This week the
New York City online news site THE CITY published one of the best
dissections I’ve ever read concerning the enormous harm of “mandatory
reporting” laws. Those are the laws that require workers in scores of
professions to report their slightest suspicion of “abuse” or “neglect” to
family police agencies. I included
excerpts from THE CITY’s story in our
weekly news round-up.
Now, however, I want to focus on one part of the story that
may be of particular interest to advocates in New York City. It concerns an organization called Safe
Horizon which, as the story points out
runs both the city’s domestic abuse hotline and its child
advocacy centers, where children who may be victims of sexual and severe
physical abuse are interviewed by detectives, pediatricians and child
protective investigators.
The domestic abuse hotline is separate from the child abuse
hotline which is run by New York State. Child advocacy centers can do a lot of
good. But they, and their trade association, also often do a lot of harm. Here’s
a case in point. Another example:
Their role at
the epicenter of promoting the pandemic of fear concerning
child abuse and COVID-19.
In light of the track record of some of these centers in
general and the history of Safe Horizon in particular. what might be a bit of a
rebellion on the part of the rank-and-file is striking.
First some context:
Of all those who suffer from mandatory reporting laws, those
who suffer most might be survivors of domestic violence and their children. The
trauma inflicted on children by needless investigation and removal is even
worse in such cases than in others. That’s why it’s actually
illegal in New York to tear a child from a mother whose only “crime” is to
have “allowed” the child to see her being beaten.
Of course, just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean it’s
stopped. And another
lawsuit is challenging the other ways in which the city harasses domestic
violence survivors.
Most tragically, all this stops survivors from coming
forward – because of the sadly reasonable fear that seeking help will lead to
their children being taken. (When we get to the history section, we’ll have a
case in point.) So at a bare minimum, people who work with survivors should be
allowed to exercise their professional judgment in determining when to report
and when not to report. Incredibly, Safe Horizon seems to have no confidence in
its own staff to do just that. And that
brings us to …
… something that sounds like a rebellion
As THE CITY reports:
At [a New York State Assembly] hearing on mandated
reporting in 2023, Megha Sardana, a representative from Safe Horizon …
testified that she and many of her colleagues experience the mandate to report
as a barrier to trust that “prevents us
from really providing that support and access to healing for families.”
“We have staff who describe the wounds that they
experience as mandated reporters as moral injury and that they carry these
stories with them for years and even decades later and are haunted by the calls
that they have made to the [State Central Register],” she added.
During the question-and-answer period, Sardana felt so
strongly that she went rogue, veering from Safe Horizon’s official
policies to state: “If I’m answering as an individual rather than as a
representative of Safe Horizon, I don’t think mandated reporting can be
reformed. I believe that it should be abolished.”
She added that other Safe Horizon employees had discussed
asking for an exemption from mandated reporting from the state for people
working with domestic violence victims — a request that top Safe Horizon
leadership made clear in an interview with THE CITY they were not
making at this time. [Emphasis added.]
To understand Safe Hrizon’s apparent distrust of its own
staff, we need to delve into …
… the history
I first became aware of Safe Horizon in early 2006. I was in
New York City a few months after the death of Nixzmary Brown, a tragedy that
set off a huge, media-fueled foster-care panic. In fact, you couldn’t not
be aware of Safe Horizon then. In the wake of Nixznary’s death, they plastered
the city’s busses and subways with ads like this one, featuring Mariska
Hargitay, star of Law and Order SVU.
A major way Safe Horizon suggested turning your outrage and
grief into action was by donating to Safe Horizon. At the time their
website had four different “donate” links (including the Hargitay image)
before you got halfway down the homepage.
Click on Hargitay’s image and, along with the pitch for
money, you got to this
claim:
More than 50,000 cases of abuse and neglect are reported
each year in New York City.
In fact, the 50,000 figure was the number of calls alleging
some form of “abuse and neglect” referred from the state hotline to the city
family police agency for investigation.
The overwhelming majority were false, and the overwhelming majority of
the rest were “neglect” which
often means poverty.
Safe Horizon is not much
more subtle today – referring to seven million children who “come to the
attention” of family police agencies nationwide – a figure that is, in fact,
the total number of calls received by child abuse “hotlines.” Of that seven
million roughly two
percent turn out to be cases in which a caseworker checked a box on the
form indicating it was at least slightly more likely than not that physical or
sexual abuse occurred.
The scare number is followed by a list of “Signs of Child
Abuse” that includes almost every possible negative change in a child’s
behavior. The website describes these as
“common” signs of abuse. There is not even the usual boilerplate note of
caution that these could be “signs” of
anything other than child abuse.
The Fairstein Factor
 |
| Linda Fairstein |
In addition to Hargitay, back in 2006, the Safe Horizon
website featured an endorsement from Linda Fairstein, who called Safe Horizon
the organization that does more than any other to help
New Yorkers feel safe in their homes and in the community.
Does that name seem vaguely familiar? Perhaps it's because
Fairstein was the prosecutor in the notorious case of the Exonerated Five.
Fairstein remained on the board of Safe Horizon for 17 years after the
five were exonerated and
her own role came under scrutiny. Although
the Safe Horizon website includes a list of board members “emeriti,”
Fairstein isn’t included.
And how does this all play out in the lives of domestic
violence survivors? Remember that domestic violence hotline? Mother
Jones describes what happened after Angeline Montauban called it:
While her partner and their 2-year-old son slept,
Montauban retreated to the bathroom with her cellphone. She dialed the number
of Safe Horizon, a domestic abuse hotline whose services include counseling and
relocation assistance she had seen advertised in subway stations for years.
Montauban had just experienced violence at the hands of her partner that made
her fear for her life. Trying to stay as quiet as possible, she was looking for
help to break a cycle of toxic behavior. Maybe Safe Horizon could refer them to
couples therapy or find transitional housing for her and her son as they worked
things out.
It didn’t work out that way. Montauban was turned in to the
family police. She waged a five-year fight to get her son back from foster
care. As Mother Jones reported, “She never regretted anything more in
her life than making that call to Safe Horizon.”
Perhaps had Safe Horizon workers been allowed to exercise their
professional judgment concerning whether or not to report it would have been
different. But they can’t – and it seems their own management doesn’t trust
them enough to seek to change that.
No wonder a senior staffer at Safe Horizon “went rogue.”
Perhaps more will follow.
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