Governor Andrew Cuomo

Following the horrific death of a 16-year-old foster youth in a Michigan residential treatment facility – who died of cardiac arrest after staff pinned him on the ground and constricted his breathing – New York advocates are calling for the state to bar face-down restraints in facilities for the highest-needs children, calling the practice “dangerous” and “barbaric.”  

After earlier pleas to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) went unanswered, advocates for young adults in foster care are urging support for legislation that would extend housing and financial support beyond the current age limit of 21 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hundreds of New York toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities may lose access to in-home speech, behavioral, occupational and other therapies next week – because the coronavirus pandemic has prevented them from getting the services approved by their local school district. 

With dozens of foster youth reaching their 21st birthday each week and job prospects still bleak, state legislators in New York and California advocates have introduced bills that would preserve young people’s access to essential support throughout the public health and economic crisis.

When she turned 21 last year, seven years after entering foster care in New York City, Jeanette Rivera suddenly found herself fending for herself — and her three young children.  “They didn’t wait to make sure that I was ready to be on my own, they didn’t make sure I had food, that my bills were paid or that I even understood how to pay my portion of my rent,” Rivera said.

In late March, Loretta Wright had a frontline view of how bad the coronavirus pandemic had become in her home borough of the Bronx, with over 8,600 hospitalized at the time. 

With New York shut down by the coronavirus pandemic and vulnerable families under threat like never before, lawmakers approved a state budget late last week gutting support for grandparents, neighbors and other kin caring for children who otherwise might be in foster care.

Near the end of his 19th year, when Marcus Diego rose up from life in 14 different foster homes and landed in the Summit Apartments at Queens College, he sang like he’d never sung before: “Through my lungs.

Forty-two out of 59 New York neighborhoods have seen risks to children’s well-being increase overall since the previous year, according to a new report released by the Citizens’ Committee for Children (CCC), a nonprofit advocacy group.