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CUF in the News

	Will East Harlem's La Marqueta Rise Again?, Grub Street New York, August 19, 2010
	Deal to Put Slots at Aqueduct Paves Way for a New York City Casino, The New York Times, August 12, 2010
	Local Biz Booster, New York Daily News, August 11, 2010
	The truth about commercial rent control, Crain's New York Business, August 10, 2010
	Spinning It Bloomberg Style, Huffington Post, August 9, 2010
	Group says state should 'step back' and dump plan for Aqueduct racino, New York Daily News, August 8, 2010
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Center for an Urban Future
is a New York City-based think tank that fuses journalistic reporting techniques with traditional policy analysis to produce in-depth reports and workable policy solutions on the critical issues facing our cities.

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New York by the Numbers

Economic snapshots of the 5 boroughs

This month's data... This edition of New York by the Numbers reveals that nearly a third of all adult workers in New York City are employed in low-wage jobs. While the percentage of low-wage workers is high across the city, the Bronx is in a league of its own, with 42 percent of the boroughs workers in low-wage jobs.

The Marisol Settlement: What it Means Behind the Scenes

Analysis of the early 1999 settlement in the class-action case of Marisol v. Giuliani

By CWW staff

April 1999

It has been three months since Marcia Robinson Lowry settled her ambitious class-action lawsuit against the Administration for Children's Services, Marisol v. Giuliani. The deal, ending more than three years of rancorous litigation, was hailed widely as a fair compromise, allowing Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta to work toward reform unfettered by the courts, advised by well-respected group of outside child welfare professionals.

The first report of the four-member Special Child Welfare Advisory Panel, however, was disappointing. The analysis was overly conciliatory, contained important omissions and ultimately had few helpful recommendations. More important, there are real questions about what--if anything--the commission has the power to accomplish, given its circumscribed role under the terms of the settlement.

The scope and quality of the panel's work is important because advocates have lost the ability to file class-action lawsuits on behalf of children for the next two years, while the panel exists. Already, the settlement has forced the shelving of one class-action pressing for better services to gay and lesbian children. And both Lowry and ACS have been aggressive in requesting that other policy-oriented litigation against the agency be moved under Marisol's U.S. District Court judge, Robert J. Ward.

The idea was to allow the city breathing room to make substantive reforms. Lowry, director of Children's Rights, Inc., has had a long history of filing lawsuits that force agencies into court receivership--a legal tactic that in recent years has been viewed by many as counterproductive. Given Scoppetta's popularity and prior efforts at turning the system around, there was some doubt that Lowry would actually win her case. Finally, Lowry herself clearly has some faith that the city will make headway toward reform.

"I think the city now has a wonderful opportunity to do the things they say they want to do," she told Child Welfare Watch. Everyone already knows what the problems are, she argues. "But is it our goal to smash our fists in their faces or get better services for the children?"

This change of heart would be fine--if Lowry hadn't negotiated away the rights of other children's groups to keep legal pressure on the city. A lawsuit filed by the Urban Justice Center on behalf of gay and lesbian children sought concrete remedies-like special housing and staff training-for these particular kids. That case is unlikely to go forward as a class-action now. Moreover, plaintiffs in ACS class-actions having nothing to do with children are facing the Marisol judge. At Lowry's request, a lawsuit filed by the Center for Law and Social Justice on behalf of parents who allege that their children were removed for no reason was moved under Judge Ward and is expected to be influenced by the context of the Marisol agreement.

"Our only chance is the faith and hope that these guys will come up with good recommendations--and Nick Scoppetta will follow them," says Doug Lasdon, executive director of the Urban Justice Center, which filed the Joel A. lawsuit. "To us, that's not worth a whole lot."

