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Mr. Sanchez further explained that he did not rule out giving his consent to the surgery, only that he wanted one more time to see if it could be avoided by securing alternative treatment. Parent lawyers who fail to participate in the development of a case plan and who wait until going to court to advocate for their clients often discover that the original plan developed at the case conference will remain in place throughout the proceeding.66. 23. 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. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these agency meetings. 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. 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. 262(c); Merrill Sobie, Practice Commentaries (McKinney 2020). They then returned to their permanent residence in New York. 17. In those cases, the parent would not have had anyone to attend the child safety conference with her at the hospital. Our team of attorneys, paralegals, advocates, social workers and administrative staff provide a broad range of family defense representation, advocacy and support. See also Jason A. Oetjen, Natl Council of Juv. 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. Missing from the quantitative study are the number of times out-of-court advocacy persuades the local child welfare agency not to file a court case in the first place. The last 15 months have taken a toll on all of us. Lawyers Assn v. State, 763 N.Y.S.2d 397 (Sup. Serv. American law protects a parents constitutional rights to make critical decisions concerning a childs upbringing, including decisions involving medical care for their children.83 But in my experience, it frequently happens that poor parents are deprived of the same rights accorded to wealthy parents and are charged in court with failing to provide a specific kind of medical care for their child even when the parent is not entirely ignoring his or her childs health needs. 96. 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. See N.Y. Fam. 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. 67. 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. The defense team was able to dispose of it in less than three months. 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. All of this was reported to the judge at the status conference. We push for equitable and humane policies by advocating for better laws, filing systemic litigation and educating the public. Ct. 2003). Id. The father abused her after the babys birth and the agency brought a case against Ms. Anderson for failing to protect her child. 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. Without the defense teams constant communication with Ms. Barrow and her providers about her service plan, she would not have had the support necessary to achieve the progress in her mental health treatment. Wholly apart from holding conferences during the time a case is being prosecuted in court, an even more critical component of the administrative process is ongoing. 86. 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. Rts., Your Rights While Pregnant, Breastfeeding, or Caregiving: A Report on the 2019 Commission Public Hearing on Pregnancy and Caregiver Discrimination 14 (2019), https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/Pregnancy_Report.pdf. What follows are case examples of how the offices achieved great success for their clients.67 They are offered both to bring to life how the offices do their work and why everyone committed to a better-functioning child welfare system should want offices like this practicing throughout the country. 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. Contacting a BDS Staff Member . Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. In these cases, the agency has never met the mother and is brought in to begin a fresh investigation. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. It turned out the agencys support for releasing Ms. Barrows newborn did not last one week. N.Y.C. In that capacity, she also represented parents in a wide range of matters related to family law . make applications for investigators or other experts where appropriate . 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. 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. Davis. Approximately 20 percent of the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice clients are immigrants, and many do not speak English as their first language. No case is filed; no court time is taken up; no court personnel are assigned to the matter. BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal Read more about this organization Issue Areas Include Family Immigrants or Refugees Legal Assistance Location of 12th graders in Family Foster Care graduated high . 41. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/downloads/pdf/CITYFEPS/CITYFEPS-fact-sheet.pdf. Emily (she/her/hers) received her J.D. 26. E communityoffice@bds.org. 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. Rev. Livingston St / Smith St. Brooklyn, NY 11201. 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. The plan was to update the judge on Ms. Andersons progress and to request that the court schedule a formal hearing to determine if it still was necessary to keep the baby in foster care. 61. for Family Representation, at 1). For most parents, this conference, occurring at one of the most emotionally laden moments of their lives, and which will fatefully determine whether they will be allowed to bring their child home with them from the hospital, is something they endure alone without representation or support. Brooklyn, NY. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Then she engaged a cleaning service to address the roaches and the condition of Ms. Barrows home. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. But then, a second intervening event occurred, dramatically changing the entire picture. The family defender system characterized by the work performed by the New York City offices is a significant contribution to the child welfare field. See National Alliance for Parent Representation, Am. 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. The agency was unwilling to accept the defense teams claims without doing its own investigation. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. 83. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Caseworkers visit parents in their homes and talk to them and their service providers on a regular basis. See N.Y. Cty. . Id. Office of Research & Analysis, Emergency Removals Subcommittee (Sept. 16, 2015). Brooklyn Defender Services 566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. Senior . This destroys the fabric of multiple lives and leaves long-lasting effects on children, parents, spouses, grandparents and siblings. 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. Email Us. 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. Criminal Defense Practice Social Worker. This catch-22 problem made preventing Ms. Barrows eviction vital on multiple fronts. When the agency interviewed her, Ms. Green told the investigators the same thing she told the doctors at the hospital. The teams social workers worked with Ms. Anderson to identify what she needed to support her child and advised her on what the agency and family court judge would want to see. 