70. 20. 42 U.S.C. If you are not a current client and need assistance, click here to get help. 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. 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. Lauren Shapiro has been working as a Managing Director, Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defender Services for 16 years. BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Special thanks go to Caitlin Becker, Michelle Burrell, Michele Cortese, Emma Ketteringham, and Lauren Shapiro for making it possible for this Article to have been written. 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. Without the surgeons letter, the case almost certainly would have ended with the court ordering the surgery in a legal proceeding that would have lingered for months. 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. See Id. 24. 65. Browse 12 jobs at brooklyn defender services near Brooklyn, NY. Mr. Sanchez was permitted to take his son to Mexico for the treatment he preferred. Hum. 205 were here. The strategy worked. Hum. 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 . 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. Once again, Ms. Barrows defense team went into action. One such example involves what should happen when a parent is required to perform a certain service that is covered by Medicaid or other programs when the service provider will not commence the service until the funds are made available to it. Ct. Keeping families together requires striving to establish understanding and ensuring that the parents voice is heard through support and advocacy. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). 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. [or] ensure that clients receive necessary services and prepare appropriate service plans . 63. Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. Ct. Act 1039 (McKinney 2020). Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. Rts., Your Rights While Pregnant, Breastfeeding, or Caregiving: A Report on the 2019 Commission Public Hearing on Pregnancy and Caregiver Discrimination, N.Y. State Admin. in Political Science. Serv. 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. This may contribute to unwarranted requests by the agency for the hospital to place a social hold on the baby, preventing the mother from taking the baby home.78 This practice is opposed by the family defenders in New York as causing inappropriate disruption of parentinfant bonding and imposing unnecessary stress and anxiety on parents and families at a precious moment in their lives, often resulting in the needless and wrongful separation of children from their families.79. 84. At her conference, Ms. Anderson was accompanied by a parent advocate who had lived the child welfare experience and a social worker from the defender office who carefully laid out the details of the efforts Ms. Anderson had undertaken in recent weeks. It added over the years an immigration practice and, in 2007, with this new contract, a family defense practice as well. The Center for Family Representation was awarded the contract in New York. 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. 93. If the study discussions in the previous section show anything, it is that being at the table when the agency fashions the case plan is a critical stage in the proceeding with profound long-term implications for all that follows. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. Rev. Office of Research & Analysis, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? at 14. 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. 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. As the field continues to improve, all parents should be given lawyers working in an interdisciplinary practice. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Experienced Attorney's for the Criminal Practice's legal team. Through these discussions, they connected her to a social services organization in the community. 79. $68,640 a year. My professional experiences in New York City include founding and co-directing the Family Defense Clinic at New York University School of Law; serving as a Founding Board Member for the Center for Family Representation; being a member of the Board of Advisors for the New York City Administration for Childrens Services from 1996 to 2013; and, most recently, since 2017, serving as a member of the New York State Commission on Parental Legal Representation. In most of these cases, the mother is already represented by a lawyer. 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. This catch-22 problem made preventing Ms. Barrows eviction vital on multiple fronts. 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. 2 (. For most panel lawyers, if a matter is continued on the court calendar for six weeks, the lawyer is able to put the case in a folder and reopen it one or two days before the next court date. Are you or someone you know being investigated by the police or ACS? The teams successful representation of Mr. Sanchez began with a careful, nuanced interview with him allowing the social worker, who was fluent in Mr. Sanchezs native language, to grasp that he never was unalterably opposed to the surgery but merely wanted one more opportunity to see if it were preventable. 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 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. Admin. Brooklyn residents are harmed and impacted by government policies and practices that fuel mass incarceration and the destruction of families. Altogether, Ms. Anderson was separated from her baby for less than nine weeks. 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. See N.Y. Fam. This case, however, reveals how meaningful efforts by the parents defender team to understand the family and the childs medical condition changed the cases course, without the need to litigate, to call witnesses, or to rely on the court to do anything more than enter an order that all parties ultimately preferred, once the full details of the case were exposed. Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. When this happened, not only did she visit her children regularly, her defense team succeeded in persuading the judge (over the agencys objection) to permit unsupervised visits, commonly a necessary interim stage before courts will return children to a parents custody. Family Defense Practice. Davis. 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. 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 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. Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 2629 (2019), http://www.nycourts.gov/ip/Parental-Legal-Rep/PDFs/InterimReport-FINAL.pdf. . Codes R. & Regs. tit. 85. One might reasonably suggest they are much more important than what happens in the courtroom itself. Press Inquiries. 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. 73. Because the bump did not immediately appear on Sophias head, Ms. Green could not be certain how the injury was sustained. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 7. Martin Guggenheim is the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. In only 16 of the 381 casesfour percentwere children placed in foster care with strangers. The ongoing relationship may mean the mother became pregnant during the pendency of an ongoing court case (a frequent occurrence). . Popular Searches Brooklyn Defender Services Bds 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. 71. . We are the attorneys and advocates fighting injustice for individuals and families and protecting civil rights for all people. 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. