94. 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. The three officesBrooklyn Defender Services (Kings County), The Bronx Defenders (Bronx County), and the Center for Family Representation (New York County)are each structured somewhat differently.19 The characteristic all three offices have in common is that they are multidisciplinary: they employ lawyers on their staff along with social workers and/or parent advocates (individuals who themselves experienced the child welfare system as a parent accused of neglecting their child).20 Each office spends considerable time on their cases out of court, working closely with their clients and advocating for and with them at child welfare agencies meetings.21 Several years later, a fourth officethe Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlemwas awarded a contract to share the representation of parents in Manhattan with the Center for Family Representation, using their community-based model to represent families living in Harlem zip codes.22 In 2011, the Center for Family Representation was awarded a second contract to provide parental representation in Queens County.23 To date, these four providers handle the vast majority of parental representation in New York, Kings, Queens, and Bronx Counties. Despite a formal agency policy known as Child Safety Alert 14,74 which called for the agency to conduct a meeting prior to the birth in every case,75 agencies routinely fail to hold pre-birth planning conferences with pregnant women unless a client or her legal team advocates for or requests the court to order its convening.76 Even when such conferences do take place, experienced practitioners complain that the discussion and recommendation from the pre-birth conference is, in reality, largely irrelevant to whether the baby will be taken after delivery.77 Instead, the really important meeting takes place at the hospital, within hours of the babys birth. The clogged courts calendar, however, meant that the court could not conduct the evidentiary hearing immediately. Criminal, Family, Immigration and Civil Defense. The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services. 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. 14. Ms. Barrow disclosed to her defense team that she was pregnant. This program, known as City FHEPS, is administered by New York Citys Human Resources Administration. Along the path of the case, courts typically order that parents perform various services63 and ultimately order that children be allowed to remain with their families or be placed in another arrangement. Are you or someone you know being investigated by the police or ACS? . 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. The team met with Ms. Barrow and began the task of coordinating the substantial support needed in managing Ms. Barrows mental illness and disability. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services corporate office is located in 177 Livingston St Fl 7, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States and has 609 employees. Caseworkers visit parents in their homes and talk to them and their service providers on a regular basis. The agency then filed a neglect petition in family court charging Mr. Sanchez with failing to provide his son with medically necessary treatment and seeking an order that the agency be granted permission to consent to the required surgery. See N.Y. Fam. Homicide Unit Mitigation Social Worker . Once these favorable reports were introduced, the team focused on settling the case instead of undergoing a highly contested trial focused on whether the original injury was sustained as a result of an accident. . Id. 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. 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. Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. BDS attorneys, social workers, paralegals, investigators and administrative professionals have an unwavering commitment to the people we represent. 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. Serv. 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. Are you concerned that you or someone you know may be arrested by ICE? 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. . Then the team strategically planned with Ms. Barrow how to share the information with the agency and the court. Brooklyn, NY . See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? . The Family Defense Practice at Brooklyn Defenders has been representing parents and other caregivers in Family Court since 2007. 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. Had Ms. Barrow not had a team committed to being with her when she gave birth, to preparing assiduously for the conference held when the baby was born, and to being ready to fight for her when the baby was removed less than a week later, her case would surely have come out differently. This meant the team not only had to work towards regaining the custody of her two children; it would have to prepare for the possibility that the agency would seek the removal of her newborn. 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. If you are arrested, face deportation, or your children are threatened with the foster system, you can rely on us to fight for you. 24. The supervisor denied the request, approved the caseworkers leaving the conference, and explained that the agency had all the information it needed. P (718) 254-0700; F (718) 254-0897; E info@bds.org; Facebook; Twitter; 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. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking an experienced Attorney for the Custody Practice of the Family Defense Team. See supra note 18. 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. Serv. But then, a second intervening event occurred, dramatically changing the entire picture. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 5253. 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. 6, July/Aug. Recognizing that as soon as the baby was born, the agency would conduct a child safety conference at which it would make fateful decisions involving the family, the new team immediately started planning with Ms. Anderson. Contacting a BDS Staff Member . 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. 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. 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. . Other times, the agency has been involved with the person in other ways, for example, when a young woman in foster care becomes pregnant. Noran attended and graduated from CUNY School of Law where she worked with CLEAR to counter post-9/11 policies . 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. 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. The medications began working after only a few weeks and Ms. Barrow quickly regained her focus. 23. In 2003, a New York State Supreme Court Justice found that the payment rates for assigned counsel resulted in a shortage of panel attorneys and deprived litigants of effective assistance of counsel.12 Panel lawyers would rarely engage the services of a social worker and have their fees paid by the court.13 These lawyers spent virtually their entire professional time in the courtroom, waiting either for a new assignment or for their cases to be called.14 As a result, they were rarely available to their clients out of court.15 Half of court-assigned lawyers billed for less than five hours of out-of-court work in family court proceedings.16. Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. See also In re Hofbauer, 393 N.E.2d 1009 (N.Y.1979). Browse 12 jobs at brooklyn defender services near Brooklyn, NY. Rev. Our Early Defense team provides advocacy to parents during the initial stages of an ACS investigation. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 89. The strategy worked even better than expected. . 59. See N.Y. Fam. See Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 56. 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. Res. All names used throughout this Article are fictitious. That was the critical step that led to the successful resolution of the case. After the social worker advocated for Mr. Sanchez with the medical team at the hospital, and after thoroughly going through the options available, the medical team better understood why Mr. Sanchez preferred to choose the less-invasive nonoperative treatment one more time before performing an invasive surgical procedure that does not carry with it any guarantee of ameliorating the hip condition. