CENTER FOR FAMILY REPRESENTATION
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Mission Statement
Our mission is to keep families together. We provide legal and social work services to vulnerable families facing separation through foster care and juvenile detention. CFR works to eliminate the harm of foster care and juvenile incarceration on children. Youth who experience lengthy stays in foster care fare poorly, as do those who are incarcerated, with poor educational and mental health outcomes and greater risk of homelessness and criminal justice involvement as adults. We believe families and youth are better served with supportive services in their communities and legal and social work advocacy designed to keep families together and stable.
About This Cause
CFR has been the primary family defense provider for indigent parents charged with maltreatment in Manhattan since 2007 and in Queens since 2011. We assign every parent a family defense team comprised of an attorney, a social worker, and a “parent advocate” – our parent advocates are trained professionals who had experience being investigated for maltreatment, being prosecuted in family court, losing their children to foster care and successfully reunifying their families. Attorneys represent parents in family court to insure that the City meets its legal obligations to families; social workers connect parents with needed services, such as counseling or day care; and parent advocates mentor our clients and provide emotional support. In late 2015, we expanded our work to provide families with additional holistic assistance in immigration, housing, and criminal matters – to address issues that are collateral to their family court case, but which could undermine the family’s stability. In 2019 we expanded the scope of our work by launching our Juvenile Justice practice, representing young people in Manhattan and Queens criminal and family courts. In late 2019 we added a Community Advocacy Project as well as increasing our engagement with policy and advocacy with the City and the State. We work with approximately 3,000 families each year including 1,000 new clients and consistently prevent more than 55% of our clients’ children from entering foster care; for those who do enter foster care, our representation significantly shortens the length of stay. By avoiding or reducing the time children spend in foster care, CFR has saved the City over $48 million since 2007- and saved families untold heartache. CFR is a nationally recognized expert in family defense and child welfare, training more than 500 practitioners around the country each year. CFR has a proven track record of reuniting families quickly and safely, but we have learned that child welfare families do not experience problems in neat silos. Indigent parents at risk of losing their children to foster care often confront several interrelated issues, rooted in poverty, such as homelessness or unstable housing, interruptions in public benefits or other financial insecurity, criminal charges, or immigration problems. In 2015, we launched Home for Good, an initiative to create an efficient one-stop solution of coordinated and effective assistance in these collateral areas. Our expanded services ensure that families achieve lasting stability. At CFR, we firmly believe that every family matters.