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 . Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Emma S. Ketteringham & Caitlin Becker, at 2) [hereinafter Ketteringham & Becker written testimony]. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. If you are a current client of BDS, contact your lawyer, social worker, or other staff for an appointment. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 43. 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. For MAil . By planning carefully with the mother during the pregnancy and preparing for the child to come home with her, the team ensures that living arrangements are set and baby paraphernalia (cribs, diapers, food) are at the ready. 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. The clogged courts calendar, however, meant that the court could not conduct the evidentiary hearing immediately. One day, Ms. Green noticed a bump on Sophias head that concerned her. Being involved at the earliest stages of a case in designing a case plan, or in accurately assessing the needs (if any) of a parent, is a critical step in minimizing the amount of time children need to spend in foster care because the most important factor courts consider when deciding whether to return children from foster care to their family is whether the circumstances that led to the placement have sufficiently changed. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. Criminal Defense Practice Social Worker. . Unlike the other two offices, which were part of larger organizations that secured income from multiple sources, CFRs only work was in parent representation. All of the family defender offices in New York City either have special units to represent parents in housing-related matters, in immigration proceedings, and/or in criminal proceedings, or have made alliances with legal offices that do that work. 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. 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. In Queens and Richmond County (Staten Island), no change to the legal representation landscape occurred at that time. Several days after Ms. Barrow was permitted to bring her baby home with her from the hospital, the agency removed the infant and placed her in foster care after a caseworker visited the apartment and found it to be excessively dirty and filled with cockroaches. 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. Approximately 20 percent of the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice clients are immigrants, and many do not speak English as their first language. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 45. 89. Hum. Rev. Serv. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. 6 days ago. Less than a year later, Eduardo sustained another injury in his hip. View job. The investigator also met with Eduardos primary care physician, but not with the orthopedic surgeon. 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. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 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. This is the third in a series of articles discussing the results of child welfare cases in which parents in New York City were represented by a new form of legal services provision: family defender offices whose staff include social workers, parent advocates, and lawyers. The Center for Family Representation was awarded the contract in New York. 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. See, e.g., N.Y. Soc. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. 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. 44. 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. See, e.g., In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d 168 (N.Y. 1993). 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. 8. It also is important to appreciate how the offices support the professionals emotionally. 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. Brooklyn, NY, US. 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 . 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. 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. $65,000 - $87,880 a year. When the case was first filed in court, the judge only permitted Ms. Green twice-weekly supervised visits at the foster care agencya sterile environment unconducive to an engaging opportunity for parents and children to maintain ties. View info about Brooklyn Defender Services (bds.org). See Family Defense, NDS: The Power of Pub. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. See National Alliance for Parent Representation, Am. 99. Hybrid remote in Brooklyn, NY 11201. medical, dental, optometrical or surgical care, though financially able to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so . 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. BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal services, social work support and advocacy, for tens of thousands of clients in Brooklyn every year. In most of these cases, the mother is already represented by a lawyer. 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. 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 Without Ms. Anderson having the team working with her, she would be expected to attend this conference alone with agency caseworkers and supervisors. 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. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. Because Ms. Green was unable to provide a clear explanation for the injury, the hospital called the child protection agency, which immediately began an investigation. Rev. 96%. J. Juv. Ct. Apr. 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 active family defender community cannot take full credit for this this dramatic shrinking of the foster care population. 33. The national family defender movement is based at the American Bar Associations Center on Children and the Law under the leadership of Mimi Laver. Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. 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. 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. One parent told the Commission she attended between twelve and fifteen conferences over a three-year period, and in every instance, she attended them alone.88 The second parent testified that she attended between twelve and eighteen such conferences over a longer period of time.89 She, too, was never accompanied by anyone to a conference.90 By way of comparison, the social work director at one of the family defender offices testified at the same hearing that her office has a team of nineteen parent advocates and social workers who attended nearly 1,000 conferences with parents in fiscal year 2018.91. By now, two additional months had passed, and the surgeon thought it wisest to order a new series of x-rays before making any decision that day. 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). 93. 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. A non-profit public defense office in Brooklyn, New York. 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]. That knowledge commonly results in the offices achieving better, faster results for their clients than the child welfare agency is capable of, with considerably less disruption of the family, eliminating or significantly shortening the time children are forced to live apart from their families. The parent advocate from the defense team working with Ms. Greens case provided an invaluable role in buffering the relationship with the caseworker, acting as a bridge and facilitating communication between the two. The Article proceeds in five parts. Id. After the baby was born, the agency convened the anticipated child safety conference. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Lisa Schreibersdorf, Exec. Each of the three offices had a distinct corporate structure. Serv. Brooklyn, NY, US. It is here, at the exquisite level of facts, that the defender offices make their greatest difference. (June 5, 2008), https://perma.cc/L2CZ-Z64X. 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. See In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d at 172. Commn on Hum. 1337, 133839 (2012). Our Medically Complicated Team defends parents facing allegations that stem exclusively from a medical opinion. Our work with clients is focused on the intersection . Of the 135 (35%) cases filed in Family Court, 61 families remained together throughout the investigation and subsequent court filing, the children never removed from their homes. That is what it prepared for when it represented Ms. Anderson. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) represents over 35,000 clients in criminal, family, immigration and civil cases annually. Lawyers Assn v. State, 763 N.Y.S.2d 397 (Sup. 19, 1989). Alice received her J.D. They also prepared for the birth of the baby, finding a trauma-trained doula and helping Ms. Anderson to set up her home with all the essentials for a baby. Brooklyn, NY . Instead, the agency has conducted the conferences within a day or two after a newborns birth, at a time when the mother is not in a position to participate effectively. 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. The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Part I provides a brief history of parental representation in New York. 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. 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. What insights have they gained? There is no question that the in-court advocacy engaged in by the family defender offices is of a much higher order than that practiced by the panel lawyers, as the qualitative study attests. For current information on these offices, see Family Defense Practice, Bronx Defenders, https://www.bronxdefenders.org/our-work/family-defense-practice/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020); Family Defense, Brooklyn Defender Serv., http://bds.org/practice/family-defense/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020); Family Defense Teams, Ctr. Ultimate success in many cases can be achieved by creating and developing plans designed to keep children safely at homeor to return them home as soon as can safely be accomplishedand by pushing hard for the plans prompt implementation. & Fam. 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. Such services might include attending parenting skills or anger management classes, or participating in therapy, counseling, or drug treatment programs. 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. 30+ days ago Full Time. 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.