Brooklyn Defender Services Pro Bono Unit partnered with Visa, Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP, and O'Melveny & Myers LLP to support parents who have been impacted by the family regulation system - or the so-called child welfare system. Our Family Defense Practice educated pro bono volunteers on the harms inflicted on parents and children by this system and trained them to support our clients in preventing the collateral consequences of system involvement.

When New York State’s central hotline accepts a report of possible child abuse or neglect, a record of the report goes into a database called the State Central Register (SCR). The vast majority of these reports do not involve abuse, but rather treat symptoms of poverty as neglect and reflect discrimination against Black and Latine parents. Reporting to the SCR creates a vicious cycle: a family’s lack of resources leads to reports of neglect, and those reports then further limit a parent’s ability to find employment and access resources. On January 1, 2022, new legislation raised the standard of evidence required for the system to list a person on the registry with an indicated case. Thanks to impacted parents and a coalition of parent defenders, advocates, and community based organizations, this legislation represents one of the most significant changes to child welfare law in decades.

Our dedicated team of volunteers supported 15 people in clearing their names from the SCR, pursuant to these reforms. We look forward to further collaborations with Visa, Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP, and O’Melveny to support parents who have been harmed by the family regulation system.

If your law firm is interested in collaborating with Brooklyn Defenders Pro Bono Unit, please contact Molly Meltzer, Director of Pro Bono, at mmeltzer@bds.org.