You are on page 1of 4

The ASFA Coalition

July 26, 2011 John Mattingly, Commissioner, New York City Childrens Services 150 Williams Street 18th Floor New York, NY 10038

Dear Commissioner Mattingly: We write on behalf of the ASFA Coalition, a coalition of child welfare agency, parent, and child advocate groups, which has been meeting regularly since 1999 on issues of mutual concern regarding New York Citys child welfare system. 1 On behalf of the ASFA Coalitions mental health sub-committee, we are asking Childrens Services to collaborate with us to develop guidelines for Childrens Services case workers (including preventive, investigative, and FSU workers), as well as foster care agency case workers, on how to work appropriately with families in the child welfare system who are dealing with mental illness. We envision the guidelines being similar to Childrens Services best practices visiting guidelines and its domestic violence protocol and believe the development of such guidelines is crucial to achieving the goal of effectively addressing the needs of families struggling with mental health issues. In addition, we are convinced that improving the quality of the services provided to these families will positively impact the outcomes NYCCS is striving to achieve through One Year Home. Consistent with federal and state disability laws, Childrens Services has a legal and ethical duty to ensure that agency workers accommodate the special needs of families with mental health issues. New York and federal child welfare law also require Childrens Services to make reasonable efforts tailored to the specific needs of the family to keep families together wherever possible. For families living with mental illness, the duty to make reasonable efforts must
The ASFA Coalition was formed to monitor and improve implementation of Family Court and child welfare changes initiated as a result of New York States Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). Members include representatives from the Bronx Defenders, the Brooklyn Family Defense Project, the Child Welfare Organizing Project, the Center for Family Representation, Citizens Committee for Children, Court Appointed Special Advocates, Family Court Legal Services, Lawyers for Children, the Juvenile Rights Practice of the Legal Aid Society, Legal Services NYC, New York University School of Law Family Defense Clinic, and Office of Court Administration. Sub-committees, such as the mental health sub-committee, often include members from other organizations.
1

address the specific and individualized needs of the family. See In Re Jamie C. 889 NYS 2d 437 (Kings County Family Court 2009) (finding NYCCS did not make reasonable efforts to prevent a removal because NYCCS failed to offer services specifically tailored to the mothers psychiatric needs and the childs special needs). In the winter of 2009, the Child Welfare Watch (CWW) issued Hard Choices: Caring for the Children of Mentally Ill Parents. The report recommended that a parents ability to care for her children safely, not her psychiatric diagnosis, be the standard for determining whether or not children are placed or remain in foster care. To achieve this objective, the report recommended that Childrens Services and the court obtain and utilize quality parenting assessments when needed in cases involving parents and/or children with mental illness. Proper utilization of an appropriate parenting assessment can potentially reduce the number of children entering care, reduce the length of stay in foster care, reduce stigmatization of mental illness, and reduce the racial disproportionality in the child welfare system. Additionally, the CWW report recommended that Childrens Services develop a best practice standard for mental health evaluations to ensure that only high quality evaluations (utilizing multiple sources to ensure thorough and unbiased reporting) are used to guide child welfare and Family Court decisions and identify appropriate services. Finally, CWW recommended the provision of ongoing training about mental health issues to judges, lawyers, and child welfare workers to inform them about mental illness. Training could include types of mental health services available, and how mental health conditions are diagnosed and treated. Although two years have passed since the CWW report was published, the committee is unsure what efforts Childrens Services has made to address the problems and implement the recommendations. We continue to see problems in our every day practice. Some of our concerns include parents being treated in a manner which appears punitive and does not lead to appropriate assessments and treatment options, workers lack of understanding about mental illness, and families being treated unfairly and needlessly separated as a result of a mental health condition. We would be happy to meet with you to discuss specific cases from our practice that demonstrate our widespread concerns and illustrate the need for guidelines. As set forth above, we believe that Childrens Services guidelines will go a long way toward addressing the identified problems. Specifically, we believe that guidelines should 1) recognize the basic principle that a mental health diagnosis alone does not provide adequate or complete information about parenting capacity; 2) describe the factors that should be considered in assessing adequate parenting capacity; 3) stress the importance of developing an individually tailored service plan to meet the particular needs of the family to prevent the need for foster care placement or to achieve reunification as quickly as possible; 4) clarify the role of Children Services and the foster care agency in

making appropriate referrals for mental health services; 5) discuss guidelines on how to talk to parents sensitively and productively about their own and their childrens mental health issues; 6) provide instructions on how to do safety planning for parents with mental illness; 7) identify when Childrens Services should and should not request mental health evaluations for parents and/or their children and the limits of such exams; and 8) explain how to distinguish between cognitive limitations and psychiatric issues, as well as how assessments, service planning and referrals differ for each. We also believe that in order to improve practice, Childrens Services must improve and expand its training of workers regarding mental illness. We understand that some effort has been made to train workers by sending about 50 workers to a six week psycho-educational course developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). While we appreciate this effort, NAMI receives no funding for this purpose and to date only a small number of workers have attended. We believe Childrens Services should commit to a large-scale training that, like NAMIs, addresses the sophisticated body of information necessary to serve children and families living with mental illness. We look forward to discussing in more detail the type of training that we think would be useful. Thank you for your time and consideration of these important issues. We look forward to your response to our concerns and are eager to collaborate on this important issue. Very truly yours,

Lauren Shapiro, Co-chair of the ASFA Task Force

Karen Freedman, Co-chair of the ASFA Task Force

Mental Health Sub-Committee Members (listed alphabetically by organizations for identification purposes only) Kara Finck and Lisa Beneventano Bronx Defenders Lauren Shapiro, Kaela Economos, Jessica Marcus, Gabe Freiman Brooklyn Family Defense Project Rick Barinbaum Center for Family Representation

Jenny Crawford Columbia School of Social Work Emily Kernan, Lawyers for Children Misa Plehn, Leslie Winston Legal Aid Society, Juvenile Rights Practice Caroline Kearney, Kevin Cremin Legal Services NYC Maxine Ketcher, LS-NYC -Bronx Eve Stotland Urban Justice Center cc: Nancy Thomson, Assistant Commissioner & Special Counsel Gilbert Taylor, Deputy Commissioner, Family Court Legal Services Jan Flory, Deputy Commissioner, Child Protection Lorraine Stephens, Deputy Commissioner, Family Permanency Services

You might also like