The Philadelphia DHS Excuse Machine never stops

Well, Philadelphia DHS is nothing if not predictable.

In an op-ed column about the appalling allegations of widespread abuse of youth at the Glen Mills schools exposed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Marsha Levick of the Juvenile Law Center wrote that “The abysmal failure of local and state child welfare agencies to scrutinize the Glen Mills program … is simply inexcusable.”

The locality that sent more youth to Glen Mills than any other is, of course, Philadelphia.  And that means as Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, Cynthia Figueroa had a responsibility to know what was happening there.  So did her predecessors who also allowed children to languish at Glen Mills.

I tweeted Levick’s quote with this comment: So why do I have the feeling this won't stop @PhiladelphiaDHS commissioner @cynfigueroaf from coming up with all sorts of excuses?”

So why do I have the feeling this won't stop @PhiladelphiaDHS commissioner @cynfigueroaf from coming up with all sorts of excuses? https://t.co/s0SKoZHfso #childabuse #fostercare #childwelfare pic.twitter.com/635HUXNZ85

— NCCPR (@NCCPR) March 5, 2019

And sure enough, yesterday, Philadelphia DHS took an old standby from child welfare and applied it to juvenile justice, tweeting:

Actually we don't make placement decisions for juvenile justice involved youth.

What they mean, of course, is that judges make the final decision. That’s the same excuse they use for Philadelphia’s obscene rate of tearing apart families and throwing children into foster care.  But in both cases, we all know who those judges are listening to.

Indeed, if DHS were not so influential, how could it possibly issue the statement cited in this news story, under the headline “Philly DHS pulling clients from Glen Mills Schools.” 

The response from Figueroa: Her agency didn’t write the headline.

O.K. Then how about this story from KYW Newsradio, in which you can actually hear Figueroa take responsibility for placements at Glen Mills:

In the story, Figueroa can be heard, loud and clear, saying:

We're not going to reopen intake and I think there's a clear necessity to review whether we'll ever be able to send kids there again. [Emphasis added.] 

Does “we” not include you, commissioner?

And then there’s this from an Inquirer story on February 25:

The city is pulling its boys after an Inquirer investigation revealed widespread abuse and attempts to cover it up, Human Services Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa told the newspaper.

From the same story:

“It’s heartbreaking. It was a very hard read,” Figueroa said. She had recently received promises of change from Glen Mills, and expected to resume sending boys there as of two weeks ago. [Emphasis added.]
 Instead, the 51 Philadelphia boys remaining at the school will go back before a judge to be placed elsewhere. Some will go to other schools for court-ordered boys, while others will be enrolled in alternative programs that allow them to stay in the community.

An earlier Inquirer story, about an earlier incident of abuse at Glen Mills, which prompted Philadelphia to stop sending boys there, included this:

Figueroa said this was the first time the city had suspended intake at Glen Mills since she took office in 2016.

Why does DHS want it both ways?  Because they want credit for stopping the practice of sending youth to Glen Mills without being blamed for the fact that they allowed children to stay there year after year after year.

Figueroa wants everyone to know how heartbroken she is about the Inquirer revelations, but she doesn’t want anyone to ask why the Inquirer had to do DHS' job and uncover abuses DHS should have known about.

It is, indeed, inexcusable.  So for once, can’t DHS stop making excuses and put the children and youth first?

Remembering Judith Kaye, the New York judge who put the “family” in Family Court

Judge Judith Kaye

Judith Kaye, the first woman named to New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, and the first to serve as its Chief Judge, died today at age 77.

Though The New York Times notes many of her accomplishments, the paper neglects some of the most important.  They concerned the state’s Family Courts.  Here are some of them:

Protecting domestic violence victims, and their children

It had been common practice in New York – and remains common practice elsewhere – for child protective services agencies to take away children from battered mothers, just because the mothers “allowed” the child to “witness domestic violence.”

