Child Welfare Surge Continues:

Family Court Cases, Emergency

Child Removals Remain Up

by Abigail Kramer
data analysis by Angela Butel
July 2018

More than a year and a half after a pair of widely The increased burden is apparent across the City’s
publicized child deaths, New York City’s child welfare child welfare system: In the past 20 months, caseloads
agency continues to investigate a dramatically higher have gone up dramatically among frontline work-
number of families than in recent years, according to ers responsible for investigating reports of neglect
data published by the Administration for Children’s and abuse. Families sit on waitlists—sometimes for
Services (ACS). months—for services intended to help children stay
safe and healthy at home. And attorneys say the influx
Once families are under investigation, ACS has of cases has overwhelmed Family Courts throughout
become far more likely to bring them to court, rather New York City, exacerbating chronic delays and defer-
than allowing parents to resolve their cases voluntari- rals that impact every family in the system.
ly. And the number of so-called “emergency remov-
als,” in which ACS takes children out of a home even “Hearings are not happening quickly. Judges are strug-
before the case appears before a Family Court judge, gling with several emergency hearings at a time, half
has gone up by 30 percent.1 an hour one day, half an hour the next,” says Lauren
Shapiro, the director of the Family Defense Project at
Observers inside and outside ACS say the surge of Brooklyn Defender Services.
cases is driven by heightened anxiety and caution—
both among members of the public, who are calling in The result, attorneys say, is a new level of dysfunction
more reports of possible child abuse and neglect, and across Family Court—a place where it was already
among child welfare staff, who are responding to those common for a single judge to schedule two or three
reports more aggressively. hearings for the same half-hour timeslot. “We’re
seeing so many cases where there’s no court report
But the resulting system overload may have nega- available, or the ACS case worker isn’t there,” Shapiro
tive consequences for kids, observers say, subjecting says. “The family comes back to court over and over
vulnerable families to unnecessary surveillance while where nothing gets done.”
reducing attention on children who might be in real
danger. “The system is logjammed,” says Chris Got- The surge of activity began in October 2016, after
tlieb, the co-director of the Family Defense Clinic at the widely publicized killing of a 6-year-old named
New York University. Zymere Perkins, who was beaten to death in his home

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 less than two months after his child welfare case was Much of the increase in court petitions has been
closed. Three-year-old Jaden Jordan was killed in driven by an evolving approach to families dealing
November of the same year, after an ACS investiga- with domestic violence, said Andrew White, a deputy
tor, responding to a report of abuse, failed to find his commissioner at ACS, speaking at a public forum.
address. Both Zymere Perkins and Jaden Jordan were allegedly
killed by their mothers’ partners, and relationship vio-
ACS faced scathing criticism in the news media; lence was reported to be a problem in both homes.
then-Commissioner Gladys Carrión resigned from
the agency. Under new leadership, ACS reformed its “If caseloads are at 14, your
workforce training program, significantly increased
caseworkers are just not able
funding for preventive services, and established new
oversight systems for the most critical cases. to do what they need to do.”
“Commissioner [David] Hansell has made top-to- Notably, the increase in investigations and court filings
bottom improvements at ACS, strengthening our has not led to an equally drastic growth in the number
child-protective work and expanding the services we of children removed from their homes. In the 19
provide to support families,” said ACS spokesperson months after Perkins’s death, the City placed approx-
Chanel Caraway in an emailed statement. “Our top imately 6,250 children in foster care—a rise of about
priority is protecting the safety and wellbeing of New four percent over the previous, corresponding time
York City’s children.” span. This increase is much smaller than those that
have taken place after other, widely publicized child
Historically, however, tragic and high-profile child deaths in the past decade.
deaths have always led to increased pressure on the
child welfare system. In the 20 months after Perkins’s Even a moderate increase in foster care placements,
death, the State received more than 118,000 reports however, represents the reversal of a longstanding
of possible neglect and abuse—a nearly 11 percent trend. Over the past several decades, the City has dras-
increase over a corresponding 20-month period before tically shrunk the number of children in foster care—
the crisis. (See p.4 for a detailed data analysis of ACS down from more than 45,000 in the mid-1990s (when
activity.) the union representing caseworkers promoted slogans
like, “When in doubt, pull ‘em out,”) to the current,
Once ACS is investigating a family and finds credible near-record-low of approximately 8,600.
evidence of abuse or neglect, it has a considerable
array of options, including offering voluntary services That reduction was made, in large part, due to growing
such as family therapy or drug treatment, and then recognition that, for most children, being separated
closing the case. Since October 2016, however, the from a parent is a terrifying and deeply traumatic event.
agency has taken a much higher percentage of cases to
Family Court, petitioning a judge to order the family “It’s clear that ACS is trying to ensure that children
to engage in services while ACS monitors children’s can stay home safely as much as possible,” says
safety. Ronald Richter, who served as the commissioner of
ACS from 2011 to 2013, and subsequently as a Family
In the 20 months after Zymere Perkins died, ACS Court judge. “It’s admirable that they’re really trying
filed Family Court petitions involving close to 26,000 not to just bring kids into care.”
children—a 54 percent jump over a corresponding
timespan beginning in 2014. But the escalation in neglect and abuse investigations
has other consequences—starting with the casework-

