Court Report Shows New York City Failing Children in Foster Care

PRESS RELEASE

Services, planning for finding homes fall below legal standards.

A court-appointed review team in the class action lawsuit, Marisol v. Giuliani has issued its third and final report on the practices of the Administration for Children's Services (ACS). This report examined the treatment of children in foster care or other out-of-home placement who are in the legal custody of ACS. The key findings show that ACS is failing to provide legally required services, case management, and the planning necessary to find permanent living arrangements for children at risk of spending their childhoods drifting through the foster care system. Released over objections of ACS which petitioned both a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals in a failed attempt to shield this information and previous reports by the review team from public view, the report completes a portrait of glaring gaps in child protection and services.

Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, Inc. (CRI), co-plaintiff in the Marisol lawsuit, stated, "With two previous reports demonstrating that the city fails to protect children from abuse and neglect, this latest report now shows that children are neglected once they're under city supervision. Even after being removed from abusive homes, children continue to suffer with the city as their protector."

Reviewing a random sample of over 400 foster care cases, the review team uncovered serious flaws in the provision of services to children. Key findings of the report are:

*70% of children's cases showed gaps in case management activities, such as cases not being covered for periods of time, delays in approving services or goal changes, and lapses in legal authority for children's placements.
*48% of children had been in foster care for four years without a permanent living arrangement; 30% spent over seven years living in limbo.
*Over 50% of children were seen by caseworkers less than once a month, even though professional standards require frequent contact between workers and children in foster care or, at the least, monthly contact. 5% of children were not seen even once by a caseworker during the entire six-month period of the study.
*31% of children had no contact between caseworkers and children's teachers or schools for the entire twelve month period reviewed.
48% of children in group settings with medical, dental or mental health needs did not receive services; 26% of foster children had unmet needs.
*50% of children in group settings had known problems, including run away attempts, drug activity in the home, and suicide attempts; 26% of foster children had documented problems with foster care placements.
*Only 20% of children in kinship foster homes under direct control of ACS were seen monthly by their caseworkers, while 46% of children in those homes supervised by private contract agencies did see their caseworkers monthly.

For children in other than foster homes, only 25% had monthly caseworkers when in ACS's direct care, while 51% were able to have monthly caseworker visits when private contract agencies were responsible for them.

The pace of adoptions remains glacial. The review team concluded that "[n]one of the State time frames for moving children to permanency through adoption were met . . . most barriers were related to delays in initiating and completing the necessary legal activity to terminate parental rights."

Marisol v. Giuliani is a class-action lawsuit brought by CRI and Lawyers for Children to reform the child welfare system in New York City. Filed on December 15, 1995, on behalf of 100,000 children who are either in the City's foster care system or reported as abused and neglected, the lawsuit claims both the city and the state have proven to be incapable of running the child welfare system and calls for the entire system to be removed immediately from the city's control and placed into the hands of a court-appointed receiver.

In January 1997, Judge Robert J. Ward ordered appointment of a joint review team to conduct a review of records of a random sample of children in the New York City Child welfare system to provide objective information on the functioning of children welfare practice as if affects children and families. The Case Review Team, established through joint agreement among all parties to the lawsuit, is composed of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the United Way of New York City and a designee of the New York State Department of Social Services.

The team's first report, filed with the court on August 12, 1997, examined ACS' practices in investigating reports of child abuse and maltreatment. The team's second report, focusing on open cases in which credible evidence of abuse or neglect was found, included findings so damaging to ACS that the city waged a court battle to protect it and the final report from public release. After the city's appeal was rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the second report was released on October 21, 1997.

Lawyers for Children, Inc. founded in 1984, provides free legal and social work services to children who are before the courts in foster care, abuse and neglect, termination of parental rights, and custody proceedings. LFC's experience in providing direct services to over 15,000 children has led to a commitment to impact litigation and innovative projects which enhance LFC's ability to advocate for and protect children in foster care.

Children's Rights works throughout the United States in partnership with national and local experts, advocates and government officials to document the needs of children in the care of child welfare systems. Children's Rights helps develop realistic solutions and, where necessary, uses the power of litigation to ensure that reform takes place.