It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. 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. By 2014, five family defender offices had contracts to represent parents.93 In some parts of New York City, family defender offices handle the vast majority of new cases filed. 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. Despite agreeing to attend the meeting, however, the agency caseworker never came to the meeting. 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. Admin. Family defense has been transformed in New York City. View job. No case is filed; no court time is taken up; no court personnel are assigned to the matter. Serv. Brooklyn, NY, US. See N.Y. Fam. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); Pierce v. Socy of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972). Entry Level Attorneys - Criminal Practice legal team . When the conference took place one day after the babys birth, the defense teams social worker and parent advocate attended with Ms. Barrow. After waiting two additional months, the team filed a motion for enhanced, unsupervised visits, arguing that the agencys refusal to grant unsupervised visits was arbitrary and damaging to the long-term purpose of child protection. Livingston St / Smith St. The Center for Family Representation was awarded the contract in New York. Each of the three offices had a distinct corporate structure. Brooklyn residents are harmed and impacted by government policies and practices that fuel mass incarceration and the destruction of families. . 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. Law 424 (McKinney 2020). Admin. P 646-971-2722. The final order terminating her parental rights was entered a mere six weeks before Ms. Anderson, now in the late stages of her pregnancy, met with social workers at the unit. Easily apply. When these errors are not revealed, the official record supports the erroneous conclusion that a child was removed from a parents home for a substantial reason. With the housing crisis abated, the rest of the family defense team could keep its focus on the family court case. Prior to joining the faculty at Brooklyn Law School, Professor Lorr was a Supervising Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice, providing free legal representation to parents at risk of losing their children to foster care. 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. Ms. Anderson began therapy that was designed to address her history of physical and sexual abuse in foster care and her previous relationship, helping her to understand how those experiences had shaped her adult life and her approach to parenting. Unlike the other two offices, which were part of larger organizations that secured income from multiple sources, CFRs only work was in parent representation. for Family Representation, at 1). Visit Us . 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. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these agency meetings. Even though Ms. Green had completed all required services and her visitation rights had been substantially expanded, the agency was now arguing that this new injury proved that Ms. Green lacked the capacity to raise her child safely. A case like this would not even show up in the results found in the quantitative study, which focused on the length of time children remain in foster care and other outcomes of cases. A non-profit public defense office in Brooklyn, New York. One day, Ms. Green noticed a bump on Sophias head that concerned her. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. Our team of attorneys, paralegals, advocates, social workers and administrative staff provide a broad range of family defense representation, advocacy and support. Rev. See supra note 18. This Article is designed to bring to life the proactive nature of the multidisciplinary practice. Serv. Brooklyn Defender Services 177 Livingston St., 7th Fl. Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. And by so doing, these defenders improve child welfare practice for everyone: the agencies, the court, and, of course, the families who are brought into the system. As we will see, the lack of anyone in that office with substantive knowledge of family court or child welfare deeply disadvantaged parents and families for the next forty years. If you are a current client of BDS, contact your lawyer, social worker, or other staff for an appointment. 97. But the team was unable to secure the agencys support for unsupervised visits. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children. He was just what we needed in a lawyer. One of the family defender offices responded to this practice by creating a special unit assigned to handle cases of this kind.80 The special unit is designed to better represent pregnant mothers who become enmeshed with the child welfare system. See N.Y. Fam. The defense team then went into action. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. 60. Res. Codes R. & Regs. Less than a year later, Eduardo sustained another injury in his hip. Res. They provide the opportunity to enter a field with an ambitious social justice vision.62. 62. About BDS Our Commitment Defend People and Society But the defender community maintains meaningful pressure on the system to live up to this rhetoric. See generally Subha Lembach, The Right to Legal Representation at Service Plan Reviews in New York State, 6 U.C. 1012(f). Brooklyn, NY 11201. Approximately 20 percent of the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice clients are immigrants, and many do not speak English as their first language. 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. 70. Lawyers Assn, 763 N.Y.S.2d at 40102, 407. He gratefully acknowledges the outstanding research assistance provided by Sean Eagan, New York University School of Law Class of 2019, and also thanks Luke Gerber, Chris Gottlieb, Sue Jacobs, Peter Pecora, and Tim Ross for their support and the careful attention they gave to this Article. But it simply could not have happened without an interdisciplinary team assigned to the case. In this case, the office was assigned to represent Carlos Sanchez, after a petition was filed by the local child welfare agency accusing him of neglecting his son by failing to consent to what the agency asserted was necessary surgery. 382 (2019) [hereinafter Accidents Happen]. Programs, https://www.casey.org/who-we-are/about/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020). Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Experienced Attorney's for the Criminal Practice's legal team. Rev. 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). 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. Our Approach. 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. 22. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. Are you concerned that you or someone you know may be arrested by ICE? 31. . Id. Brooklyn Defender Services serves communities in the State of New York. The representation she received simply would have been impossible for most individual panel attorneys to match. Brooklyn, NY . Between 1975 and 2007, this was the kind of representation most parents were able to receive when they were eligible for court-assigned counsel.17 In 2007, the then-named Mayors Office of Criminal Justice agreed to engage in an experiment that had a dramatic impact on child welfare practice in New York City: it offered contracts to three offices to become the primary lawyer assigned to represent parents in child welfare cases. 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. Easily apply. make applications for investigators or other experts where appropriate . Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 5. The strategy worked even better than expected. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 43. 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. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. Skip to main content. General Inquiries. 2 (. 347-592-2500. Find out what works well at brooklyn defender services from the people who know best. