42 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.04.022 [hereinafter Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. A detailed description of strategic uses of court appearances, including the opposition of out-of-court removals; the filing of motions for discovery, for visitation, and for early release from foster care; and the conducting of contested evidentiary hearings, is provided in Accidents Happen, supra note 73, at 40624. None of this work is possible when parents are assigned panel attorneys who work as solo practitioners on their cases. Ms. Barrow disclosed to her defense team that she was pregnant. 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. 1012(f). 18, 428.6 (2020). Your membership has expired - last chance for uninterrupted access to free CLE and other benefits. As the field continues to improve, all parents should be given lawyers working in an interdisciplinary practice. We find safe, temporary families for children and teens throughout New York City and Long Island. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. 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. 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. Lawyers Assn v. State, 763 N.Y.S.2d 397 (Sup. 81. See N.Y. Fam. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. After consulting with an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, Mr. Sanchez opted for a nonsurgical option to be secured in Mexico. 84. The in-the-weeds work holistic practices undertake often leads to outcomes that are invisible when all that is described are data in categories of return to parent, dismiss, and the like. Based on the allegations alone, the agency believed that Ms. Green needed to complete both anger management and a parenting class to secure the return of her daughter. See also Jason A. Oetjen, Natl Council of Juv. 65. In most of these cases, the mother is already represented by a lawyer. 8 Brooklyn Defender Services jobs available in Brooklyn, NY on Indeed.com. Practice, Brooklyn Defender Serv., at 2), http://bds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018.08.16-BDS-testimony-to-the-Commission-on-Parental-Representation-FINAL.pdf [hereinafter Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony]. The agency sent an investigating caseworker to meet with Eduardos teachers at school. Admin. Accepting these conditions, Ms. Andersons lawyer requested that the court hold a status conference for the case within the following month to be convened by the judge. Law 409-e(2) (McKinney 2020) (mandating preparation of case plans by the social services district in active consultation with the childs parent or guardian). 19, 1989). 30+ days ago Full Time. Our team of attorneys, paralegals, advocates, social workers and administrative staff provide a broad range of family defense representation, advocacy and support. The defense team then went into action. 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. 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. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Michelle Burrell, at 2). 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. Thousands of families face the possibility of separation due to a wide range of circumstances, mostly stemming from poverty, lack of stable housing or child care, mental health or health diagnoses or intellectual disabilities. All names used throughout this Article are fictitious. 99. For another 82 (22%) parents, the investigations are ongoing but to date ACS has not filed a case alleging neglect or abuse. In sharing some of these accounts, the reader should pay particular attention to the frequency with which investigators from the child welfare agencies make mistakes, get facts wrong, fail to show up for critical meetings, or base recommendations on faulty information that is either flatly wrong or materially incomplete. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. info@bds.org. 98. The social worker from the defense team examined the extensive x-rays of Eduardos hip with Mr. Sanchez and the surgeon. Admin. 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. 41. 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. Gottlieb et al., supra note 60, at 559. 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. . Experienced Staff Attorney for Custody Practice Over the course of five months, Ms. Green fully engaged in therapy and her therapist wrote enthusiastic letters of support that her defense team was able to present in court. Id. Brooklyn Defender Services Company Profile | Management and - Datanyze . In addition, by being such a careful listener and advocate, the defender team also ensured that Mr. Sanchez felt supported during an especially challenging time in his life when he was forced to divert his attention from taking care of his son to defending his right to remain his sons parent. The 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. Admin. See also N.Y. Fam. Within nine months, Ms. Green had completed both the anger management and parenting class, all while working full time and finishing her GED. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. The family defender offices organize themselves around the real-world needs of their clients and continue to work closely with them even when the next court appearance is not scheduled in the immediate future. But it simply could not have happened without an interdisciplinary team assigned to the case. Find A Defender; Get Help; Donate; en What do you need help with? 17. Alice received her J.D. 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. 44. 7. In an effort to settle the case promptly, the defense team requested a court conference where they explained to the agency attorney and caseworker, as well as Eduardos court-appointed lawyer, what transpired since the petition was filed. See About Us, Casey Fam. Her defense team at first consisted of a family court lawyer and a social worker. 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. . After hearing these positive developments, the judge set a hearing to be held in one month, signaling that if things continued to go well, the judge would likely return the child then. See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? 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. 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. Criminal Defense Practice Social Worker. 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. 33. Part II briefly describes the findings in the quantitative analysis. . for Child. This kind of advocacy can only be implemented by multiperson offices. Under New York law, the definition of [n]eglected child includes a child less than eighteen years of age (i) whose physical, mental or emotional condition has been impaired or is in imminent danger of becoming impaired as a result of the failure of his parent or other person legally responsible for his care to exercise a minimum degree of care (A) in supplying the child with adequate . Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. Without the offices housing advocacy, Ms. Barrow would have had no home for her newborn to return to. The court ordered the children to be placed in foster care at the first court appearance and limited the mothers access to them to twice-weekly visits supervised at the agency.
