L. & Poly 141 (2002). One such case involved the representation by one of the family defender offices. Each of the cases described took place between 2015 and 2018. 384-b(7)(f)(1). For most parents, this conference, occurring at one of the most emotionally laden moments of their lives, and which will fatefully determine whether they will be allowed to bring their child home with them from the hospital, is something they endure alone without representation or support. The non-profit organization, Brooklyn Defender Services, which provides legal defense to Brooklynites who can't afford private counsel, includes public defenders, lawyers in family practice . 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. for Child. 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. 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. 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. 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 . We push for equitable and humane policies by advocating for better laws, filing systemic litigation and educating the public. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 8 (emphasis in original). 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. 3 TO PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. Then the team moved forward on expanding Ms. Barrows access to her older children. Find out what works well at brooklyn defender services from the people who know best. 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. In those cases, the parent would not have had anyone to attend the child safety conference with her at the hospital. 30+ days ago Full Time. 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. 2022 American Bar Association, all rights reserved. 92. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services177 Livingston Street, 7th FlBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services156 Pierrepont StreetBrooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn Defender Services566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. 99. 14. N.Y. Comp. In late 2016, Ms. Barrow, the parent of a ten-year-old child and a one-year-old child, was charged in family court with neglect resulting from her struggle to manage the challenges of mental illness and a cognitive disability.68 The petition was filed shortly after she was discharged from a short-term hospitalization for mental health treatment. At the next court date, the defense team presented the letter to the agency and the court. 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. Accepting these conditions, Ms. Andersons lawyer requested that the court hold a status conference for the case within the following month to be convened by the judge. There are too many heroes in those offices to name here; this Article is a celebration of the remarkable work they do every day supporting and fighting for justice for the many parents living in poverty who have to endure the coercive intervention of the child welfare system. See Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 56. See About Us, Casey Fam. 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. 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. What follows is their story. Skip to main content. The plan was to update the judge on Ms. Andersons progress and to request that the court schedule a formal hearing to determine if it still was necessary to keep the baby in foster care. tit. Several years earlier, she gave birth when she was still in foster care. 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. 93. It is impossible to wholly disentangle the many interrelated factors that affect how many children are in foster care at any given time, but there is little doubt the outstanding work of the family defenders, both in the courtroom and at high-level policy meetings, has contributed to the continued shrinking of New York Citys foster care population. 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. Our work with clients is focused on the intersection . 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. 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. See also N.Y. Fam. See Id. The notes of the interviews are on file with the author. None of this work is possible when parents are assigned panel attorneys who work as solo practitioners on their cases. 66. The Bronx Defenders was awarded the contract in The Bronx. Ms. Anderson grew up in foster care, moving through over 20 foster homes as a child. 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. 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. When parents lawyers are entirely uninvolved in shaping these plans, the fate of children and families is left to the skill and ability of the agency alone to identify correctly the critical needs of the family. 40592/88, 1989 WL 1715714 (N.Y. Sup. 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. In fiscal year 2018, the office was assigned to represent more than 1,500 parents with approximately 3,500 children.26 The Neighborhood Defender Service has represented over 1,600 parents between 2014 and 2017.27, This arrangement, assigning a portion of new filings to a family defender law office and the remainder to panel lawyers, created an opportunity to study which kind of representation works best. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. 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]. 4. & Fam. Brooklyn Defender Services corporate office is located in 177 Livingston St Fl 7, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States and has 609 employees. See National Alliance for Parent Representation, Am. 30. 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. 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. This is among the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of daily defense advocacy these offices employ. And once the amount of visits was increased, the next step eventually would be returning Sophia to Ms. Greens custody. In the agency process side of the case, parents are obliged to meet with caseworkers, supervisors, and other employees of the agency responsible for monitoring the parents actions throughout the life of the case. The study was the first of its kind ever conducted, although two previous studies were undertaken in Washington State that compared cases in which parents were represented by a new Parent Representation Program with the outcomes of cases in which parents were represented by traditional parent lawyers. