See also Jason A. Oetjen, Natl Council of Juv. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. Instead of the family being reunited, the case might have resulted in a termination of parental rights. Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. 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. Several years earlier, she gave birth when she was still in foster care. for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin (July 16, 2019) (on file with the author). The goal was to secure evidence from an independent, well-respected therapist that Ms. Green possessed the temperament and capability of raising her child safely. See id. 9. Rev. But the offices nonetheless prevented foster care entirely because of out-of-court advocacy. 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. 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). Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 1215 (2019). We serve the Brooklyn community by providing individual services to thousands of people each year, holding clinics and educational programs in our community office and online, and supporting fellow community organizations. . 19, 1989). Although the agency does not permit lawyers to attend these conferences, it does allow parents to bring anyone else to be present. They help their clients persevere what is otherwise a long, lonely, and frightening journey by staying in close, regular contact with them. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services. 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. Criminal, Family, Immigration and Civil Defense. In the weeks leading up to the status conference, Ms. Anderson and the team worked to ensure she was able to attend all visits with her daughter, that she completed the mental health evaluation the judge requested, and that her service providers were serving her well. In 2013, the Legal Services NYC contract ended, and the South Brooklyn Services Office that was handling the Brooklyn Family Court caseload merged with Brooklyn Defender Services, a preeminent public interest law office with contracts to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases as well as immigration and other matters. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. Full-time. 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. When the new tests were made available to the surgeon later that day, he continued to support Mr. Sanchezs plan for treating his son. 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. The teams lawyer then filed a motion for an immediate court hearing to determine whether removal was necessary to protect the childs safety. 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. Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation. Brooklyn Defender Services, Family Defense Practice 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. 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. 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. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 4546. Once Ms. Barrow was living in an apartment too small for her children to live in with her, a new barrier to the childrens return would be to secure suitable housing, which would certainly extend the childrens stay in foster care. 65. . Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. 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. FAMILY DEFENSE. Law 424 (McKinney 2020). 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. Office of Research & Analysis, Emergency Removals Subcommittee (Sept. 16, 2015). Visit Us . After the baby was born, the agency convened the anticipated child safety conference. 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. N.Y. Comp. The problem, of course, is that the surgeon would not have written that letter without the very effective advocacy Mr. Sanchezs team brought to the meeting with him. Brooklyn Defender Services: Employee Directory | ZoomInfo.com 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. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/downloads/pdf/CITYFEPS/CITYFEPS-fact-sheet.pdf. Natl Council of Juv. Melissa Trent - Supervising Attorney, Family Defense Practice Her child was placed in foster care. 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. When Mr. Sanchez told the surgeon that he would not consent to the recommended surgery, the surgeon made a call to the New York Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment, which resulted in an investigation being commenced by the local child protection agency.84. When Mr. Sanchez met with his lawyers and social worker, he provided the fuller picture. Lauren Shapiro has been working as a Managing Director, Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services for 16 years. BDS | Home Commn on Hum. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking an experienced Attorney for the Custody Practice of the Family Defense Team. Without the offices housing advocacy, Ms. Barrow would have had no home for her newborn to return to. 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. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Skip to main content. 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. 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. Even when these lawyers are skilled courtroom advocates, their advocacy is too frequently hamstrung by antecedent deficits engaged in by the agency when, for example, it proposed and implemented an inadequate case plan. 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. In child welfare cases, victories often prove to be short-lived. In this sense, family defenders make child welfare work better. They then returned to their permanent residence in New York. Are you concerned that you or someone you know may be arrested by ICE? All of this was reported to the judge at the status conference. Codes R. & Regs. 6. 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. See N.Y. 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. Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. Alice Wang | Columbia Law School N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 81. 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. Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation (2003), http://www.opd.wa.gov/documents/0047-2003_PRP_Evaluation.pdf (presenting results of an earlier study of pilot programs in two juvenile courts in different settings and locations). . BDS | Contact They also reveal the critical importance of addressing the needs of clients concerning matters beyond the child welfare system itself. Ct. Apr. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these agency meetings. From $74,000 a year. For MAil . We push for equitable and humane policies by advocating for better laws, filing systemic litigation and educating the public. Mr. Sanchez was permitted to take his son to Mexico for the treatment he preferred. The family defender offices in New York City do not settle for inadequate plans, nor do they encourage their clients to engage in services that are unlikely to ameliorate the barriers to regaining the custody of their children. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. This is written both to clarify why this kind of representation is so successful and to help export the model to jurisdictions that have yet to embrace it. In only 16 of the 381 casesfour percentwere children placed in foster care with strangers. 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. 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. 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. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. for Family Representation, at 1). 24 Public Defender jobs available in Bay Terrace, NY on Indeed.com. 1012(f). The petition alleged that the skull fracture could only have been the result of child abuse and Ms. Greens failure to provide a sufficient explanation for the injury justified placing Sophia in foster care. Over the course of five months, Ms. Green fully engaged in therapy and her therapist wrote enthusiastic letters of support that her defense team was able to present in court. [Our lawyer] was a friend. Appreciating the likelihood that the agencys failure to hear this information in person would, at minimum, severely delay a resolution of the case, the defense teams social worker requested that the surgeon write a letter to the court explaining that, although he recommended that Eduardo have the surgery, the surgery was not medically necessary and Mr. Sanchezs preference to give nonsurgical treatment one more try was an appropriate exercise of parental discretion. Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. 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. That is what it prepared for when it represented Ms. Anderson. . N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 27. Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. The active family defender community cannot take full credit for this this dramatic shrinking of the foster care population. 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. Hum. Child welfare cases are prosecuted along two tracks: the judicial and the administrative. For another 82 (22%) parents, the investigations are ongoing but to date ACS has not filed a case alleging neglect or abuse. 4. It is here, at the exquisite level of facts, that the defender offices make their greatest difference. See Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 56. 29. 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. They also develop training materials to enrich and support the Family Defense Practice. Part III briefly describes the findings in the qualitative study. The offices help parents negotiate all aspects of the process throughout the life of the case. They specify the steps an agency must undertake to reunify a family and the tasks the parent must perform as the condition for keeping or regaining custody of his or her child. 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. With the housing crisis abated, the rest of the family defense team could keep its focus on the family court case. Child welfare has long been in search of evidence-based programs designed to keep children safely in their own homes. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. Admin. As a result, a second meeting was scheduled with the surgeon, Mr. Sanchezs defense team, and the agency. They provide the opportunity to enter a field with an ambitious social justice vision.62. 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 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. See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? 96%. We were very lucky to have [our lawyer] on the day that [my son] got in trouble. 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. Popular Searches Brooklyn Defender Services Bds Brooklyn, NY, US. Because the bump did not immediately appear on Sophias head, Ms. Green could not be certain how the injury was sustained. But the team was unable to secure the agencys support for unsupervised visits. Ct. The social worker, fluent in English and Spanish, also served as a translator for Mr. Sanchez whose primary language is Spanish and whose command of English is limited. is a public defense office that provides outstanding representation and advocacy to people facing loss of freedom, family separation and other serious legal harms. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, N.Y.C. 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. N.Y. Soc. & Fam. 61. 86. at 3940 (oral testimony of Caitlin Becker, MSW, Managing Dire., Soc. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. Ms. Greens attorneys used this knowledge to start planning their settlement and trial strategy.73. for Child.s Servs., Children in Foster Care by Borough/CD of Foster Care Placement (Dec. 31, 2019), https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/acs/pdf/data-analysis/2020/incarefostercare.pdf. This is among the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of daily defense advocacy these offices employ. But because she would be applying for shelter housing at a time when her children were not in her custody, she would be counted as a single person living alone and would be eligible only for a studio-sized apartment, unsuitable for children. 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. 