On a recent Tuesday afternoon, a parent in Manhattan Family Treatment Court faced Judge Gloria Sosa-Lintner. In a courtroom the size of an ordinary living room, the parent, a recovering drug user, sat in a bright orange plastic chair and told the judge and a roomful of lawyers and child welfare workers that she had been clean for 50 days.
“ How about some applause,” she demanded. Sosa-Lintner and the lawyers clapped enthusiastically. Then the judge granted her more visiting time with her kids. “You look good today,” Sosa-Lintner told the parent.
“ So do you!” the parent responded. “I love you guys! I love my program! I’m happy.” She turned to the bailiff and said, “I love you too!”
Such ebullience was understandable. This parent, one of many foster parents with a history of drug alcohol abuse, was one day closer to getting her kids back.
According to the Child Welfare League of America, a least half of all kids in foster care have parents who abuse drugs or alcohol. The children of parents who abuse alcohol or drugs are three times more likely to be abused and four times more likely to be neglected than other kids. But typically, drug and alcohol treatment for parents with kids in care is kept separate from their dealings with family court and the foster care system. This makes it difficult for family court judges to monitor a parent’s progress fighting addiction and to make informed decisions regarding whether it will be safe for a child to return home.
Family Treatment Court tries to address that gap. At the court, parents who have lost their kids to foster care, or are in danger of losing them because of drug or alcohol problems, get support (and sometimes admonishment) for their efforts fighting addictions. The court provides intensive services and monitoring to help parents recover and get their kids back and enables judges to better assess parents' progress.
The court formed in response to New York City’s crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s that put so many kids in foster care. The program was one of the first of its kind in the country.
Back then, said court referee Susan Doherty, existing drug treatment programs were not working with people with crack addiction. Many kids whose parents were abusing the drug went into foster care and never went back home.
Much has changed since then. Now, when a parent charged with neglect is a substance abuser, New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services has the option to send them to Family Treatment Court. Parents are not forced to participate. Instead they are assigned a lawyer trained in addiction issues who helps them decide if they are ready for the program.
“ What we tell them is that treatment court is harder [than regular family court], because they have to come to court more frequently and follow extra regulations, like taking drug tests,” said Doherty. “But it gives them a better chance of getting their kids back or of keeping them from going into the system, and it gives them a better chance of getting rid of their drug problem.”
Confronted with these options, not every parent says yes. “People have to be ready and willing to change,” said Sosa-Lintner who, like Doherty, has worked at the Manhattan court since 1998.
Once a parent decides to participate, they must first admit to being a substance abuser. “They have to tell the court, â€yes, I have a drug problem,’” Doherty explained. This is not only the first step in recovery, but is legally required if the court is to take on the case.
Once in the program, each parent meets with a case manager who matches them with the appropriate drug treatment program: a day-treatment program, a residential program or evening sessions. Whatever the program, it must send the court a monthly progress report about how the parent is doing, and if he or she has been making visits with their kids.
To graduate from the FTC, parents need to meet several goals. They have to complete a treatment program, stay clean for at least one uninterrupted year, be able to support their children and complete a parenting skills program. They also may have to find a new job or housing to get their kids back.
But even if parents do all of this, there is no guarantee that they will get their kids back. Some parents might take so long to finish the program that their kids have formed a bond with whomever is caring for them and they are staying with, and a judge may determine that it is not right to move them again While parents stay in the treatment court for an average of two years, it takes some much longer to stay clean and do what they need to do to care for their children.
The potential for relapse is a reality in any drug or alcohol treatment program. Family Treatment Court tries to give most parents another chance, if they can explain why they relapsed and get back on track. “Parents relapse all the time. We recognize relapse is a part of recovery,” Doherty said. “What’s important for us is how they handle it.”
One afternoon in the court, one parent had tested positive for alcohol when she arrived. When the judge asked her about it, she revealed that she had downed some glasses of wine the night before at a party.
The judge got a little tough on the woman, reminding her that, if she wanted her kids back, she had to successfully complete a treatment program.
Another mother, who was in and out of her program, offered no explanation for dates she had missed. A court worker said that the woman had tested positive for cocaine that morning.
Sosa-Lintner said that the woman’s children would be placed at their grandmother’s house that night. The mother asked for a referral to a 28-day detox program. After that, she hoped she would be clean enough to continue through with the treatment program.
Other parents celebrated their success. One woman got a certificate as a reward for completing “Phase One,” after being clean for four months straight. Now she was ready for Phase Two, another four months of sobriety and treatment along with parenting skills classes.
Denise Dizzine, a court case manager, explained that the court uses rewards and sanctions. “Sanctions might be meeting with a case manager every week or writing an essay about why it’s important for them to be in treatment,” said Dizzine. Rewards include perks like a journal, a supportive message from the judge, or more visits with their kids.