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 4546. . See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? The strategy worked. 41. 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. 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. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. Once again, Ms. Barrows defense team went into action. Full-time. 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. Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. 17. Criminal Defense Practice Social Worker. View info about Brooklyn Defender Services (bds.org). 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. Along the path of the case, courts typically order that parents perform various services63 and ultimately order that children be allowed to remain with their families or be placed in another arrangement. He explained that even though the surgeon recommended that Eduardo undergo surgery to repair the hip, the surgeon also acknowledged the risks associated with the surgery. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 910. Hum. 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. 67. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). Altogether, Ms. Anderson was separated from her baby for less than nine weeks. Our goal is to keep families safely together or reunify families as soon as possible when separation occurs. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 45. 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. For these and many more questions, we may be able to help, even if you are not a Brooklyn Defenders client. As her due date neared, the defense team turned its focus to planning with Ms. Barrow for the babys arrival. 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. 73. 89. Whether it is the removal of children, incarceration, deportation, eviction or houselessness, the people we represent face long periods of forced family separation. 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. 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. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. This destroys the fabric of multiple lives and leaves long-lasting effects on children, parents, spouses, grandparents and siblings. 30+ days ago Full Time. These team members support the families they serve in everything from applying for public benefits to representing a client in criminal court to finding employment training, mental health counseling, and substance abuse treatment. 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. Because Ms. Green could not say with certainty what caused the skull fracture, the defense team relied on an expert who analyzed the X-rays and determined that they were fully consistent with an accidental fall, thus providing the needed evidence that Sophias injury was not necessarily the result of abuse. 10. . 96%. 77, 105 (2016). 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. 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. 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. In 1972, New Yorks highest court ruled that parents have a constitutional right to counsel in child welfare proceedings.7 In 1975, the legislature codified the ruling and created a statutory right to counsel for indigent parents in child welfare proceedings.8 The legislation delegated authority for funding and managing parental representation to the counties.9. Fighting for you, your family & our community. Our Approach. 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). 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. After three years, the agency successfully prosecuted a termination of parental rights case against her. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. But the defender community maintains meaningful pressure on the system to live up to this rhetoric. 74. 22. Our Law & Appeals attorneys work on special legal proceedings, including appeals and special motions in family court. They provide the opportunity to enter a field with an ambitious social justice vision.62. 30+ days ago Full Time. We work alongside people harmed by unfair systems to fight injustice and change things for the better. Brooklyn, NY 11201. Brooklyn Defender Services is a company located in Brooklyn, NY, United States. . 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. N.Y. Soc. For over 50 years, SCO's Foster Care practice has been helping children and their families grow, heal and thrive. 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. P (718) 254-0700; F (718) 254-0897; E info@bds.org; Facebook; Twitter; of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . One might reasonably suggest they are much more important than what happens in the courtroom itself. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking an experienced Attorney for the Custody Practice of the Family Defense Team. Mr. Sanchez was permitted to take his son to Mexico for the treatment he preferred. Without Ms. Anderson having the team working with her, she would be expected to attend this conference alone with agency caseworkers and supervisors. 70. & Youth Servs. For another 82 (22%) parents, the investigations are ongoing but to date ACS has not filed a case alleging neglect or abuse. Where reunification is not possible, we work to achieve the most favorable resolution possible to preserve the familys bond whenever possible for the benefit of the parent and the 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. When parents are unrepresented at these conferences, the plans are more likely to be boilerplate, requiring parents to do things of little value. 262(c); Merrill Sobie, Practice Commentaries (McKinney 2020). 30+ days ago Full Time. Ignoring them as part of the defensive strategy is only a tiny step away from ignoring the case conferences. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services serves communities in the State of New York. 