CENTER FOR FAMILY REPRESENTATION

Program: Community Advocacy Teams (CAT)

Program Description:

CFR's programs represent a three-pronged approach to our mission of guaranteeing that every family that can live safely together has the opportunity to do so: Community Advocacy Teams provide social work and legal assistance to families in their communities and in family court when a crisis threatens child safety; our Training Unit provides training and technical assistance to professionals on best practices to help families avoid foster care or reunify safely; and through Policy Impact Work we provide leadership at the city, state and national level on policies that strengthen families. By complementing our work with individual families with training and policy efforts, we inform dialogue and debate on how best to help needy families and at the same time promote and test our notions of best practices.

Program Long-Term Success:

2008 marked our fourth full year of helping parents involved with the child welfare and foster care systems by providing them with the assistance of an attorney, a social worker and a parent advocate (a parent with direct experience of having children removed and safely reunifying with them).

We continue to find that by bringing parents comprehensive team assistance early, when a risk to a child is first identified, we can often prevent a child from entering foster care at all. Where foster care is necessary, we can speed the safe reunification of the family, saving foster care and litigation costs, and most importantly, sparing families prolonged, unnecessary separation.

CAT served more than 800 families in 2008 (nearly 500 of whom were new clients), a significant percentage of whom were headed by teenagers and young adults who lived most of their lives in foster care or are still in care.  Over 50% of the children of CFR's CAT families did not enter foster care.  For children who did enter care, CFR maintained an average length of stay of less than four months.  This can be compared to the New York City median of 11.5 months and New York State median of 26 months.  Significant taxpayer savings is achieved through CFR’s reduction in length of stay:  the lowest average monthly cost of foster care in New York City is $1,930. This means that, on average, a child CFR brings home from foster care potentially saves the City $14,475 (and the state $46,320). 

The following is a snapshot of additional case-related accomplishments related to one of CFR’s central priorities, family visiting, in 2008 (some clients may have received multiple benefits):

•    In 204 cases, CFR successfully advocated for better visiting arrangements for clients and their children.
•    In 93 cases, clients benefited from unsupervised visits with children
•    In 38 cases, clients were awarded overnight visits with their children, and in 29 cases, parents were awarded weekend visits.
•    In 68 cases, Visit Hosts were used to facilitate family visits.

CFR also enhanced its practice to include specialized advocacy for mentally ill parents and parents with education-related issues. In 2008, CFR was awarded an Equal Justice Works Fellow, whose practice is dedicated to assisting mentally ill parents.  CFR’s Skadden Fellow, whose work focuses on education law, represented 20 parents in 2008 and consulted on another 30 cases during the first year of her fellowship.

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Program: Training & Technical Assistance

Program Description:

Training & Technical Assistance

Program Long-Term Success:

In 2008, CFR provided 50 training and technical assistance sessions to family court and child welfare practitioners, including judges, to employ new strategies to strengthen families.  CFR was also invited to present to a national audience at the Child Welfare League of America conference for the second year in a row.  Since our inception, CFR has conducted over 220 training sessions and has provided more than 650 hours of technical assistance. We also create Practice Toolkits that combine substantive information as well as sample letters, orders and motion papers for advocates and parents.

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Program: Policy Impact Work

Program Description:

Policy Impact Work

Program Long-Term Success:

CFR participated in several policy groups in 2008, including: the ACS Parent Education Steering Committee, the Fordham Interdisciplinary Center Group on Visiting, the LSNY Family Law Task Force, the City Bar Council on Children and its subcommittee on Family Law and Family Court, Family Court Advisory Council subcommittees on Mental Health Services in the Family Court and Child Protection, and the Osborne Association’s New York City Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents.

CFR also chaired external policy groups and group subcommittees including the New York County Lawyers Taskforce on Family Court, the Fordham Interdisciplinary Center Group on Teen Parents, and the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) Coalition.

CFR further participated in a forum co-sponsored by Congressman Charlie Rangel and the Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) whose recommendations helped inform portions of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (H.R. 6893), signed into law in October 2008.

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