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 ers who conduct the investigating. According to ACS action, Richter says. “But they’re anxious: Maybe
data, average caseloads among child protective work- there’s something here.”
ers have gone up, citywide, from 11.6 in May 2015
to 13.9 in May 2018. The increase is much starker in The most extreme choice child protective staff can
the Bronx and Staten Island, where caseworkers carry make is what’s called an “emergency removal”—in
average reported caseloads of approximately 16. other words, taking a child out of a home before the
case even appears before a Family Court judge. ACS
Those numbers are worrying, Richter says. “A sustain- data show a sharp increase in such removals: Between
able caseload in New York City is eight. If caseloads October 2016 and May 2018, ACS reported approxi-
are at 14, your caseworkers are just not able to do mately 2,300 emergency removals—a 28 percent jump
what they need to do.” from a corresponding 20-month span before the crisis.

ACS has hired several hundred frontline staff in the These numbers are partial, however, since they in-
past year, but child protective caseworkers are noto- clude only emergency removals that were approved
riously difficult to retain. “ACS may hire 300 people, by a judge on the first day that a case appeared in
but 40 percent are going to be gone,” Richter says. court. ACS does not publicly report emergency re-
moval cases in which a child is reunited with his or
Caseworkers who stay work long hours, making high- her family at the initial court hearing, or in which the
stakes decisions under intense pressure—often based judge makes a decision after the first day. (Upon re-
on interactions with people who want nothing to do quest, ACS did not disclose the total number of emer-
with them. Higher caseloads mean there’s a greater gency removals.)
chance of missing something important or making a
wrong call, said one longtime child protective case- Lawyers who represent parents in Family Court say
worker, who requested anonymity because she’s not that ACS seems, more frequently, to be making emer-
authorized by ACS to speak publicly. gency removals that aren’t justified by a child’s cir-
cumstances. “Those are the removals that are the most
A lasting consequence of the crisis surrounding traumatic for children,” says Emma Ketteringham,
Zymere Perkins’s death, the caseworker said, is that the managing director of the Family Defense Project
frontline ACS staff are more inclined to recommend at The Bronx Defenders. “They’re often done in the
that cases be taken to court, rather than allowing fami- middle of the night, without preparation. You find
lies to do voluntary services. out five minutes before that your child is going to be
removed.”
“At this point everybody’s so afraid, they’d rather
cover their ass,” the caseworker said. “Take the case The rise in emergency removals, Ketteringham argues,
to court and let the judge say no. Then we can docu- is the clearest indication that an over-reactive child
ment we tried. Nobody wants to end up with their face welfare system can hurt children—especially in the
in the Daily News. They don’t want to face criminal context of the current conversation about children sep-
charges.” arated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Once ACS decides to file a case, however, it’s unlikely “With all of this attention being paid, nationally, to
that a judge will dismiss it outright, says Richter, the what removing a child from a parent actually looks
former ACS commissioner and Family Court judge. and sounds like, it’s no different when a child is re-
“Judges may yell and get frustrated with ACS” for moved from a parent here in the Bronx,” she says.
filing a petition without a strong enough cause of

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 Data Analysis: Increased Child Welfare Activity Since October 2016

As the Center for New York City Affairs reported in sponding months of different years, including the most
our 2017 brief, “ACS in Overdrive,” there was a surge recent month for which ACS has published data. (In
in activity, across the child welfare system, imme- most cases, data run through May 2018; in a few cases
diately following a highly publicized child death in the most recent month available is March or April).
late September 2016. Now, more than a year and a
half later, child welfare activity remains significantly To assess the recent trends for these key indicators, we
higher than in the period preceding the 2016 surge. present the data in two formats. The first is a bar chart
For example, the number of children involved in court that presents a before-and-after look at each indicator,
cases filed by ACS has jumped by 54 percent. Average comparing the months from October 2016 to the pres-
monthly caseloads among frontline ACS child protec- ent with a corresponding, prior interval. That is, these
tive workers have increased significantly since 2014, data generally compare October 2014 - May 2016 with
in some boroughs by more than 60 percent. October 2016 - May 2018. The second format is a line
graph showing monthly data from 2015 into 2018. In
Below we present data, compiled from monthly ACS general, the data show that child welfare activity has
Flash reports, on a number of indicators of the sys- been consistently higher since October 2016 than in
tem’s activity and its impact on families. Child wel- prior recent years.
fare activity fluctuates throughout the year, rising and
falling in response to regular events, particularly the All data come from ACS Flash reports.
school calendar. For this reason, we compare corre-

Reports of Abuse and Neglect to the State Central Register

Before and Since October 2016
Starting in October 2016, there was a spike in reports of abuse and
neglect to the State Central Register (SCR). Overall, there has been
a nearly 11 percent increase in reports over the 20 months since
October 2016, as compared to the corresponding 20 months from
Number of Reports

October 2014 to May 2016.