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. They also develop training materials to enrich and support the Family Defense Practice. 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. 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. 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. Director of Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice. Mr. Sanchez needed a champion for his cause, one who would persuade the surgeon that he was making a reasonable choice that parents have the lawful authority to make. Her child was placed in foster care. If you are arrested, face deportation, or your children are threatened with the foster system, you can rely on us to fight for you. 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. It turned out the agencys support for releasing Ms. Barrows newborn did not last one week. $68,640 a year. According to Tina Luongo, chief attorney for New York City's Legal Aid Society's criminal defense practice, new crime trends . 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. 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. info@bds.org. The Center for Family Representation was awarded the contract in New York. The clogged courts calendar, however, meant that the court could not conduct the evidentiary hearing immediately. I had never been so scared in my life. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. Such services might include attending parenting skills or anger management classes, or participating in therapy, counseling, or drug treatment programs. at 3940 (oral testimony of Caitlin Becker, MSW, Managing Dire., Soc. Ct. 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. 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. from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law where she was a Graduate Fellow, participated in the Defenders clinic and interned with the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Defenders of Philadelphia, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem's Family Defense Practice, the Brooklyn Defenders . In Queens and Richmond County (Staten Island), no change to the legal representation landscape occurred at that time. Senior . Instead of striving to win on a case-by-case basis in court, the defender community insisted on securing a seat at the table to discuss poor practices with the officials in charge of child welfare in New York City. The 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. 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. That was the critical step that led to the successful resolution of the case. Lauren Shapiro has been working as a Managing Director, Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services for 16 years. Despite agreeing to attend the meeting, however, the agency caseworker never came to the meeting. Ct. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Even these remarkable efforts would have been insufficient. The supervisor denied the request, approved the caseworkers leaving the conference, and explained that the agency had all the information it needed. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. Legal Services of New York was awarded the contract in Brooklyn. See N.Y. Fam. 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. It is used whenever the office is representing a mother who becomes pregnant during the course of the case, whether she already is court-involved or not. Ms. Barrow and the defense team jointly developed a new plan for her that included referring her to a therapist, a psychiatrist who was able to prescribe new medication, and a medication management provider. for Child.s Servs., Children in Foster Care by Borough/CD of Foster Care Placement, /content/aba-cms-dotorg/en/groups/family_law/publications/family-law-quarterly/volume-54/issue-1/how-family-defender-offices-new-york-city-are-able-safely-reduce-time-children-spend-foster-care, Preserving Families: Parent Representation, Immigration Reform, and LGBTQ+ Rights, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163, http://ww2.nycourts.gov/sites/default/files/document/files/2019-02/PLR_Commission-Report.pdf, https://www.bronxdefenders.org/our-work/family-defense-practice/, https://www.cfrny.org/our-work/team-model/, https://neighborhooddefender.org/services/family-defense/, http://bds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018.08.16-BDS-testimony-to-the-Commission-on-Parental-Representation-FINAL.pdf, http://www.opd.wa.gov/documents/0047-2003_PRP_Evaluation.pdf, https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=208ionid=2&articleid=5378, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/downloads/pdf/CITYFEPS/CITYFEPS-fact-sheet.pdf, https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/Pregnancy_Report.pdf, nycourts.gov/ip/Parental-Legal-Rep/PDFs/NYCPublicHearing9-27-18_F.pdf, https://caseyfamilypro-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/media/SF_Quality-parent-representation_fnl.pdf, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/january---december-2019/providing-parents-multidisciplinary-legal-representation-signifi/, http://www.nycourts.gov/ip/Parental-Legal-Rep/PDFs/InterimReport-FINAL.pdf, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53ee4f0be4b015b9c3690d84/t/54138debe4b037d2d5803f6b/1410567659179/CWW-vol9.pdf, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs/pdf/data-analysis/2020/incarefostercare.pdf. 1337, 133839 (2012). At the current time, BDS physical offices are open by appointment only. Email Us. J. Juv. Ct. Act 261, 262 (McKinney 2020). In those counties, the only legal representation afforded to parents in these proceedings was the assignment of solo practitioners who were members of the assigned counsel panel of attorneys eligible for court assignment. 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. . 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). 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. Hum. 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. Res. 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.
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