YOU’RE INVITED: Home for the Holidays
Join us on December 6, 2013 from 6-9pm at Sway Lounge for a holiday fundraiser for our clients’ families. Our goal is to raise funds to provide a wonderful holiday experience for our clients, their children and their families. For $20 donation, you can hear about our work, enjoy a few drinks, and make a…
NBC News: Family Separated After Family Court Closes Early
This week, Channel 4 news brought attention to the harm being caused to families by the lack of resources provided to New York City Family Courts. For those of us at The Bronx Defenders who represent parents in Bronx Family Court, the investigation revealed a devastating daily reality: family court can be a saddening and…
City Limits: False Abuse Reports Trouble Child Welfare Advocates
In some neighborhoods in this city, it’s not uncommon for people to file an allegation of child abuse or neglect to settle a grudge. In a meeting with City Limits, lawyers and social workers from The Bronx Defenders, which represents parents with child welfare cases in the Bronx, described a string of such cases: a…
The Bronx Defenders welcomes our 2013 training team!
The Bronx Defenders is proud to announce the start of our 2013 training team. During the first year, our new attorneys will receive intensive training in Holistic Defense, working alongside our experienced Criminal, Family, and Civil Attorneys, as well as our Social Workers, Policy and Community Organizers and Community Intake team. Welcome to our new…
Rise Magazine: To Speak or Not to Speak
Brenda Zubay and Lisa Beneventano, Social Workers in The Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice, were interviewed in the Fall 2013 issue of Rise Magazine. In the article, they discuss the benefits and dangers of revealing past trauma in court, and explain the importance of parents taking control of their story before the court takes control…
The New York Times: The Girls Who Haven’t Come Home
The last time they took Vernice Hill’s children away, the time they didn’t give them all back, was the afternoon she went to see her neighbor. Ms. Hill lives in a hulking building on East 188th Street, in a frayed neighborhood in the Bronx. It was May 1, 2005. Inside her apartment, her two little…
MUNCHED, A Disturbingly Hilarious Play – June 27th, 2013
The Bronx Defenders invites you to a very special community event in celebration of National Reunification Month, honoring families who have been involved in the child welfare system. There will be a stage! A piano! And Patricia R. Floyd from Law & Order. We encourage you to attend and bring friends, family and colleagues. We…
Annual Celebration of Families – June 21, 2013
Annual Celebration of Families is an event to celebrate families who have recently reunified or are about to be reunified. Families enjoy a meal together, play games, celebrate their successes, and go home with a framed family portrait. What we thought would be a little party turned out to be an incredibly powerful moment for…
Heeding Gideon’s Call in the Twenty-First Century: Holistic Defense and the New Public Defense Paradigm
By Robin G. Steinberg, 70 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 961, Washington and Lee Law Review (Spring 2013) In September of 1997, eight public defenders squeezed into a small storefront office between a Radio Shack and a Rent-A-Center across the street from the courthouse in the South Bronx to practice a new kind of public…
Five members of our Family Defense Practice to speak at the American Bar Association National Parent Attorneys Conference
On July 10th and 11th, 2013, Keith Baumann, Emma Ketteringham, Helen Montalvan, Ryan Napoli, Lauren Teichner are all scheduled to speak at the American Bar Association’s National Parent Attorneys Conference in Washington, D.C. They will lead various workshop sessions including one on Daubert and Frye hearings in Family Court, the drug war in child civil…
Social Worker Lisa Beneventanto presented at The Center for Child Advocacy’s Annual Conference
On April 19, 2013, Lisa Beneventanto presented at The Center for Child Advocacy’s 8th Annual Conference, “The Forgotten Child: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Child Neglect” hosted by Montclair State University in New Jersey. Her presentation was part of a workshop entitled “Supporting Vulnerable Families: A Preventive Intervention.” Click here for more information.
New York Times: In South Bronx, Legal Aid and Shoulders to Lean On
A sprawling, sunny room beckons invitingly with black couches and bright accent pillows for relaxing, bookshelves with novels to borrow for an hour or a week, a pair of children’s tables, outlets for recharging cellphones and free coffee. This is the newest hub for justice in the South Bronx: a public defenders’ office that looks…
Emma Ketteringham spoke at The Second National Parents’ Attorneys Conference
On January 24th, 2013, Emma Ketteringham spoke at the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law Annual Conference. She spoke in a session entitled the “Prejudice and Punishment: Judging Mothers who Use Drugs.” More information here
Emma Ketteringham at Harvard Law School’s “The Politics of Parenthood Week”
Emma Ketteringham, Managing Attorney of the Family Defense Practice, speaks on the Criminalizing Parents panel on November 16th, 2012 as a part of Harvard Law School’s “The Politics of Parenthood Week”. More info here: http://www.facebook.com/events/550665218281036/
Mary Anne Mendenhall and Emma S. Ketteringham in Huffington Post’s The Blog “Some Pro-Pot Parents Blog, Others Lose Their Children”
Recently, The New York Times published an op-ed by an art dealer and father from San Francisco, titled “Pot for Parents.” It was just the latest of a growing number of pieces published recently espousing the benefits of marijuana use for parents. These pro-pot missives share a carefree and cavalier tone, portraying marijuana use as…
Emma Ketteringham spoke at Central Michigan University on Monday, Oct. 1st
On Monday, October 1st, Emma Ketteringham, Managing Attorney of the Family Defense Practice, presented at Central Michigan University on the misperceptions which underlie child protection’s response to pregnant women seeking the help they need when struggling with addiction.
Holly Beck co-authors article in the New York Law Journal
Chris Gottlieb, co-director of the NYU School of Law Family Defense Clinic, and Holly Beck, staff attorney with The Bronx Defenders, write that when a court conducts a hearing in the absence of a defending party, an attorney who appears for that party may face a dilemma: whether to participate in the hearing, and thereby…
Brenda Zubay presented at the Museum of Motherhood Conference “Evolving Motherhood”
On May 17, 2012, Brenda Zubay presented at the Museum of Motherhood Conference entitled “Evolving Motherhood” in New York City. Her presentation, “Parenting While Apart” explored questions about the changing role and identity of mothers who are separated from their children, are judged negatively as parents, and are denied their traditional parenting roles and responsibilities. For more information, click here
Public Benefits and Child Support Arrears
By McGregor Smyth. Individuals who are released from prison or jail and who need financial assistance until they are able to get on their feet are likely to apply for aid both from Safety Net Assistance (“SNA”), the New York State public assistance program for adults who do not share a household with children, and…