Family Miranda law gains traction, advocates call out racist ACS practices

December 29, 2022

Ari Chiarella, a social work supervisor and co-director of CFR’s Queens family defense practice, and Teyora Graves-Ferrell, a parent advocate supervisor at CFR, were interviewed for this Amsterdam News piece on Family Miranda and an internal ACS audit that revealed racially-biased practices.

“As a person who’s gone through this process myself as an impacted parent, there’s this false sense of we’re coming together as a team to make a decision for your family,” said Graves-Ferrell. “It feels like a decision has been made before you even step in the room. The way ACS interacts is to gather information against them and that’s what we tell clients. It’s punitive. You’re not coming to the table to create a plan for the child to stay.”

Read the full piece here.