A federal class-action lawsuit brought an end to the practice in New York. (NCCPR’s Vice President, Carolyn Kubitschek, was co-counsel for the plaintiffs.)  During the course of that suit expert after expert testified that while witnessing domestic violence sometimes can, indeed, be emotionally harmful to a child, taking that child from the victim of the violence is much, much worse.  One expert said that, for the child, it is “tantamount to pouring salt into an open wound.”

The section of U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein’s decision summarizing this testimony remains one of the most popular pages on NCCPR’s website.

After Weinstein ruled, the City appealed.  At one point the federal appellate court sought clarification of New York law from the state Court of Appeals.  That led to a sweeping, unanimous decision, written by Judge Kaye, making clear that New York State law does not allow this barbaric practice.  In effect, that extended the impact of the lawsuit statewide (though, as always, it’s not clear if child protective services agencies actually are following the law).

Giving children real lawyers

Although juvenile court hearings are supposed to be all about the children, often the children are effectively silenced.  That’s because instead of a lawyer tasked with advocating for what the child wants, children often get “law guardians” who are free to substitute their own judgment for that of the child.   And that’s often the easiest course of action, particularly when it simply involves rubber-stamping the recommendation of a child protective services agency.   So if a child desperately wants to return to her or his parents from foster care, but the law guardian disagrees, the child is effectively silenced.  (While less common, a child who desperately wants to remain in foster care also may be silenced, and that is equally wrong.)

Of course, the fact that a child wants a particular outcome doesn’t mean he or she should get it. And some children are too young to express a rational preference, or any preference at all. But deciding what’s best is what judges are for.  And they can’t truly do justice unless everyone has an advocate making the best possible case for his or her side.

The New York State Bar Association promulgated guidelines calling for children’s lawyers to follow the direction of their clients – the children - except where the child was too young.    But the guidelines were not binding.  Judge Kaye made them binding.

Opening family courts to press and public

One of the reasons juvenile courts can get away with trampling on the rights of families, and attorneys can provide representation that’s inadequate – or worse – is that, in much of the country, the hearings are secret.  Slowly that’s been changing, and today, nearly half of America’s foster children live in states where these hearings are open to the public and/or the press. 

In New York, that was done by order of Judge Kaye.  I believe the news stories exposing what went on those courts after the hearings first were opened are part of the reason New York City became a national leader in providing high quality defense counsel for families caught up in the child welfare system through organizations like The Bronx Defenders, Brooklyn Family Defense Practice and the Center for Family Representation.

And no one ever boiled down the rationale for opening these courts better.  Said Judge Kaye: “Sunshine is good for children.”

Her own family has many reasons to be proud of the legacy of Judge Judith Kaye.  And a lot of children and parents who may never have heard of her have reason to be grateful.

Foster care in America: Another excuse for high rates-of-removal bites the dust

I hear it all the time when I point out to reporters in certain states that their states are extreme outliers when it comes to tearing apart families – states like Nebraska, Iowa, Rhode Island and South Dakota, among others.

The reporters ask the flack for the child welfare agency and she or he almost always comes up with the same excuse: “We’re different,” the flack claims, “unlike other states, we count children placed in foster care through our juvenile justice system, not just our child welfare system.”

I then ask the reporter: What percentage of placements do they claim are juvenile justice placements?  It turns out that the percentage is so small that, even if you deducted those placements the extreme outliers remain just that - extreme outliers.

But there is another problem with this argument: If so many states are saying they’re unusual – if not unique – because they count these additional placements, it can’t really be all that unusual.

The federal government doesn’t actually count how many states include juvenile justice cases.  But one state legislature’s audit staff has.

Staff for the Performance Audit Committee of the Nebraska Legislature got tired of hearing this excuse.  So they checked with Casey Family Programs which actually asked the states.  The findings are in this report on pages 31 and 32.  It turns out that the majority of the states, 31 in all, include juvenile justice placements in the counts of entries into care and the snapshot number of children in foster care that they send to the federal government.

So the assorted public officials, agency leaders and flacks who have been blithely using the juvenile justice placement excuse all this time either are grossly ill-informed, or they are lying.