The office added one of its attorneys with expertise in housing court to the case. 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. We are the attorneys and advocates fighting injustice for individuals and families and protecting civil rights for all people. . Caseworkers are a critical player in each case. 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. The team met with Ms. Barrow and began the task of coordinating the substantial support needed in managing Ms. Barrows mental illness and disability. 19, 1989). See Family Defense, NDS: The Power of Pub. 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. 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. 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. The investigator also met with Eduardos primary care physician, but not with the orthopedic surgeon. That was the critical step that led to the successful resolution of the case. 382 (2019) [hereinafter Accidents Happen]. All of the family defender offices in New York City either have special units to represent parents in housing-related matters, in immigration proceedings, and/or in criminal proceedings, or have made alliances with legal offices that do that work. Each of the four family defender offices in New York City has created specialized projects of one sort or another. 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. In those cases, the parent would not have had anyone to attend the child safety conference with her at the hospital. 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. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. L. & Poly 141 (2002). 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. 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. Generally, family court judges look most favorably upon parents who attend visits frequently and are able to work with the foster care agency to gradually increase the independence of visits from those supervised at the foster care agency to unsupervised overnight visits in the home of the parent. 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. With the positive evaluation from the court mental health clinic and letters the team gathered from Ms. Barrows service providers, the judge agreed to allow the children to return home for overnight visits, commonly a crucial step that leads to the eventual return of children to their parents custody. See National Alliance for Parent Representation, Am. Browse 12 jobs at brooklyn defender services near Brooklyn, NY. 44. Admin. 6. Succinctly summarizing the advantages of the multidisciplinary offices to clients, Chris Gottlieb wrote: For clients, being represented by organizations rather than solo practitioners means having a team on your side: an advocate you can reach on the phone when your lawyer is in court; another lawyer from the office available to step in when yours is on leave or stuck in a different courtroom; the benefit of a brief bank so your lawyer doesnt have to draft every motion from scratch; and office space where your kids can play while you meet with your lawyer. Chris Gottlieb et al., Discovering Family Defense: A History of the Family Defense Clinic at NYU School of Law, 41 N.Y.U. 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. See In re Philip M., 624 N.E.2d at 172. Find A Defender; Get Help; Donate; en What do you need help with? 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. Each office was expected to accept approximately half of the new case assignments to represent parents charged with abuse or neglect of their children (what this Article calls child welfare cases).18 The remainder of the filings were to be assigned, as before, to panel attorneys. 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. Ct. Act 262. 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. No case is filed; no court time is taken up; no court personnel are assigned to the matter. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. 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 . 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. 93. View info about Brooklyn Defender Services (bds.org). Brooklyn Defender Services 566 Livonia Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207. They also reveal the critical importance of addressing the needs of clients concerning matters beyond the child welfare system itself. This Article is designed to bring to life the proactive nature of the multidisciplinary practice. To provide even a sense of the breadth of this work, the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice litigates more than forty emergency hearings each month (or about 500 a year) to keep children home or have them returned from foster care sooner than the agency is prepared to allow. See Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1; see also Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4. 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. 32. Ms. Green was a single parent of an eight-month-old daughter, Sophia. in Political Science. 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. Child welfare cases are prosecuted along two tracks: the judicial and the administrative. This is the third in a series of articles discussing the results of child welfare cases in which parents in New York City were represented by a new form of legal services provision: family defender offices whose staff include social workers, parent advocates, and lawyers. Moreover, the amount of time the lawyer put on the case was a minor fraction of the time and attention the social worker gave the case. 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. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. 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. . Hybrid remote in Brooklyn, NY 11201. For another 82 (22%) parents, the investigations are ongoing but to date ACS has not filed a case alleging neglect or abuse. . In only 16 of the 381 casesfour percentwere children placed in foster care with strangers. 