The role of the Marisol panel, by the panelists own admission, is to help ACS implement the goals that Nicholas Scoppetta has already set--such as establishing neighborhood-based networks of services and increasing the accountability of employees. That means that important Scoppetta-driven changes, like the sharp increase in child removals and the decline in preventive services, are not slated for discussion. The panel's staff director Steve Cohen says members may attempt to look at these issues in some way, but points to a clause in the settlement stating "the Advisory Panel will not attempt to suggest approaches that would differ from the [ACS] Reform Plan's overall goals and principles."

Issues to be examined in the panel's next four reports include: foster care placement procedures, how to hold contract foster care agencies accountable, tracking the work of front-line workers at ACS, and evaluating the role of the supervisors. The panel's first report has already drawn criticism for being overly vague and the product of a questionable collaboration between Lowry and ACS [see sidebar below]. Panel members acknowledge these problems and say future reports will be more substantial.

Even so, there remain serious questions about the limits of the commission. Certainly, the panelists are respected and well-versed on child welfare issues. But none are from New York. They lack direct experience in a complicated and highly political system that relies on more than 100 contract agencies to carry out the bulk of its services.

More importantly, if this is to be anything more than a consulting relationship, the panel will have to be very critical at times-and willing to help bring the agency back to court if ACS fails to follow through on its recommendations. So far, there is little in the current rhetoric indicating that the panel will press ACS to make the dramatic changes needed to improve the system.

"The effort is predicated on the conviction that there is a strong, capable, committed group of people leading ACS," says panelist John Mattingly. The mission is "not to chop someone's head off," adds Cohen, but to create a "continued dialogue." Only time will tell if this dialogue is any different from the many others that have preceded it.

THE MARISOL'S PANEL'S FIRST REPORT: AN ANALYSIS

Considering the sweeping nature of the Marisol lawsuit, the first report of the panel appointed in Marisol's name has proven to be a serious disappointment for those seeking ACS reform. The 24-page document, focusing on the agency's ability to move children back into permanent homes, lacked vision and was too abstract to be useful.

This probably has something to do with the fact that Marcia Lowry and ACS hashed out the details of the report long before the Marisol panel released it. A draft was submitted to both parties in September 1998-four months before the settlement was announced-for their approval. "The first report was developed in draft as sort of a trial run," explains panel director Steve Cohen. "If either of the parties had thrown up their hands at the draft, there wouldn't have been a settlement." Panel member Doug Nelson emphasizes that the process will different in the future. "[ACS and Lowry] will have the chance to review and comment, but not to approve or veto anything."

The report did make several good suggestions, among them that the agency establish principles and targets governing the duration and quality of foster care stays. The panel also requested that ACS set up a better system for holding contract agencies responsible for getting children back into permanent homes. That said, there were several major issues that were conspicuous in their absence. Among them:

The decline of preventive services. Keeping children in their homes is the best form of permanency. Despite their importance to the well-being of children and their families, preventive services received only glancing references.

The "per-diem" problem. The foster care agencies are paid for each day a child is kept in care with payment ending the day the child leaves, building in a financial incentive not to return children to their families. It's yet another obstacle to permanency--one of many reasons the average stay of a child in New York City's foster care system is four years.

The strain that a surge new cases has put on private agencies. Although ACS has been working to reduce the caseloads of its own workers, the private foster care agencies have discretion in how many cases they assign each staffer. Overwhelmed caseworkers are slow to take the steps needed to reunify the family or get children placed into adoption.

The overrepresentation of minority children in the system. An estimated 3 percent of the more than 40,000 children in foster care are white, 73 percent are African American, and 24 percent are Latino. In cases of confirmed neglect or abuse, ACS is twice as likely to remove black children from their families as it is to remove white children. The entirely-white panel ignored this issue.

MORE TO KNOW

Members of the Marisol Panel

Judith Goodhand, consultant, University of North Carolina Graduate School of Social Work.

John Mattingly, former executive director of Lucas County Children's Services in Toledo, Ohio.

Douglas Nelson, president, Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Paul Vincent, director, Child Welfare Policy and Protective Group in Montgomery, Alabama.