Jail Services Attorney/Advocate. 24. Homicide Unit Mitigation Social . In only 16 of the 381 casesfour percentwere children placed in foster care with strangers. See id. 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. However, Ms. Anderson progressed so well that the hearing never needed to be conducted. 1012(f). 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. Supervising Attorney, Family Defense Practice - Brooklyn Defenders New York, New York, United States . . (citing N.Y. State Admin. Commn on Hum. 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. Yet it was the out-of-court advocacy that made all the difference. Admin. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/downloads/pdf/CITYFEPS/CITYFEPS-fact-sheet.pdf. 96. Easily apply. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. 85. He was just what we needed in a lawyer. 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. The supervisor denied the request, approved the caseworkers leaving the conference, and explained that the agency had all the information it needed. 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. We demand accountability from government institutions in court and work to reduce the government's reliance on harmful legal systems to address problems caused by poverty and racism. It turned out the agencys support for releasing Ms. Barrows newborn did not last one week. Generally, two of the most important factors in securing the return of a child to parental custody are participation in agency-recommended services and favorable foster care agency reports about parent visits with the child. 8. BDS | Get Help Noran attended and graduated from CUNY School of Law where she worked with CLEAR to counter post-9/11 policies . for Child. His son, Eduardo, suffers from a genetic hip disorder and, as a consequence, he is highly prone to injury. BDS is a public defense office that represents low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration, and civil legal matters. Mr. Sanchez was charged with medical neglect after the agency learned that he refused to consent to surgery to fix his sons hip disorder. You will receive assistance in areas impacting your life, such as immigration, housing, benefits, education and employment. 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. 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. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. Her defense team at first consisted of a family court lawyer and a social worker. Ketteringham & Becker written testimony, supra note 26, at 8 (emphasis in original). 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. Lawyers Assn v. State, 763 N.Y.S.2d 397 (Sup. 6, July/Aug. The strategy worked even better than expected. 77, 105 (2016). 82. This Article is dedicated to the outstanding professionals who work in the family defense practices at the Bronx Defenders, the Brooklyn Defender Services, the Center for Family Representation, and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. See About Us, Casey Fam. The father abused her after the babys birth and the agency brought a case against Ms. Anderson for failing to protect her child. .). But the team was unable to secure the agencys support for unsupervised visits. The Bronx Office was part of a larger organization whose principal work was indigent criminal defense. N.Y. Comp. 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. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services corporate office is located in 177 Livingston St Fl 7, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States and has 609 employees. Admin. 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 The company is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. 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. Altogether, Ms. Anderson was separated from her baby for less than nine weeks. Ct. Act 262. 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. 30+ days ago Full Time. 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. 67. When parents lawyers are entirely uninvolved in shaping these plans, the fate of children and families is left to the skill and ability of the agency alone to identify correctly the critical needs of the family. 99. This catch-22 problem made preventing Ms. Barrows eviction vital on multiple fronts. Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. Since it began, the Brooklyn Defender Services' Family Defense Practice has represented nearly 11,000 parents involving more than 20,000 children. 1. 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. 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. 84. 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. 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. As a result, a second meeting was scheduled with the surgeon, Mr. Sanchezs defense team, and the agency. The team successfully persuaded the agency to agree to release the newborn to Ms. Barrows care with court-ordered supervision. At the end of the nine-month period, the case was dismissed. Quite often, the family defender offices in New York City achieve results for their clients that meaningfully advance childrens interests that could not have been achieved without spending considerable amounts of time out of court. Without the offices housing advocacy, Ms. Barrow would have had no home for her newborn to return to. Senior . 66. Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 1, at 53. Full-time. See N.Y. Fam. Had Ms. Barrow been evicted from her apartment, she would have had to enter New York Citys public shelter system. Bar Assn, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/project-areas/parentrepresentation/ (last visited Oct. 19, 2020). info@bds.org. Visit Us . Ms. Anderson grew up in foster care, moving through over 20 foster homes as a child. 18, 428.6 (2020). 