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. Mr. Sanchez was charged with medical neglect after the agency learned that he refused to consent to surgery to fix his sons hip disorder. As her due date neared, the defense team turned its focus to planning with Ms. Barrow for the babys arrival. All names used throughout this Article are fictitious. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 910. That is what it prepared for when it represented Ms. Anderson. Brooklyn Defender Services corporate office is located in 177 Livingston St Fl 7, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States and has 609 employees. Instead, her lawyers requested that the court order an Imminent Risk Assessment with the courts mental health clinic once the defense team was convinced that Ms. Barrow would be evaluated to present no risk to her newborn. 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. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 5253. The office created a community intake program, allowing residents in the community to secure legal representation before they have been charged in court with neglect and before they are legally entitled to court-assigned counsel. 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 In contrast, the family defender office attorney who worked with the parent during the late stages of her pregnancy is well prepared to advocate on the parents behalf from day one. View job. mediarequests@bds.org. . Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. 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. Martin Guggenheim, New Study Shows Providing Parents with Multidisciplinary Legal Representation in Child Welfare Cases Furthers Everyones Interests, 20 Child.s Bureau Express no. 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). 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. See id. Ms. Barrow was assigned a family defender office. 58. See Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1; see also Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4. See N.Y. Cty. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 18, 428.6 (2020). The offices help parents negotiate all aspects of the process throughout the life of the case. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 45. 20. 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. The strategy worked. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. Brooklyn, NY. It added over the years an immigration practice and, in 2007, with this new contract, a family defense practice as well. The family defender office assigned to represent Ms. Green handles many of these cases each year and has become expert both in cross-examining medical experts called by the agency and at engaging and communicating with knowledgeable physicians able to provide their expert medical opinion on whether an injury is more likely to be the consequence of abuse or an accident. Commn on Parental Legal Representation, Interim Report to Chief Judge DiFiore 1215 (2019). The notes of the interviews are on file with the author. The national family defender movement is based at the American Bar Associations Center on Children and the Law under the leadership of Mimi Laver. for Child.s Servs., https://www1.nyc.gov/site/acs/child-welfare/will-acs-take-my-child.page (last visited Oct. 6, 2020). When the new tests were made available to the surgeon later that day, he continued to support Mr. Sanchezs plan for treating his son. The defense team then went into action. See N.Y. Fam. 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. FAMILY DEFENSE. Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. 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. . 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. 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. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children. Unlike the other two offices, which were part of larger organizations that secured income from multiple sources, CFRs only work was in parent representation. In the year before the petition was filed, Eduardo sustained an injury that required medical attention. 347-592-2500. Then the team moved forward on expanding Ms. Barrows access to her older children. In testimony presented to the New York State Commission on Parental Representation, Bronx Defenders presented fiscal year 2018 data concerning the outcomes for 381 parents the office advised during their ACS investigations: Of those parents, 164 (43%) were never charged with abuse or neglect in the Family Court. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. . After consulting with an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, Mr. Sanchez opted for a nonsurgical option to be secured in Mexico. 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. In addition, they must be reviewed periodically and formally retained to remain active members of the panel. 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. 32. & Youth Servs. 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. On the judicial side, petitions are filed in family court and the allegations in the petitions are (sometimes) resolved through contested evidentiary hearings. for Child. (citing N.Y. State Admin. The office added one of its attorneys with expertise in housing court to the case. She asked her mother to take Sophia to see a doctor because Ms. Green had to be at work. 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. Lucas A. Gerber et al., Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Parental Representation in Child Welfare, 116 Child. These conferences are expected to take place in front of the judges court attorney, rather than the judge, and are commonly used to provide a forum to resolve issues and move toward settlement. The representation she received simply would have been impossible for most individual panel attorneys to match. 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. 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. For MAil . BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. This Article is designed to bring to life the proactive nature of the multidisciplinary practice. As this case discussion reveals, the amount of out-of-court advocacy involved is well beyond what panel lawyers generally are able to provide or have ever been able to provide in New York Citys history of parental representation. It is used whenever the office is representing a mother who becomes pregnant during the course of the case, whether she already is court-involved or not. . On the morning the hearing was to be held, the agency attorney agreed that there no longer was a risk to returning the baby to her mother. Our Medically Complicated Team defends parents facing allegations that stem exclusively from a medical opinion. The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. With this in mind, as the following case examples will reveal, the family defenders in the interdisciplinary offices devote considerable attention to all that is happening outside of court. 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. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 7. 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.