25. These plans are routinely included in the reports agencies are required to submit every six months whenever children remain in foster care. Martin Guggenheim is the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. tit. Brooklyn Defender Services Aug 2017 - Aug 2019 2 years 1 month. 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. . 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. 105163 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105163 [hereinafter Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach]. 27. for Child.s Servs. 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. 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. Without Ms. Anderson having the team working with her, she would be expected to attend this conference alone with agency caseworkers and supervisors. E communityoffice@bds.org. 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. Work Prac., The Bronx Defenders). Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 89. 29. 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. Even worse, when parents are unrepresented, the plans may fail to identify services the agency should be providing for the particular needs and circumstances of the family. 718-564-6290. The team successfully persuaded the agency to agree to release the newborn to Ms. Barrows care with court-ordered supervision. See Casey Family Programs, How Does High-Quality Legal Representation for Parents Support Better Outcomes? Before going to housing court, the defender offices housing specialist contacted the City office that was providing the rental subsidy to explain the problem and was able to get the office to write an additional check to her landlord to eliminate all arrears on her rent. Press Inquiries. 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. Brooklyn, NY, US. 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. In Queens and Richmond County (Staten Island), no change to the legal representation landscape occurred at that time. 78. 11. As the qualitative study revealed, solo practitioners who were interviewed explained that they do not work with their clients out of court and, if matters involving their service plan ever arise, they will speak with the ACS attorney to look into the matter.86 When one solo practitioner was asked, is there any other type of out of court support you provide to your clients, like talking to their landlords or helping them maintain childcare, the simple answer was No, to be honest, no.87, Two people who were the subject of child welfare proceedings in the New York City courts and were represented by several different panel attorneys over the course of several years testified before the New York State Commission on Parental Representation in 2018. Above all else, what characterizes the differences between the family defender offices and their solo practitioner counterparts in New York City is the purposeful assembly of a holistic team designed to work closely with clients throughout the proceedings. Serv. 60. When Mr. Sanchez met with his lawyers and social worker, he provided the fuller picture. At the current time, BDS physical offices are open by appointment only. 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). If you are not a current client and need assistance, click here to get help. Ignoring them as part of the defensive strategy is only a tiny step away from ignoring the case conferences. 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. The social worker helped facilitate a more complete understanding between Mr. Sanchez and the hospitals medical team. The offices also are likely to have expertise in immigration, housing, and criminal court practice, areas of the law in which their clients are likely to become involved. 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. As Chris Gottlieb explained: Perhaps most important for staff, these organizations offer the emotional support and grounding needed to do extremely hard work in the trenches: a professional home to go back to after a difficult day in court; knowing your colleagues will listen and understand; being part of a team. The parent advocate from the defense team working with Ms. Greens case provided an invaluable role in buffering the relationship with the caseworker, acting as a bridge and facilitating communication between the two. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Michelle Burrell, at 2). for Family Representation, https://www.cfrny.org/our-work/team-model/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020). Emily (she/her/hers) received her J.D. 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. Then the team moved forward on expanding Ms. Barrows access to her older children. Each of the three offices had a distinct corporate structure. Ct. Act 261, 262 (McKinney 2020). at 14. Id. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services is a public defense office whose mission is to provide outstanding representation and advocacy free of cost to people facing loss of freedom, family separation. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Part I provides a brief history of parental representation in New York. Programs, https://www.casey.org/who-we-are/about/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020). Once in court, families often face prolonged separation and years of supervision by the Administration for Children's Services. Bronx Defenders began as an organization that only did criminal defense. Mr. Sanchez was permitted to take his son to Mexico for the treatment he preferred. It is here, at the exquisite level of facts, that the defender offices make their greatest difference. 71. In this sense, family defenders make child welfare work better. It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. 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. 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. Immigration. About BDS Our Commitment Defend People and Society Once again, Ms. Barrows defense team went into action. Admin. 70. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) advises clients about the immigration consequences of criminal charges and helps clients apply for citizenship, green cards, visas for domestic violence or trafficking victims, deferred action, and other immigration benefits. The medications began working after only a few weeks and Ms. Barrow quickly regained her focus. Unlike the other two offices, which were part of larger organizations that secured income from multiple sources, CFRs only work was in parent representation. 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. 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. 12. Less than a year later, Eduardo sustained another injury in his hip. But among the most important reforms needed in child welfare once investigations into families are started is to offer the family the services of a committed preventive and reunification service, precisely what the family defenders in New York are. 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). Brooklyn Defender Services is part of the Law Firms & Legal Services industry, and located in New York, United States. FAMILY DEFENSE. Apply to Staff Attorney, Family Medicine Physician, Project Supervisor and more! Social holds may result when a safety planning conference does not happen until after birth. Id. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Lisa Schreibersdorf, Exec. Agencies too often offer parents little help or guidance in obtaining services, commonly doing little more than providing a parent an address and expecting the parent to find the service, make the appointment, and wind his or her way through a maze of confusing requirements. L. & Soc. Senior . Because of Ms. Barrows concern that continuing her medication during her pregnancy was dangerous for the fetus, she stopped taking the medication that was court-ordered. 13. Brooklyn Defender Services 177 Livingston St., 7th Fl. Brooklyn, NY. And when trouble brews and the local newspapers criticize government officials for failing to protect a child from harm (an unavoidable part of this work), the defender community actively participates in supporting the relatively low foster care population. Although impressed by all the work Ms. Anderson and her team had begun, the agency nonetheless was unwilling to allow Ms. Anderson to go home with her baby. 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. Our work with clients is focused on the intersection . Our goal is to keep families safely together or reunify families as soon as possible when separation occurs. [Our lawyer] was a friend. 22. 99. Rev. But then, a second intervening event occurred, dramatically changing the entire picture. 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. The clogged courts calendar, however, meant that the court could not conduct the evidentiary hearing immediately. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Experienced Attorney's for the Criminal Practice's legal team. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. Beginning that year, the Office funded a new model of public defense for families facing charges of abuse or neglect in three counties in New York City. Through these discussions, they connected her to a social services organization in the community. 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. Our 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. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. Judges, Improving Parents Representation in Dependency Cases: A Washington State Pilot Program Evaluation. In addition, the social work staff helped Ms. Green coordinate and expand visitation. 82. This is among the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of daily defense advocacy these offices employ. 2 (. 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. Part III briefly describes the findings in the qualitative study. Homicide Unit Mitigation Social . 72. 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. 8 Brooklyn Defender Services jobs available in Brooklyn, NY on Indeed.com. They specify the steps an agency must undertake to reunify a family and the tasks the parent must perform as the condition for keeping or regaining custody of his or her child. The defense team then went into action. of BDS' family defense clients were reunited with their children at the conclusion of their family court case. from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law where she was a Graduate Fellow, participated in the Defenders clinic and interned with the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Defenders of Philadelphia, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem's Family Defense Practice, the Brooklyn Defenders . Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 5253. & Youth Servs. 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. See id. 92. This destroys the fabric of multiple lives and leaves long-lasting effects on children, parents, spouses, grandparents and siblings. Law 424 (McKinney 2020). for Child.s Servs., All Staff Bulletin (July 16, 2019) (on file with the author). 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. Nonetheless, Ms. Barrows defense team ensured that it was fully prepared for the conference, having secured letters from Ms. Barrows mental health providers laying out her treatment plan and documenting her increased engagement in services and subsequent progress in her mental health. 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]. 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. Mr. Sanchez brought Eduardo to a public hospital for medical attention. The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. $65,000 - $87,880 a year. Commn on Hum. Are you concerned that you or someone you know may be arrested by ICE? The leading characteristic of the offices method of representing parents is to participate actively in the case conferences held at the agency where the case plan for each case is established.65 These plans set the stage for all that follows and are often the single most important factor in a cases outcome.