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 8 (emphasis in original). 1. 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. 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). But, arguably even more importantly, there is an administrative process that, in many cases, begins before the court proceedings and, in all cases, continues on a separate path during the court process. 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. That is what it prepared for when it represented Ms. Anderson. BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Our Law & Appeals attorneys work on special legal proceedings, including appeals and special motions in family court. 30+ days ago Full Time. 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. 718-564-6290. But no one in the court administration or local government positions in New York had any experience designing or maintaining a legal services delivery system for parents in the child welfare field. 4. 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. BDS is a public defense office representing low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Ignoring them as part of the defensive strategy is only a tiny step away from ignoring the case conferences. 205 were here. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. $68,640 a year. We work alongside people harmed by unfair systems to fight injustice and change things for the better. The parties agreed to a settlement, where Ms. Andersons daughter would be returned to her care immediately. 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. [or] ensure that clients receive necessary services and prepare appropriate service plans . Popular Searches Brooklyn Defender Services Bds BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Part II briefly describes the findings in the quantitative analysis. Gottlieb et al., supra note 60, at 559. View job. Because the bump did not immediately appear on Sophias head, Ms. Green could not be certain how the injury was sustained. Beginning cautiously, New York City first awarded separate contracts for three of its five counties to three different not-for-profit organizations, each one authorized to accept court assignments in one county. 19, 1989). 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. . 675(1). This destroys the fabric of multiple lives and leaves long-lasting effects on children, parents, spouses, grandparents and siblings. 1337, 133839 (2012). There are still other differences between the offices, including the number of staff employed and the various positions each office created. 88. Admin. 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. info@bds.org. Each of the three offices had a distinct corporate structure. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 68. 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. 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. See, e.g., N.Y. Soc. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these agency meetings. 80. . In every example, the key to this success is the extraordinary amount of out-of-court time spent on each case and the proactivity engaged in by the defense team.85, The critical characteristics of each of the cases described in the previous section concern the defender teams proactive planning, anticipating next steps, and developing a plan for success calculated to persuade either the agency caseworkers investigating the case or the court. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 7. In the year before the petition was filed, Eduardo sustained an injury that required medical attention. General Inquiries. See N.Y.C. Most importantly, the team also began planning for the Initial Child Safety Conference that the agency would certainly convene when the baby was born.70 Unfortunately, the New York City child protection agency would not conduct the conference before the child was born (because New York does not recognize fetuses as within the purview of child welfare law). Full-time. In those situations, there is no way to give credit to the kind of legal representation the parent was given when comparing outcomes of cases between those handled by panel lawyers and multidisciplinary offices. 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. As the field continues to improve, all parents should be given lawyers working in an interdisciplinary practice. Very commonly, abuse petitions involving physical injuries to children are filed in the absence of direct evidence concerning how the injury was sustained. Serv. . The offices help parents negotiate all aspects of the process throughout the life of the case. 63. 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. 20. When the surgeon understood that Mr. Sanchez was willing to consent to the surgery if the next round of nonsurgical treatment in Mexico did not prove helpful, the surgeon concluded that Mr. Sanchezs choice was perfectly reasonable. When the conference took place one day after the babys birth, the defense teams social worker and parent advocate attended with Ms. Barrow. 69. With the housing crisis abated, the rest of the family defense team could keep its focus on the family court case. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. 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. in Political Science. Lawyers Assn, 763 N.Y.S.2d at 407 (finding that because of the rate levels assigned counsel do not . Federal law requires states to have written case plans for every child in care in order to ensure that an appropriate long-term plan is identified for each foster child. The defender offices employ a wide range of professionals on each clients legal team, including social workers, parent advocates, interpreters, specialized attorneys, experts, and investigators. See generally Subha Lembach, The Right to Legal Representation at Service Plan Reviews in New York State, 6 U.C. 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). If you are a current client of BDS, contact your lawyer, social worker, or other staff for an appointment. Davis. 6. Press Inquiries. In re Ella B., 285 N.E.2d 288, 290 (N.Y. 1972). 6 days ago. Unless otherwise noted, the discussion in this Article concerning the history and practice of parental representation in New York City is based on my own experience and knowledge from almost fifty years of working in this area as a litigator, clinical professor, scholar, policy advocate, and board member and advisor for government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Mr. Sanchez took his son to Mexico and completed the treatment. FDP represents over 4,000 parents and caretakers each year in Abuse and Neglect and related cases in Brooklyn Family Court. As her due date neared, the defense team turned its focus to planning with Ms. Barrow for the babys arrival. 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. 30. The staff lawyers also benefit by having access to motions previously filed by colleagues in other cases and an administrative staff to help them efficiently file motions with the court.61 These offices have developed a deep knowledge of the communities their clients live in and strong ties with local resources and service providers. 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. Office of Research & Analysis, Emergency Removals Subcommittee (Sept. 16, 2015). Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 45. 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. See N.Y. Fam. $65,000 - $87,880 a year. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Michelle Burrell, at 2). 2 (. The strategy worked. And once the amount of visits was increased, the next step eventually would be returning Sophia to Ms. Greens custody. No case is filed; no court time is taken up; no court personnel are assigned to the matter. Natl Council of Juv. for Family Representation, at 1). For these and many more questions, we may be able to help, even if you are not a Brooklyn Defenders client. 347-592-2500. Medical neglect is a common charge brought against parents in child welfare cases.82 Depending on the severity of the claimed neglect, the local child welfare agency may be seeking to place the child in foster care to protect the child from the parents failure to provide the child with adequate treatment or, less drastically, to secure court authorization to require that a child have a medical procedure it believes is necessary but that the parent refuses to allow.