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Public Hearings 38 (Sept. 27, 2018), http:/nycourts.gov/ip/Parental-Legal-Rep/PDFs/NYCPublicHearing9-27-18_F.pdf (oral testimony of Jeanette Vega, Training Dir., RISE). In that capacity, she also represented parents in a wide range of matters related to family law . In addition, the social work staff helped Ms. Green coordinate and expand visitation. Moreover, in my experience, judges rarely overrule (or reconsider) the agencys assessment of what services are appropriate. This case reveals the amount of time and attention the holistic offices give to their clients and reveals what is needed to serve parents well when they become enmeshed in the child welfare system. 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. I think that every parent should have an advocate. 77, 105 (2016). Approximately 20 percent of the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice clients are immigrants, and many do not speak English as their first language. The true meaning of the findings in the quantitative study that these offices secure the return of children to their families significantly sooner than would happen without them is that child welfare practice without the kind of oversight accomplished by the offices wrongfully separates children from families in a significant percentage of cases. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. 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. 67. Unlike the other two offices, which were part of larger organizations that secured income from multiple sources, CFRs only work was in parent representation. Other times, the agency has been involved with the person in other ways, for example, when a young woman in foster care becomes pregnant. Our team works to find temporary custody arrangements, refute false allegations and help inform parents of their rights at early stages of an ACS investigation about their family. Such services might include attending parenting skills or anger management classes, or participating in therapy, counseling, or drug treatment programs. Because the qualitative study focused so much on what the new family defender offices did in court, the case descriptions that follow focus on the out-of-court work that is crucial to the holistic model employed by the offices. 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. Programs, https://www.casey.org/who-we-are/about/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020). 69. Among the most unsettling aspects of child protection intervention in New York City is the practice of the local child protection agency removing newborns from their mothers custody at the hospital. 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. for Child. We fight to protect New Yorkers from the trauma of separation from their loved ones and to reunite families as soon as possible. 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. 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. Easily apply. It is here, at the exquisite level of facts, that the defender offices make their greatest difference. at 23 n.179. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, N.Y.C. Even though Sophias injury was an accident, court calendars are so backed up that it takes many months from the date of a filing to get to a trial on the facts. 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. 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. 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. . 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. Brooklyn Defender Services is a company located in Brooklyn, NY, United States. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 89. L. & Soc. A non-profit public defense office in Brooklyn, New York. L TO LIVONIA AVENUE. Ct. Act 1089 (McKinney 2020). The social worker helped facilitate a more complete understanding between Mr. Sanchez and the hospitals medical team. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 53. But then, a second intervening event occurred, dramatically changing the entire picture. 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. The essence of the kind of representation offered by the three offices that were part of the study (as well as the template for the work done by the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, the fourth office doing this work in New York City) is that clients receive a team of advocates, commonly including an attorney, a social worker, and a parent advocate. The strategy worked even better than expected. We were very lucky to have [our lawyer] on the day that [my son] got in trouble. Then she engaged a cleaning service to address the roaches and the condition of Ms. Barrows home. When parents are unrepresented at these conferences, the plans are more likely to be boilerplate, requiring parents to do things of little value. When the meeting ended, the surgeon continued to recommend surgery, but he now acknowledged that there are many children with this hip condition who can participate in sports, live happily, and never receive surgery. Gottlieb et al., supra note 60, at 559. of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . See N.Y. Fam. Undeterred by failing to achieve success at the conference, the defense team looked toward the first court appearance as a new opportunity to argue for the newborn to remain in Ms. Andersons custody as well as the first opportunity to leave the judge with a positive impression of the mother. On the judicial side, petitions are filed in family court and the allegations in the petitions are (sometimes) resolved through contested evidentiary hearings. What insights have they gained? 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. He was kind and understanding. It set up a meeting with the surgeon and invited the child protection agency to attend so that it could hear the more complete picture. for Child.s Servs. Within nine months, Ms. Green had completed both the anger management and parenting class, all while working full time and finishing her GED. 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). 91. Office of Research & Analysis, Emergency Removals Subcommittee (Sept. 16, 2015). Her defense team at first consisted of a family court lawyer and a social worker. 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 . Additional data from The Bronx Defenders presented in testimony to the New York State Commission on Parental Representation indicated that of the 81 children born to clients who already had children in foster at the time they gave birth to the newborn, the office was successful in ensuring that 58 (72 percent) remained at home with their mothers and 17 (20 percent) were placed with caretakers of their mothers choosing. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 5. Over the many years of doing this work, the four offices that have contracts to represent parents in child welfare cases in New York City have developed and refined innovative approaches to secure the safe return of children from foster care. The goal of our early intervention is to avoid court filings that have a harsh impact on families. 42 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022 [hereinafter Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. 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. FDP represents over 4,000 parents and caretakers each year in Abuse and Neglect and related cases in Brooklyn Family Court. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. 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. Because the agency caseworker failed to attend this medical conference, however, the agency continued to insist in court that the surgery was required and assert that the surgeon considered Mr. Sanchezs refusal to consent to the surgery as placing Eduardo at serious risk of harm. Email Us. Brooklyn Defender Services corporate office is located in 177 Livingston St Fl 7, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States and has 609 employees. The notes of the interviews are on file with the author. Senior . 262(c); Merrill Sobie, Practice Commentaries (McKinney 2020). 2019, https://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/index.cfm?event=website.viewArticles&issueid=208ionid=2&articleid=5378. 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.