SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON FAMILIES

MEETING

May 2, 2000

 

MEMBERS:         Paul J. Noto (Chair), Amy Paulin

 

GUEST(S):          Judge Joan Cooney

 

STAFF:                Sally Schecter

 

The meeting was called to order at 12:25 p.m. 

 

Judge Cooney explained about Neglect and Abuse Permanency Part that came about because of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) that was enacted by the federal government.  This applies to any child who is in any form of residential placement because of neglect, abuse, or voluntary placement.  Some of the requirements only apply to the kids in foster care.    Now there are very strict time lines as to when things have to be done.   The only way the Federal government can enforce this is with money so if people don't do what they are supposed to, money gets taken away.  Our County is  probably one of the more compliant Counties with this legislation.  Judge Cooney started a Part to do a few things:  1. to set us in compliance with ASFA and 2. to monitor services in the County.  Do we have the right services or are we taking families and trying to jam them into the existing services?  How flexible are we with our services?  What services do we have that don't fit the needs of the people that we are seeing?  If this is true, we can say to Social Services lets take that money away from that program that's not meeting our needs and create some other program.  People will create what we say we want. 

 

Judge Cooney is handling all the abuse and neglect cases in Westchester County except for Yonkers.   Our Part is not yet considered a model Part by the National Council of Family Court Judges but we are trying to inch our way into that little sphere because then they might give us money.  We are always looking for free help.  She is working with the Permanent Commission on Justice for Children.  They have provided her with a social worker intern twice a week.  He has done site visits and prepared a brochure of all of the parenting skills programs in the County. It will be ready for distribution as soon as she reads it.  We are always sending people to parenting skills but I think we need more in-home parenting training.   Mental Health is funding an educational consultant who is coordinating the schools and Judge Cooney also has a CASA worker who monitors children under five years old.  When the case workers fail to tell her about a problem, the consultant and CASA  keep her informed so she can address it.  The D.A. is not involved in this.  There is not a lot of coordination and when Judge Cooney thinks the D.A. should be involved, she will call their office and make them aware of what case are before her.  Judge Cooney has never met Robin Brown who is supposed to be tracking and coordinating all the abuse cases.  She seems to be handling abuse cases in the D.A.'s office and she might be tracking them just through D.S.S.  Every other month there is an advisory committee Part meeting which Nancy Travis from D.S.S. and Cooney co-chair.  They try to talk about problems and how they can resolve them.  Once a case has been to fact-finding and disposition, unless a violation has been filed, it doesn't come back before the Court for a year.  Judge Cooney is going to implement something new.  Anyone involved in a case, it can be the County Attorney, DSS, the law guardians, the respondents, or their attorney, can write a letter to the Courts asking for a conference and if there is any validity to this at all, we are going to schedule a post dispositional conference without any further petitions being filed.    A lot of what happens is simply a lack of coordination.  Amy pointed out  that is the job of the coordinator and she is not there.  She should be attending those meetings and she should be educated on what is going on.  Judge Cooney has a court attorney who will be doing these conferences and she also does a permanency hearing once a year.  The Courts use to do extension of placement and that is how you got kids in foster care for 10 years because no one was looking at why this wasn't moving.  Now on every single extension, the Judge's court attorney  does a hearing, whether people want it or not.  It is now on record.  ASFA requires that if children are in care for 15 of the last 22 months the County can decide to file a determination petition unless a child is over 14 and doesn't want to be adopted.  The Courts are supposed to file termination but we can't file a termination petition if you haven't helped the person for 8 months out of the 15.  You have 15 months to get it together.  You need to start on day 1.  You can't take 2 years to say now what is the plan going to be for the family. 

 

MaryEllen Matarano attends meetings but Robin should be there too.  Robin should be tracking all the cases so she should know the status of all the cases.  By the summer, Judge Cooney will have software that will track every single child in foster care on a daily basis.  She has a lot of cooperation from DSS.  They do agree on the goals - not necessarily to get children out of foster care because for all children that is not the correct goal.  The goal is to have a permanent plan for those children - adoption, permanent custody with a relative or return to parents that is what needs to be looked at.  Only 600 are in any form of residential care.  We are getting down to a hard number.

 

Children in foster care should be returned sooner then later because it becomes harder.

 

The merging of New Rochelle and Yonkers Family Court is in the thinking stage as leases are not up yet.

 

Next meeting on May 16 at 12 noon.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 12:55 p.m.