February 7, 2025
Children’s Rights has joined with Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, Columbia Law School Family Defense Clinic-Family Defense Clinic, the Center for Family Representation, The Bronx Defenders, and the National Association of Counsel for Children in an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit brought by the Family Justice Law Center (FJLC) against New York City’s Administration for Child Services (ACS).
FJLC filed an appeal in 2023 on behalf of Ms. W., a mother of a one-year-old baby, after a family court judge ordered her to comply with unannounced surveillance of her home and her child’s body by ACS. The mother, a victim of domestic violence, was not accused of abusing or neglecting her child, and her abuser had been barred from her home. Still, she was told she would have to consent to “announced and unannounced visits” from city child welfare investigators in order to keep custody of her daughter.
The lawsuit alleges that parent-survivors of domestic violence in New York City often face systematic “double abuse”: Having first experienced violence at home, they are then subjected to unnecessary ACS surveillance that only exacerbates their situation. The central argument of the lawsuit, and of the amicus brief, is that the family court order violated both the child’s and the mother’s legal rights to family integrity. Unwanted home entries have lasting psychological consequences on the children and the parent-child relationship, as a growing set of research demonstrates.
CASE UPDATE: In February, a panel of the appellate division of NY State Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the state’s Family Court law gave a judge the right to place Ms. W. under the supervision of the ACS, citing the fundamental principle that the government must not intrude on people’s rights to care for their children except when necessary for the children’s safety. As reported in the New York Times, the panel quoted an earlier case that found that the Family Court law must strike a balance “between protecting children through ‘state intervention’ while simultaneously shielding ‘private family life’ from such intervention when it is ‘unwarranted.’” And it held that orders like the one in Ms. W.’s case “constitute precisely the type of state intervention that the Legislature sought to avoid” when it established the Family Court system.
###
ABOUT CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
Children’s Rights is a national advocacy organization dedicated to improving the lives of children living in or impacted by America’s child welfare, juvenile legal, immigration, education, and healthcare systems. We use civil rights impact litigation, advocacy and policy expertise, and public education to hold governments accountable for keeping kids safe and healthy. Our work centers on creating lasting systemic change that will advance the rights of children for generations. For more information, please visit childrensrights.org.