Safe in Foster Care? Not Really.

Whenever children are placed in foster care, it is anyone's guess whether that home will prove safe. Sure, potential foster parents are both rigorously screened and trained.  However, that is rarely enough to the extent that it is always impossible to know what a person's motives are for becoming a foster parent. As New Yorkers learned to our horror recently, that motive can be far worse than any threat their biological parents posed.  In a New York Times article, which can be found here, we learned of a virtual house of horrors where repeated children were sexually abused by their foster parent.

In fairness, the vast majority of foster parents are extraordinary people who volunteer to be foster parents for purely altruistic reasons. . .they want to help, give back to their communities, etc.  But then there are those who want something very different.  The well being of the children placed in their care is, at best, an after thought.

Of course, since we can never screen motives, it falls to the foster care agencies to take seriously any concerns raised by anyone regarding the care the children are receiving.  And for the most part, they do.  But how to explain an epic lapse such as the one mentioned in the above article where so many boys were abused in the same home over a course of years?  Whatever the explanation, it will serve as absolutely no consolation to the children or their distraught and/or furious biological parents.

We need to do better.  When the State intervenes in a family's life, it is of critical importance that, at the very least, the biological parents can feel that their children will be safe.  Better training of case workers, more frequent home visits, more frequent one on one meetings with the children, more diligence and training for attorneys for children are just a few of the ways we can avoid this type of nightmare again.

Foster Care - Hard on Foster Care Parents Too

A wonderful article about what foster parents go through when a foster child leaves their home appeared today in the New York Times.  The article can be found here.

In Family Court, the longer a child stays in foster care, the more inclined a court is to terminate a parent's parental rights.  The logic behind this is that children who spend a considerable period of time in a foster home, especially those placed in foster care at a young age, develop significant bonds with their foster parents and disrupting those bonds usually proves harmful to the children.

Rarely, if ever, do we stop to consider the harm that is done to the foster parent who has also developed a bond with the child.  To be sure, family reunification is a laudable goal. And foster parents know what they are getting themselves into and assume the risk of "losing" a child to a parent that overcomes whatever challenges led to the removal of their children.  But that does not necessarily make the pain accompanied with the loss any less tangible.

It takes a person of enormous strength of character to voluntarily become a foster parent.  It is a daunting task to reassemble the pieces of a broken child.  Having accomplished that, one hopes, it is profoundly difficult to let that child go knowing that the work that was done may be yet again undone.  More importantly, it is even harder to let go of those we love.  And, ultimately, that is what it takes to be a successful foster parent and from whence all other necessary attributes such as empathy, patience and kindness flow. . . love.

Hate Crimes. . .Against the Disabled

In 20 years in the Family Courts, I have seen a lot.  I have seen juveniles prosecuted for crimes of all sorts.  But today was the first time I had ever heard of a juvenile being prosecuted for committing a hate crime - against a disabled person.  The article reporting the arrests can be found here.

Generally, we associate hate crimes being committed on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, or perhaps even religious or ethnic reasons.  The historical imperative behind the laws which give greater protections to minorities was obvious.  And even today, the need for these laws is patently obvious to dissaude, in the strongest possible terms, people from singling out minorities and committing violent acts against them.

One may (and some have) questioned why an African American victim, for example, should be entitled to greater protection than any other victim.  The answer, if not entirely satisfying to everyone, was at least logically palatable given the historical context of black civil rights violations and the like.

But one wonders whether the same can be said of crimes against the disabled. Certainly, it cannot be disputed that disabled people are disadvantaged and less able to protect themselves.  But is that a reason to grant crimes against them a different status than those against the non-disabled?  In other words, what is the historical wrong that this otherwise curative law is intending to correct?  Put another way, it is unclear, to me at any rate, that this country has a history of hating disabled people that is in urgent need of correction.  And in the absence of that history, what is the logical or moral basis for subjecting juveniles, or anyone else for that matter, to harsher penalties for crimes committed against them?

Either way, this case bears watching.  Should the prosecution succeed, it may open the hate crime statutes to all manner of classes and expose juveniles and adults alike to far harsher penalties.

Domestic Violence - Seeing the Signs

An article in the New York Times today reports that a man from Queens is being sought in the shooting death of his girlfriend.  The article can be found here.

Sadly, this story is a historically familiar one.  A man, most likely suffering from some undiagnosed mental health illness, becomes increasingly jealous, whether of real or perceived threats to his relationship with a woman.  His jealously becomes so consuming that he begins to act differently. Hostile.  Unpredictable.  Angry.  Accusatory.

