Family Court cases
The most severe interference in parents’ and children’s rights to family integrity comes when the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) files a petition alleging that a parent has neglected a child and seeks to separate parent and child and place the child in state custody (foster care). The Family Defense Clinic represents parents facing ACS petitions, in collaboration with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.
The clinic helps parents defend against allegations against them, seek reunification with their children, expand parents’ and children’s visitation, enforce ACS’s obligation to work to preserve and reunify families, and, overall, limit state intervention in families.
On behalf of our clients, the clinic has won outcomes, including:
- Dismissal of petitions against parents
- Reunification of families
- Expansion of visitation rights
- Orders requiring provision of services to families
State Central Registry cases
Every year in New York state, CPS agencies place more than 50,000 parents on a registry with “indicated” allegations of child neglect or abuse. Placement on the registry creates a barrier for parents to work in a range of jobs with children, to adopt children, and to become kinship foster parents for a child in their extended family.
The clinic represents parents seeking to challenge these disruptive outcomes in administrative hearings before the New York Office of Child and Family Services. In these hearings, we seek to prove that the parent did not neglect or abuse their child or that they do not pose a threat to other children. In 11of 12 cases that have been resolved so far, the clinic has won relief for parents, so the registry no longer poses a barrier to their ability to work, and their personal and professional goals.