Expert Panel Issues Final Report Finding New Strengths and Persistent Weaknesses in New York City Ch

EXPERT PANEL ISSUES FINAL REPORT FINDING NEW STRENGTHS AND PERSISTENT WEAKNESSES IN NEW YORK CITY CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM
PRESS RELEASE

Advisory Panel Installed byMarisol v. GiulianiSettlement Cites Improvements in Policy and Structure While Serious Problems in Front-Line Practice Continue.

The Special Child Welfare Advisory Panel ("Panel") established by the settlement of the child welfare reform lawsuitMarisol v. Giuliani, gave the city a very mixed review in its final report issued today on changes in New York City's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) over the last two years. The report finds that while ACS has acted in good faith in creating substantial structural and policy reforms in New York City, "the large majority of these activities remain in the planning stage, and a great deal of additional work will be required before they are implemented and their impact is felt." (Final Report, p. 36)

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The Panel, in a cover letter to the judge overseeing the lawsuit, Hon. Robert Ward, also states "...it would be a very serious misreading of our Final Report if these conclusions regarding good faith were read as a judgment that this system has been fixed.... Throughout the report, we identify critical areas in which we cannot yet observe sufficient change in the front line and supervisory practice that really determines what happens to the citizens who come into contact with New York's child welfare system."

"In the past, lawsuits against specific problems in the child welfare system came up against a bureaucracy so chaotic and poorly managed that the only way the city could even begin to fix the problems for one group of children was by neglecting every other group," stated Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, the national non-profit advocacy organization that represents the plaintiff children in the Marisol lawsuit with co-counsel, Lawyers for Children. "Any expert advice that the city received in the past was politically predetermined by the city making clear first what it wanted to hear. But under the guidance and prodding of this court-ordered expert group, the city has finally addressed many real problems in a meaningful way, " noted Lowry. "This is a very beneficial conclusion to what must be a several stage reform strategy for children."

Lowry also noted that additional, targeted litigation will probably be necessary to ensure that the child welfare system actually implements the changes in practice that the Panel has recommended and which the city has only begun to address. Under the terms of the Marisol settlement the city will now be released from the threat of additional court action growing out of the Marisol lawsuit. However, the bar on additional class action lawsuits that was a part of the Marisol settlement will also be lifted.

Lowry said that new, targeted lawsuits to address the serious problem areas identified by the Panel are likely. She described those areas as the city's continuing failure to ensure permanent homes for children, either by helping strengthen their relationships with their natural families so that they can be safely kept at home with adequate services, or safely returned home from foster care, or by moving children who cannot return to their natural families into adoptive families quickly.

PANEL REPORT FINDINGS ON ACS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Permanency Planning for Children:

Strength:
· "ACS has issued clear and useful permanency principles, implemented family case conferences in a variety of settings; begun to reorganize a vast service system along Community District lines; and paid increasing attention to Service Plan Reviews and parent-child visits as critical opportunities to promote permanency." p. 38

Weakness:
· "Nevertheless, we think it fair to conclude that on the front line, where parents encounter caseworkers and caseworkers encounter supervisors, not enough has changed with regard to permanency." p.38

· "...this [permanency] is the area in which major efforts are most needed and are most likely to make real, compelling changes in the lives of the families and children in this system." p. 38

· "...in reviewing the results from our questionnaire, we were struck by the fact that the questions with the lowest average responses are all related to permanency and to work with families." p. 41

Placement of Children in Foster Homes:

Strength:
· "ACS has addressed a significant number of the Panel's recommendations relating to placement." p. 23

Weakness:
· "We caution, however, that many of these activities are only now reaching the point of implementation." p. 23

Front Line and Supervisory Practice:

Strength:
· "ACS has developed ambitious plans for training supervisors throughout the child welfare system." p. 28

· "ACS has obtained substantial new resources and committed them to training for staff in all parts of the child welfare system." p. 29

· ACS and its partners have adopted New York State's 'common core' approach to training child welfare staff, and they are working together to customize many elements of this training for New York City.... These two initiatives, taken together, have produced a plan to offer a very substantial amount of training to many thousands of workers." p. 29

Weakness:
· "Much work remains to make these plans becomes realities. ACS and contract agencies must reach agreement on who will deliver the training, and on the extent to which staff must be trained before they can begin to see clients." p. 30

· "New York City (together with any institutions which may receive contracts to provide some of this training) will have to recruit a very large number of trainers who are skilled both in delivering this curriculum and in modeling practice skills for caseworkers." p. 30

"ACS has worked cooperatively with the Panel and accepted most of its recommendations in large measure because of the cocked gun that the Marisol settlement, with its potential to bring the city back into court, presented," Lowry stated. "Unfortunately, the history of this city's treatment of poor children is that litigation is necessary to ensure that the city lives up to its promises. So it may well be that more litigation will be necessary to make sure that the Panel's recommendations are finally implemented."

The settlement inMarisol v. Giulianiinstituted a two-year ban on class-action litigation against the City and ACS in order to allow ACS and the Panel an opportunity to work on reform. That ban ends on December 15, 2000.

A separate settlement with the state remains in effect until March, 2001, and plaintiffs have notified the state that they plan to seek court action stemming from violations of certain provisions of that agreement.

ABOUT MARISOL V. GIULIANI

The federal civil rights lawsuit, Marisol v. Giuliani, filed in December 1995 by Children's Rights and Lawyers for Children, was certified as a class action on behalf of an estimated 100,000 New York City children who are in the City's foster care system or reported as abused and neglected. The suit by plaintiffs broke new legal ground by extending the constitutional rights of all children affected by a child welfare system. Previously, courts recognized the right to constitutional protections for children in State custody, but had not extended those rights to children in danger of abuse and neglect but still living at home. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit upheld on appeal the class certification.

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.