Mission & History
Keeping Families Together Since 2002
Mission
CFR’s mission is to defend the rights of parents and youth through free, holistic interdisciplinary legal and social work representation. We fight for the integrity of families, primarily low-income Black and brown parents and youth targeted by systems of family regulation and incarceration. CFR’s model supports parents in raising their children with self-determination, reduces reliance on the foster system and youth incarceration, and addresses the underlying causes of family instability. We represent parents and youth in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island; we provide training and technical assistance to more than 500 practitioners annually from around the country; and we work to promote systemic change that dignifies and benefits youth and families.
The Early Years
John Mattingly of the Annie E. Casey Foundation leads a panel appointed by the Federal Court to review family policing practices in New York City. He comes back with a scathing critique of what occurs in Family Court.
Summer 2001: In response to the crisis of representation of parents in Family Court in NYC, a group of family law professionals – including Martin Guggenheim, Susan Jacobs, Genevieve Christy, Jane Spinak, and Philip Segal, among others – meets formally to offer a plan for both alleviating the crisis and for building a new capacity to train and provide resources to parents’ lawyers.
Winter 2001: The group submits the final copy of their proposal to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. They propose a model Parents’ Representation Office to provide direct representation for a segment of parents in Family Court proceedings. The organization will also provide research on the best ways to provide this representation, develop models for enhancing the assigned counsel panel of parents’ lawyers, and be a voice for parents in important family regulation policy issues.
CFR’s hires its first team – consisting of an attorney, a social worker, and a system-impacted parent advocate. They take referrals to represent any parent, anywhere in the city, to begin demonstrating that the model will work. CFR becomes the first legal services agency in the City to integrate system impacted parents into its legal teams.
Making an Impact
CFR publishes its first article in American Bar Association (ABA) Child Law Practice on our “Cornerstone Advocacy” approach, which gains nationwide attention, and CFR begins to receive requests from other states to help them replicate the CFR model. This is one of a series of CFR articles published by the ABA on advocacy and reunification strategies.
In response to positive reception from training on our model, CFR hosts its first three day “Cornerstone Institute” for practitioners from the state of New Mexico. CFR will go on to provide intensive multi-day training for practitioners in Georgia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Delaware, and Louisiana.
The New York State Bar Association selects CFR to receive the award for Promoting Standards of Excellence in Mandated Representation, stating that CFR is a “recognized innovator in parent representation, and is a tireless advocate for legislative and policy reform.”
CFR participates in an Advocates Reform Group in response to lawsuits against a number of city agencies. Michele Cortese is named co-chair of an ACS Advocates Committee that focuses on greater coordination between city agencies that impact housing for ACS-impacted families.
CFR conducts an extensive survey of staff and clients on their most pressing needs. The survey reveals that children often re-enter the foster system due to economic and housing challenges, not new neglect allegations.
Expanding the Scope of Our Work
Home for Good expands, offering holistic, interdisciplinary legal and social work advocacy team to parents in housing and public benefits, immigration, and criminal defense services.
CFR has a staff of 85, and a budget of more than $8 million. Now, fewer than 10,000 NYC children are in the foster system. The average length of foster stays for the children of CFR clients has been reduced by more than 50% since 2007.
The outgoing Obama administration issues a memo by Commissioner Raphael Lopez to all 50 states, citing CFR as 1 of only 3 “exemplary models” that should be replicated to better support families. The Commissioner notes that high quality, multi-disciplinary services like those at CFR are critical to achieving better outcomes for children and families.
CFR’s appeals team achieves victory in In re Elizabeth C. – a case that clarifies that a parent is entitled to an emergency hearing when they are excluded from their child’s home.
In response to the surge of migrants apprehended at the U.S. southern border and separated from their families, CFR sends our Immigration Litigation Supervisor to conduct a day of Credible Fear Interviews and provide supervisory support at Albany County Jail.
CFR launches the Community Advocacy Project (CAP) with the dual goals of providing legal and social work “Early Defense” representation for parents during ACS investigations and representation at SCR hearings to assist parents in amending state records and promoting their economic opportunity.
A major research study by NYU School of Law and Action Research, funded by the Casey Family Foundation, confirms what CFR’s data has shown all along: that our model dramatically shortens the time children spend in the foster system, generates millions to the City, with no risk to child safety.
The State awards CFR with a contract to expand our Youth Defense Practice (YDP) in both Manhattan and Queens. Our interdisciplinary Youth Defense teams consist of a lawyer and a social worker who advocate for young people who have been arrested or who are defending a prosecution to help them avoid incarceration.
CFR comments on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) proposed changes to the family-based immigration system that would make it harder for Americans to sponsor immigrant family members.
As a result of CFR’s advocacy, the State Central Registry (SCR) Reform Bill is signed into law, shortening the amount of time an indicated neglect case can stay on the SCR and raising the standard of proof for reporting.
CFR’s appeals team achieves victory in In re Tai-Gi K. Q.-N. B., where a higher court restores the parental rights of CFR’s client, noting that the foster agency did not support her when her children first came home.
Now, fewer than 8,500 NYC children are in the foster system. More than half of CFR families avoid the foster system altogether and almost 80% of our youth clients avoid pre-sentencing incarceration.
CAP teams provide early defense services to over 100 clients and SCR advocacy to nearly 85 clients. Since 2019, CAP services have cost under $500,000 in total and helped more than 300 children avoid the foster system. When we are able to work closely with a parent, the CAP team successfully amended and/or sealed SCR records 100% of the time.
CFR has presented to thousands of attendees on the overlap between immigration and family defense representation and on wide-scale immigration issues like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
CFR staff present at the Columbia Law School Strengthening Family Bonds The CFR paper, “The Surveillance Tentacles of the Child Welfare System” is accepted for publication in the Columbia Journal of Race and Law.
CFR continues its commitment to DEIB through the formation of white and BIPOC affinity groups. CFR also hires its first Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Alicia Williams, who brings her extensive knowledge of DEIB work to the organization.
CFR Today
CFR has served nearly 12,000 families and has reduced the cost of the foster system by more than $50 million for the City. Our budget is over $15 million and our staff has increased by 38% since 2015. Additionally, 20 CFR staff members serve on 39 government commissions, task forces, and workgroups addressing policy reform.