3 TO PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. At the next court date, the defense team presented the letter to the agency and the court. . 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. See N.Y. Fam. 28. First, the social worker went to the home to assess for herself the conditions in the apartment. . Brooklyn, NY, US. Brooklyn Defender Services is a company located in Brooklyn, NY, United States. It requested that Ms. Green participate in dyadic therapy with Sophia, in which a licensed therapist participates in visits between parents and children to develop a healthy attached relationship. See id. Admin. for Family Representation, https://www.cfrny.org/our-work/team-model/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2020). 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. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Experienced Attorney's for the Criminal Practice's legal team. 93. 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. BDS | Contact 26 days ago. Although the agency does not permit lawyers to attend these conferences, it does allow parents to bring anyone else to be present. 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. 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 . Our Approach. 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. Entry Level Attorneys - Criminal Practice legal team . Hearing (Sept. 27, 2018) (written testimony of Ctr. Article 10 Attorney for the Family Defense Practice Team. Unfortunately, the foster care worker assigned to Ms. Greens case proved to be very difficult for Ms. Green to work with. Easily apply. And once the amount of visits was increased, the next step eventually would be returning Sophia to Ms. Greens custody. Admin. 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. Admin., The CITYFEPS Rent Supplement Program Fact Sheet, N.Y.C. Once again, Ms. Barrows defense team went into action. These criminal justiceoriented officials gave the role of representing parents in child welfare cases to solo practitioners from an assigned panel of available lawyers.10 These lawyers, known colloquially as panel lawyers, were already being used to represent parties eligible for court-assigned counsel in juvenile delinquency proceedings, among a number of other specialized areas of the law.11 These lawyers generally did not work in an interdisciplinary way. Fighting for you, your family & our community. 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. Keeping families together requires striving to establish understanding and ensuring that the parents voice is heard through support and advocacy. But it simply could not have happened without an interdisciplinary team assigned to the case. When Ms. Barrow went to housing court, her housing attorney presented a letter showing the Citys commitment to pay the arrears, and the case was settled in Ms. Barrows favor. If I hadnt had the support of BDS, I wouldnt have been able to stop ACS from removing my kids. 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. In the agency process side of the case, parents are obliged to meet with caseworkers, supervisors, and other employees of the agency responsible for monitoring the parents actions throughout the life of the case. 95. 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. 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. Part II briefly describes the findings in the quantitative analysis. 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. 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. 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). 58. The teams lawyer then filed a motion for an immediate court hearing to determine whether removal was necessary to protect the childs safety. 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. Richard LaFontaine. 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. Need assistance with an ACS investigation or court case. General Inquiries. 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 teams strategy was to have two opportunities to present the judge with positive impressions of the mother even before conducting the formal hearing seeking the babys return to her custody. The office added one of its attorneys with expertise in housing court to the case. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is seeking Entry Level Attorney Candidates for the Family Defense team. medical, dental, optometrical or surgical care, though financially able to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so . The offices social work team, along with the Brooklyn Defender Services immigration practitioners, have developed close relationships with community-based programs serving New Yorks immigrant communities and [are] able to connect clients to culturally competent service providers and access to services in their native language. Schreibersdorf & Shapiro written testimony, supra note 24, at 9. 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. Brooklyn Defender Services | LawHelpNY The study was the first of its kind ever conducted, although two previous studies were undertaken in Washington State that compared cases in which parents were represented by a new Parent Representation Program with the outcomes of cases in which parents were represented by traditional parent lawyers. Once the judge could be persuaded of this, the prospects of significantly increasing the amount of time Ms. Green could spend with her child were greatly advanced. This is written both to clarify why this kind of representation is so successful and to help export the model to jurisdictions that have yet to embrace it. for Child. brooklyn defender services Careers and Employment | Indeed.com 347-592-2500. Three months later, the two children in foster care were reunited with their mother and the family has lived together without further intervention by the agency. tit. Martin Guggenheim is the Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law. Understanding the Effects of an Interdisciplinary Approach, supra note 4, at 910. . The practice was recently the focus of a critical report issued by the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Ms. Greens attorneys used this knowledge to start planning their settlement and trial strategy.73. Approximately 20 percent of the Brooklyn Defender Services Family Defense Practice clients are immigrants, and many do not speak English as their first language. SCO Family of Services Recognized by Brooklyn Defender Services for Full-time. 