718-564-6290. Brooklyn Defender Services is a company located in Brooklyn, NY, United States. As impressive as the results of the quantitative findings are in showing a significant deduction of unnecessary days children spend in foster care in New York City, this Article strongly suggests that the defender offices have a far greater impact on the reduction of foster care.94. But among the most important reforms needed in child welfare once investigations into families are started is to offer the family the services of a committed preventive and reunification service, precisely what the family defenders in New York are. Def., https://neighborhooddefender.org/services/family-defense/ (last visited Sept. 19, 2020). 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. The representation she received simply would have been impossible for most individual panel attorneys to match. Ct. Act 261, 262 (McKinney 2020). 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. 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. If you are not a current client and need assistance, click here to get help. Social Worker - Mental Health Practice. Caseworkers visit parents in their homes and talk to them and their service providers on a regular basis. Easily apply. About BDS Our Commitment Defend People and Society How Family Defender Offices in New York City Are Able to Safely Reduce In Queens and Richmond County (Staten Island), no change to the legal representation landscape occurred at that time. Brooklyn Law School - Lorr Sarah FDP represents over 4,000 parents and caretakers each year in Abuse and Neglect and related cases in Brooklyn Family Court. Lawyers Assn, 763 N.Y.S.2d at 40102, 407. 7. Brooklyn, NY. 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. These plans are best developed out of court in conjunction with the agency overseeing the case.64 No good lawyer can afford to ignore the administrative process, which commonly begins when a family comes to the attention of an investigating caseworker following a report of suspected maltreatment made to the child protection agency. The team met with Ms. Barrow and began the task of coordinating the substantial support needed in managing Ms. Barrows mental illness and disability. Part II briefly describes the findings in the quantitative analysis. Consider this: In 2003, there were over 28,000 children in foster care in New York City; at the end of 2019, there were approximately 7,800.99. Then she engaged a cleaning service to address the roaches and the condition of Ms. Barrows home. 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. brooklyn defender services careers in Brooklyn, NY | Indeed.com 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. mediarequests@bds.org. Moreover, in my experience, judges rarely overrule (or reconsider) the agencys assessment of what services are appropriate. Mr. Sanchez was charged with medical neglect after the agency learned that he refused to consent to surgery to fix his sons hip disorder. We work alongside people harmed by unfair systems to fight injustice and change things for the better. When the doctor requested more x-rays, the caseworker explained that she could not remain for the conference after the tests came back. 30+ days ago. 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. View job. 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 . Part I provides a brief history of parental representation in New York. The defense team not only was able to achieve the return of Ms. Andersons daughter to her custody, it resolved the entire case, eliminating further need for court appearances. 76. See N.Y. County Law 722(3) (McKinney 2020). The examining doctors asked Ms. Greens mother what may have happened to Sophia and her mother was unable to provide them with a satisfactory answer. Funding for the study was secured from Casey Family Programs,28 one of the leading child welfare foundations in the country committed to supporting practices designed to ensure that children are able to be raised safely in their families of origin.29 An important question the study hoped to learn was whether the kind of legal representation made available to parents would have any impact on reducing the time children spend in foster care.30, The quantitative study was a multiyear study of child welfare cases brought in the New York City courts to determine whether the kind of legal representation provided to parents can make a difference in the outcome of cases.31 The researchers examined child welfare cases filed in New York City Family Court between 2007 and 2014; the final sample involved 9,582 families with 18,288 children.32 They used Propensity Score Matching as the statistical design, which equalized the groups of families compared on nearly twenty factors or covariates split into variables.33 This methodology allowed the researchers to attribute differences in outcomes between the two groups to the type of representation the parents received.34, The study compared the outcome of cases based on whether parents were represented by panel lawyers and parents who were represented by one of the family defender offices.35 Ultimately, the researchers traced the outcomes of nearly 10,000 families and their more than 18,000 children through a four-year follow-up period.36, The study found that the kind of representation afforded to parents makes a dramatic difference in the length of time children spend in foster care.37 Giving parents the right kind of legal team results in families being reunited far sooner than would otherwise happen.38 The family defense offices were able to secure the safe return of children to their families 43 percent more often in their first year than panel attorneys, and 25 percent more often in the second year.39 Giving parents lawyers from family defense offices allowed children to be permanently released to relatives more than twice as often in the first year of a case and 67 percent more often in the second year.40 These families may otherwise have been permanently dissolved or the children may have spent their childhood separated from their family. 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. . 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. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. Full-time. Brooklyn public defenders seek to form union - nydailynews.com
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