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Rev. . Martin Guggenheim, New Study Shows Providing Parents with Multidisciplinary Legal Representation in Child Welfare Cases Furthers Everyones Interests, 20 Child.s Bureau Express no. Part IV, the heart of the Article, describes accounts of actual cases undertaken by this new breed of family defenders, to help explain their superior ability to achieve the objectives of keeping children safely with their families. 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. See Paredes v. City of New York, No. Child welfare cases are prosecuted along two tracks: the judicial and the administrative. Because the bump did not immediately appear on Sophias head, Ms. Green could not be certain how the injury was sustained. Add to those situations the countless cases where, even though the out-of-court advocacy failed to dissuade the agency from filing a petition, the agency was persuaded not to seek a removal of the child. 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. P (718) 254-0700; F (718) 254-0897; E info@bds.org; Facebook; Twitter; Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 1215 (2019). N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. Admin. Ms. Anderson grew up in foster care, moving through over 20 foster homes as a child. 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 Id. Do you need help accessing benefits or fighting eviction? Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. brooklyn defender services bds brooklyn defender service brooklyn defenders family defense practice bds associates inc Brooklyn Defender Services Global Presence Search All Employees See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. If I hadnt had the support of BDS, I wouldnt have been able to stop ACS from removing my kids. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). 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. What services have they completed? Similar to the agencys response at the pre-court conference, Ms. Andersons advocates were unable to persuade the judge to order the babys return to Ms. Anderson. 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. 18. Although the courtroom remains an important site for excellent representation of parents in child welfare cases, no less important legal work needs to occur elsewhere. 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. Serv. 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. medical, dental, optometrical or surgical care, though financially able to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so . At the current time, BDS physical offices are open by appointment only. 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. Emily (she/her/hers) received her J.D. 91. Then she engaged a cleaning service to address the roaches and the condition of Ms. Barrows home. 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. J. Juv. FAMILY DEFENSE. 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. 42 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022 [hereinafter Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. This catch-22 problem made preventing Ms. Barrows eviction vital on multiple fronts. 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 . The parties agreed to a settlement, where Ms. Andersons daughter would be returned to her care immediately. 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. 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. 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. The family defender system characterized by the work performed by the New York City offices is a significant contribution to the child welfare field. 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. 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. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. This Article serves to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of how the family defender offices actually do their work, in order to better explain how they achieve the results found by the quantitative study. Such services might include attending parenting skills or anger management classes, or participating in therapy, counseling, or drug treatment programs. 9. Child welfare has long been in search of evidence-based programs designed to keep children safely in their own homes. 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. Def., https://neighborhooddefender.org/services/family-defense/ (last visited Sept. 19, 2020). See N.Y. Fam. (citing N.Y. State Admin. Fighting for you, your family & our community. FDP represents over 4,000 parents and caretakers each year in Abuse and Neglect and related cases in Brooklyn Family Court. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. The third office, the Center for Family Representation (CFR), was a relatively new start-up 501(c)(3) office whose only purpose was to provide legal representation for parents in child welfare cases. The medications began working after only a few weeks and Ms. Barrow quickly regained her focus. Because the new offices ethical duty is to strive to accomplish their clients objectives, and because almost all of their clients want to keep or regain custody of their children as quickly as possible, family defender offices are in the business of trying to achieve the identical objective everyone else in the child welfare field has: keeping children safely with their families and avoiding the needless placement of children into foster care.95, The interdisciplinary approach is recognized as a best practice.96 In 2019, a panel commissioned by Judge Janet DiFiore, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals in New York, recommended an expansion of interdisciplinary law offices from New York City throughout the state of New York due to their success.97, The impact created by high-level law offices devoted to representing parents in child welfare cases goes well beyond the statistics from the study. After family defender offices complained about the problem and lobbied for a solution, the New York City Administration for Childrens Services changed its policy in 2019 in an announced All Staff Bulletin clarifying that If the parent is eligible for coverage, or assistance that they are not receiving, such as Medicaid or private insurance, the CPS or case planner must assist the family with applying for such assistance. How U.S. Policy Has Failed Immigrant Children: Family Separation in the Obama and Trump Eras, Wolves in Sheeps Clothing: How Religious Exemption Laws for Discriminatory Private Agencies Violate the Constitution and Harm LGBTQ+ Families, American Bar Association Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 45. This destroys the fabric of multiple lives and leaves long-lasting effects on children, parents, spouses, grandparents and siblings. The first article, Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, was published in 2019.1 It described the results of a multiyear study in New York City that compared the outcomes of child welfare cases in which parents were represented by multidisciplinary family defender offices with cases in which parents were represented by solo practitioners assigned from a rotating panel of lawyers.2 The outcomes were dramatically better in cases handled by these offices, as measured by the reduced amount of time children were kept from their parents custody as compared with parents whose lawyers were solo practitioners.3 The second article was a qualitative analysis that described the interviews conducted of a wide group of professionals and former clients who work closely with the two different kinds of legal representation models that were compared.4 That article revealed the opinions of a broad range of professionals working in the courts on what distinguishes the family defender offices practice from the work done by panel lawyers.5. 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. Then the team moved forward on expanding Ms. Barrows access to her older children. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. for Child. 30+ days ago. 86. At the end of the nine-month period, the case was dismissed. The parent organization employs a large number of poverty lawyers who represent clients in a broad swath of legal matters, including housing, immigration, social security benefits, and custody and divorce, among others.
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