Bronx Defenders

New York City moved this week to curb hospital drug testing of new and expecting mothers, a widespread and controversial practice that can lead to newborns being placed in foster care at perhaps the most delicate stage of life.

The New York City family court isn’t moving fast enough to hear some parents’ challenges of children’s foster care placements, a state appeals court ruled late last week.  And, within days of the ruling, advocates say they’ve begun citing the precedent-setting decision in new filings for such hearings.

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.

At around nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning, two days after giving birth to her second child, Vanessa left a hospital in Queens, New York, and boarded the subway. She was headed to the borough’s courthouse on a mission: to regain custody of her newborn daughter.

An emboldened parent defense movement convened at a Ritz-Carlton near Washington, D.C., last week, intent to capitalize on recent policy victories and public attention. The goal? To reduce the number of parents they believe are unnecessarily separated from their kids by the child welfare system.

New York City Council pressed the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) Commissioner David Hansell on Tuesday over a steep increase in emergency removals of children from parents who have been accused of child neglect or abuse.

In an unmarked building at a busy Bronx intersection, New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) is trying something new. On the fourth floor, the child welfare agency has decorated a sunny room with fake pink flowers and lined the walls with metal shelves of canned and boxed food.

The Imprint recently hosted its first event in New York City, soliciting live “letters to the editor” to spark conversation about what’s missing from media coverage of child welfare. Family defense lawyers, reporters, adoptive parents, caseworkers and former foster youth shared their insights during the June 27 panel, which was moderated by The Imprint’s northeast editor Michael Fitzgerald and held at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.