Reports of Abuse and Neglect, by Year

(scale starts at 3000)
Number of Reports

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 Rate at Which ACS Found Reports to be Indicated
Before and Since October 2016
Once a report is made to the SCR, it is investigated by the child protec-
tive arm of ACS to determine whether or not it is “indicated,” meaning
ACS found some credible evidence that a child has experienced abuse
or neglect. While the number of investigations has gone up significantly,
indication rates have not drastically changed. The slightly higher indi-
Indication Rate

cation rate for the most recent 18 months represents an additional 4,000
indicated reports.

Indication Rate, by Year

(scale starts at 30%)
Indication Rate

Average Caseload Among ACS Caseworkers

Average Monthly Caseload
(scale starts at 6)

As the number of families in the child

welfare system has increased, caseloads
among ACS child protective workers have
gone up. ACS did not report caseloads for
Average Caseload

the first three months of 2018. However,

a cross-year comparison of caseloads in
May (the most recent month for which
data are available) shows that caseloads
have generally been increasing since 2015
across New York City, rising from 11.6
Average Caseload at ACS for Month of May, by Borough
to 13.9. Some boroughs had caseloads
significantly above the citywide average in
May 2018—including the Bronx, at 15.9
and Staten Island at 16.
Average Caseload

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 Preventive Cases Opened Preventive Cases Closed
Before and Since October 2016 Before and Since October 2016

Preventive Cases Closed

Preventive Cases Opened

Since the high-profile child death in September 2016, tive cases than in the 20 months from October 2014 to
there has been a significant slowdown in opening new May 2016.
preventive service cases, with the result that families
may wait for months to participate in programs that Because preventive service providers have limited ca-
have been required of them by Family Court judges. pacity, a slowdown in case closings means fewer new
cases can be opened. Over the past 20 months, ACS
This trend began with a slowdown in preventive case has opened 13 percent fewer new preventive cases
closings—a cautious measure aimed at ensuring that than from October 2014 to May 2016.
families had received services and made the changes
ACS deemed necessary to keep children safe. The ACS reports that there are currently close to 27,000
consequences have persisted: In the 20 months since children in preventive service cases.
October 2016, ACS closed 18 percent fewer preven-

Preventive Cases Opened, by Year Preventive Cases Closed, by Year

Preventive Cases Closed (scale starts at 300)
Preventive Cases Opened (scale starts at 500)

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 Children with Court Cases Filed by ACS
Before and Since October 2016
ACS has become far more likely to bring investigated families to Family
Court. Following a steep increase after September 2016, the number of chil-
dren with court cases filed by ACS remained high throughout 2017 and, de-
spite a decrease in the beginning of 2018, remains higher than at any point in
2015. Over the past 20 months, close to 26,000 children had court cases filed
by ACS, an increase of 54 percent compared to the 20 months from October
Number of Children

2014 to May 2016.

Children with Court Cases Filed by ACS, by Year
(scale starts at 600)
Number of Children

Emergency Removals Confirmed at Initial Hearing

Before and Since October 2016
If, while investigating a report of abuse or neglect, ACS determines that a
child is not safe at home, ACS may conduct an emergency removal, taking
children out of a home prior to a court hearing. Over the past 20 months,
emergency removals that were approved at the initial hearing went up by 28
percent, compared to the 20 months from October 2014 to May 2016.
Number of Children

ACS reports only the number of removals that were approved by a judge on
the first day of the the initial hearing. CNYCA’s requests to ACS for the total
number of emergency removals were denied.
Emergency Removals (Confirmed at Initial Hearing), by Year
(scale starts at 60)
Number of Children

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 New Foster Care Placements
Before and Since October 2016
New foster care placements, which have been on a downward trend for years,
went up moderately in 2017 and have come back down in 2018. The overall
increase is not proportional to the increase in reports of abuse and neglect or
the increase in court cases filed by ACS. From October 2016 to April 2018,
new foster care placements were 3.8 percent higher than during the period from
Number of Placements

October 2014 to April 2016, which meant 230 more foster care placements.

New Foster Care Placements, by Year

(Scale starts at 200)
Number of Placements

Endnote

1
Child welfare activity fluctuates according to annual patterns. For this reason, we select corresponding months
when making comparisons between different years. (For example, most of our bar charts compare October
2016-May 2018 to October 2014-May 2016, rather than simply 20 months before and after October 2016). In
all cases, we include data through the most recent month for which they are available.

All data come from ACS monthly Flash reports.

This brief is made possible thanks to the generous support

of the Ira W. DeCamp Foundation, the Child Welfare Fund,
and the Sirus Fund.