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. We fight to protect New Yorkers from the trauma of separation from their loved ones and to reunite families as soon as possible. It also is important to appreciate how the offices support the professionals emotionally. Ct. Act 1089 (McKinney 2020). Moreover, in my experience, judges rarely overrule (or reconsider) the agencys assessment of what services are appropriate. Emily (she/her/hers) received her J.D. 89. Find out what works well at brooklyn defender services from the people who know best. Lauren Shapiro - Managing.. - Brooklyn Defender Services | ZoomInfo Commn on Parental Legal Representation Pub. 382 (2019) [hereinafter Accidents Happen]. N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. for Child.s Servs. Who We Are | If/When/How 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. Hearing (Aug. 16, 2018) (written testimony of Michelle Burrell, at 2). N.Y. Unified Ct. Sys. Brooklyn Defender Services Aug 2017 - Aug 2019 2 years 1 month. This, in turn, most commonly means focusing on how parents have changed since the case began. 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. 60. Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. Part I provides a brief history of parental representation in New York. Simultaneously, Ms. Greens attorneys and the social work staff worked closely together to help Ms. Green navigate the agencys service and visitation policies. But often the agency seeks to remove newborns from the hospital in a case in which the agency has an ongoing involvement with the mother. 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. New York law does not require that the agency prove how certain injuries were sustained.71 Instead, when the injuries appear to be the result of abuse, it is sufficient for the agency to allege that the child sustained an injury that most likely was the result of child abuse, creating a rebuttable presumption where the parent may present evidence either proving how the injury was sustained or why the parent should not be held legally accountable for the injury.72 When a petition alleges no direct evidence of abuse, but rather that the nature of the injury is such that it must have been the result of abuse, parents and attorneys are placed in a difficult position. 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. It added over the years an immigration practice and, in 2007, with this new contract, a family defense practice as well. [or] ensure that clients receive necessary services and prepare appropriate service plans . 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. Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. E communityoffice@bds.org. Ct. Act 1039 (McKinney 2020). In that capacity, she also represented parents in a wide range of matters related to family law . The agency was unwilling to accept the defense teams claims without doing its own investigation. Social hold is a colloquial term used to describe the practice of a hospital separating new parents from their child immediately following birth while a report to the State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment or an ACS investigation is pending. This figure, eight percent placed in foster care, compares with the most recent data maintained by New York State, indicating that 64 percent of newborns born to women with children already in foster care in 2015 were placed in foster care. Ignoring them as part of the defensive strategy is only a tiny step away from ignoring the case conferences. Instead, in New York City, the task was given to the Mayors Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator, which had deep knowledge of the criminal justice system but no experience with the child welfare system. When Mr. Sanchez met with his lawyers and social worker, he provided the fuller picture. 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. See Family Defense, NDS: The Power of Pub. 18. 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. In order for the reader to appreciate fully the contribution of these offices, and the critical need for them to spread throughout the country, it is vital that the reader grasp a fundamental truth about the child welfare system in the United States: it far too commonly makes fateful decisions about children and families that are based on errors that, in the absence of a significant check and balance provided by holistic family defenders, would never come to light. Brooklyn Defender Services: Employee Directory | ZoomInfo.com of BDS' family defense clients were reunited with their children at the conclusion of their family court case. 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. 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. Dir., Brooklyn Defender Serv. Brooklyn public defenders seek to form union - nydailynews.com 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. Because the qualitative study focused so much on what the new family defender offices did in court, the case descriptions that follow focus on the out-of-court work that is crucial to the holistic model employed by the offices. After consulting with an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, Mr. Sanchez opted for a nonsurgical option to be secured in Mexico. 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. 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.