. Our Law & Appeals attorneys work on special legal proceedings, including appeals and special motions in family court. 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. The goal of our early intervention is to avoid court filings that have a harsh impact on families. Commn on Hum. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); Pierce v. Socy of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972). But the defender community maintains meaningful pressure on the system to live up to this rhetoric. 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 Defender Services 177 Livingston St., 7th Fl. 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. This catch-22 problem made preventing Ms. Barrows eviction vital on multiple fronts. 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. at 4648. The caseworker, her supervisor, and the investigating team concluded that Eduardo required surgical treatment and his fathers failure to consent to it constituted medical neglect. 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. Child welfare has long been in search of evidence-based programs designed to keep children safely in their own homes. Once again, Ms. Barrows defense team went into action. Although impressed by all the work Ms. Anderson and her team had begun, the agency nonetheless was unwilling to allow Ms. Anderson to go home with her baby. See Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1; see also Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4. 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. At the end of the nine-month period, the case was dismissed. Mr. Sanchez again brought his son to the hospital and, again, Mr. Sanchez informed the treating physician that, rather than consenting to surgery, he intended to take Eduardo back to Mexico for more nonsurgical treatment. The team successfully persuaded the agency to agree to release the newborn to Ms. Barrows care with court-ordered supervision. 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. Brooklyn residents are harmed and impacted by government policies and practices that fuel mass incarceration and the destruction of families. After the social worker advocated for Mr. Sanchez with the medical team at the hospital, and after thoroughly going through the options available, the medical team better understood why Mr. Sanchez preferred to choose the less-invasive nonoperative treatment one more time before performing an invasive surgical procedure that does not carry with it any guarantee of ameliorating the hip condition. Ms. Shapiro oversees an interdisciplinary staff of over 90 attorneys, social workers and administrative staff and directs the litigation and policy activities of the practice. These plans are routinely included in the reports agencies are required to submit every six months whenever children remain in foster care. 2 (updated July 2019), https://caseyfamilypro-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/media/SF_Quality-parent-representation_fnl.pdf; see also Martin Guggenheim & Susan Jacobs, Providing Parents Multidisciplinary Legal Representation Significantly Reduces Childrens Time in Foster Care, Child L. Prac. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/downloads/pdf/CITYFEPS/CITYFEPS-fact-sheet.pdf. The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Three months later, the two children in foster care were reunited with their mother and the family has lived together without further intervention by the agency. 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. See N.Y. Fam. 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. 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. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. After the second injury, he explained, he brought Eduardo back to the same surgeon with whom he met the year before. How, if at all, have they addressed the concerns that led to the initial placement? Commn on Parental Legal Representation, N.Y.C. If you are arrested, face deportation, or your children are threatened with the foster system, you can rely on us to fight for you. Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. 8. 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. See Will ACS Take My Child?, N.Y.C. Office of Research & Analysis, Emergency Removals Subcommittee (Sept. 16, 2015). Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 43. 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. 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]. About BDS Our Commitment Defend People and Society . & Youth Servs. In response to persistent advocacy, the agency agreed to permit the visits to take place in a more hospitable environment so long as the visits were supervised by Ms. Greens mother.