Andrew Cuomo

While a small but growing number of states have added new lifelines for youth aging out of foster care amid the coronavirus pandemic, New York – the hardest-hit state in the country – is offering no additional help.

New York City and state were inundated by requests from adoptees seeking their original birth certificates this week, as a new law went into effect granting unrestricted access for the first time in more than 80 years.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) vetoed legislation late last week that would have expanded due process safeguards for parents accused of abusing or neglecting their children. The bill would have significantly reduced the time parents’ names must remain on a state database of child abuse and neglect claims.

New York City Council confronted Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration today on a steady increase in the use of force in two youth detention facilities. “We all agree there’s a problem, the numbers lay that out,” said Manhattan Councilman Keith Powers (D), chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, to a group of administration officials who appeared to testify.

A statehouse hearing on child welfare last week began with Brooklyn Assembly member Latrice Walker (D) comparing the Trump administration’s family separation policies at the nation’s border to New York’s foster care practices.

The New York State legislature passed a raft of historic child welfare bills this year. All of them aimed to strengthen birth family ties: one bill would open access to original birth certificates for adoptees; another increases the standard of evidence in child neglect cases, and decreases the consequences of such investigations for parents; four other bills boost support for relatives and family friends who care for someone else’s child.

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed Raise the Age legislation into law in April 2017, the administration assured counties it was not another unfunded mandate. Implementation of the law, which moves most 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult criminal justice system, would fall to county governments, but the state would bear the costs, reimbursing counties for 100 percent of Raise the Age implementation costs.

For the Children’s Home of Jefferson County, on New York’s mostly rural northern border with Canada, creating a rehabilitation program under the new statewide juvenile justice reform law known as “Raise the Age” was an obvious decision.

New York politicians and youth advocates celebrated a major juvenile justice reform this week. The state was one of only two that treated all older teens as adults in the eyes of the law until Monday, when Gov.