And yet.  Just days before she was shot and killed the victim in today's story expressed no concerns for her own safety.  Indeed, in 20 years of practicing in the Family Courts, I have frequently encountered women who have expressed little to no concern for their safety even after they have been victims of serious domestic violence.  To be sure, many suffer from battered woman's syndrome.

However, just as many fail to appreciate or understand that there is help everywhere.  The Family Court was designed to aid victims of domestic violence by issuing orders of protection that can be crafted to direct abusers from remaining away from the victim.  There are domestic violence shelters all throughout the city.  For example, an organization called Safe Horizons helps hundreds of victims of domestic violence each year and assists them in finding appropriate shelters.

Unfortunately, many victims of domestic violence have told me things such as "It was just a slap" or "I wasn't like I was bruised or bleeding."  This is a dangerous slope because, in truth, once an abuser manifests the intention to act out his or her aggression, a threshold has been permanently crossed and rarely, if ever, is that the last time they will act out in that fashion, the fervent hopes of the victims notwithstanding.

That is not to say, of course, that the abusers cannot be helped.  There are plenty of options for them to seek help as well.  For example, the Forestdale Father's Initiative offers wonderful programs to address the abusers' side of domestic violence.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that there are as many kinds of victims of domestic violence as there are abusers.  I have simply tailored this post to the most common scenario where a woman is being abused by a man.  But the reverse happens surprisingly often and there are also same sex couples who experience the ills of domestic violence.  Whatever the configuration of your family, ignoring or minimizing the problem will not help.  Seek the aid of an attorney qualified to work in the family court.  Or, if that step seems too daunting, contact your local precinct.

Child Abuse - More to the Story

An article in the New York Times today reported that a mother was being charged with murder in the death of her 7 week old child.  The article can be found here.

Buried in the last paragraph of the article is the fact that the woman was being treated in a hospital for a suicide attempt.  Also mentioned in the article is that her husband is the person actually believed to have murdered the child.  The point here is obviously not to excuse the parents' behavior.  Rather, the hope is to understand that there are often underlying reasons for why people do (or fail to do) certain things.  In this particular case, it may very well be that the mother (and the father) suffer from a serious mental illness.

To the extent that a child abuse or neglect case is brought against a parent, prosecuting agencies and the courts are often overly focused on the result of the neglect or abuse.  However, unlike criminal court, the family court is not, in theory anyway, a place designed to punish parents but to reunify families, to the extent possible.  For the family in today's article, that is obviously not a feasible reality.  But for most non-fatal abuse and nearly all neglects, there is usually a measure of hope.  The extent of that hope depends on several factors.  The most important of these factors is the parent's willingness to identify the underlying cause of the problem and their determination to address that problem forthrightly.  A dedicated team of advocates including social workers, attorneys, therapists, case workers and the like can make a great deal of difference in bringing that goal to a reality.

Juvenile Delinquents - Never Safe

It is a sad testament to the juvenile detention system in NY when kids headed for detention are not even safe from those charged with caring for them.  In a story in the Daily News, a Brooklyn man whose sole job was to see to the safety of teens in the juvenile detention system, was arrested for sexually assaulting 3 teen girls in his care.  There article can be found here.

To be sure, the young people who find themselves facing incarceration have contributed to their own fates.  They have made poor choices whether by deeds or choice of friends.  But there is a reason that NY law requires Family Court's to choose the "least restrictive alternative" when considering what to do with a child who has been found guilty of committing a crime.  That reason is rehabilitation. Indeed, the driving purpose of the entire system is supposed to be designed to craft solutions which will best serve these children' s long term best interests.

However, when children are victimized by either staff or fellow "inmates" in these facilities, the desired rehabilitation is near impossible to achieve.  Whether better oversight of the facilities or a stricter selection process in the hiring of staff, or both, would have prevented this situation is unknown.  But it is the least we can do to help children who find themselves in this manner of crisis.

Living Close to The Ex - For the Child's Sake

There is nothing about custody disputes that is easy.  Indeed, even when the parents remain somewhat amicable, complications tend to arise.  However, one of the hurdles parents often confront is transporting the children over great distances when one of the parents moves away.  The distance alone makes equitable parenting time for each side difficult.

As a result, some parents have opted to stay close to their children (and the ex), sometimes as close as the same house or apartment building. In a recent article in the New York Times, several parents discussed how they were able to make this work.  The article can be found here.

This is a testament to the timeless fact that there is no better people qualified to craft a fair resolution to custody disputes than the parents.  Specifically, parents are not bound by legalities.  They can do things courts cannot order, such as live near their co-parent to facilitate a plethora of issues such as parenting time, child care and getting the child(ren) to their extra-curricular activities.

It is always best to exhaust every possible opportunity to settle your case without the court so that more flexible (and therefore workable) situations can be worked out with the least amount of emotional stress.