This model has proven so successful that today there are 48 family treatment courts in New York State alone.
“ The court acts like a parent figure,” Sosa-Lintner in explaining its success. “The people that come before Susan and me are usually young people, who haven’t completed much in their lives. They are looking for praise, and they’re also looking for the court to chastise them if they do wrong. People come to treatment court because they’re hopeful something will click.”
And for many people who come through court it does eventually click. As of February, 2007, the court had worked with 916 parents from 816 families, and 354 parents had graduated. Doherty would like to see it reach even more families. “I think the court is working great,” she said. “I wish it was working better. I wish that these resources -- the close monitoring, the support -- were available to all parents in family court.”
This article by La’Quesha Barner, a writer for Represent, written by and for foster teens, is adapted from the pages of our partner, Youth Communication. Â
New York City recently concluded its Summer Youth Employment Program, a highly regarded city-run initiative that placed more than 41,000 New Yorkers ages 14 to 21 into publicly subsidized temporary jobs this summer. Young people participating in the program worked for employers from major corporations like JP Morgan Chase to local libraries and day camps. The experience provided structure to their summer, helped them earn spending money and gave them an invaluable introduction to the world of work that, according to leading workforce experts, will greatly improve their chances of success later on in life.
Unfortunately, the program serves only a fraction of the young people who could benefit from it. While the number of job openings remained virtually stagnant from 2006 to 2007, applications jumped from about 72,000 to over 93,000. In other words, the city had to turn away more than 50,000 youngsters from across the five boroughs who applied for the program this summer. Overall, the Summer Youth Employment Program now serves 20 percent fewer participants than it did in 1999, when the federal government provided funding for it.
The gaps in summer program are particularly troubling because teenagers here face the most challenging labor market in the country. New York has the lowest teen employment rate of any of the nation’s 20 largest cities, with fewer than 16 teens per hundred employed—less than half the nationwide rate. Labor market experts speculate that the city’s large number of immigrants compete with teens for entry-level jobs, explaining the dismal figure. Even worse, the likelihood of finding a job drops with family income: In 2005, teenagers from families earning less than $20,000 per year had less than half the work participation rate (9.9 percent) as their counterparts from families making more than $80,000 annually (20.6 percent). In other words, the kids who could most benefit from jobs are the least likely to get them.
Having a summer job undoubtedly gives city teens a leg up. In economic researchers Andrew Sum, Neeta Fogg and Garth Mangum found that the benefits of early employment are considerable and lasting -- particularly for young people who do not plan to attend college immediately. Those benefits include a smoother transition to the labor market and higher weekly and yearly earnings for up to 15 years after graduating high school. Early participation in the labor market is among the strongest indicators of sustained employment and higher earnings later on in life. There is even some evidence that suggests young people who work are less likely to drop out of high school than those who don’t have jobs.
As the Center for an Urban Future reported in June, the Summer Youth Employment Program can’t serve more young New Yorkers largely because federal funding has all but disappeared over the last decade. In 1999, Washington provided the program with over $42 million. That figure fell to less than $5 million this year. The Bloomberg administration has admirably stepped into the breach, devoting $32.5 million in city funds toward summer jobs this year. And the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development has generally earned high marks for its management of the program. But city resources alone cannot be sufficient to provide a summer job to every kid who wants one—which should be the goal.
Before next summer, the city’s congressional delegation should push for a renewed federal commitment to summer youth programs in New York and elsewhere. At the same time, the city’s business community, which has a clear interest in ensuring the workforce of tomorrow will be well prepared, needs to become more involved in the program. While individual employers and certain sectors have invested time and effort in strengthening youth employment, far too few have made it a priority.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg should make a direct appeal to his former private-sector compatriots to take placements for the Summer Youth Employment Program and related programs, notably CAPITAL (Corporate Allies Program for Internships, Training and Leadership). Launched in 2006 as a “next step” for successful former participants in the summer youth program, who are deemed ready for more demanding work with business employers, CAPITAL expanded from 50 placements in its first year to a still-modest 82 in 2007. Given the size and scope of the city’s business community, the program very easily could accommodate 10 times that number by next year.
With so much to gain for the youngsters themselves and so much at stake for New York City’s economy, federal officials and local business leaders need to take action now to ensure that next year more than 50,000 New York City teens who want to work are not left idle.
David Fischer is project director for Workforce Development and Social Policy at the Center for an Urban Future.
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For years government has given money to poor people. Usually the payment has been based on need—income, number of children, expenses and so one. Now Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken a different approach. Hs administration plans to give money to poor people but they have to “earn” it by keeping jobs, sending their children to school and going to the doctor.
This approach, which has never been tried in this country, is part of Bloomberg’s second-term agenda for reducing poverty and increasing economic opportunity in New York. For now, it is privately funded, but, if it succeeds, the government could pick up all or part of the cost in the future.
While some hail the payments as a bold new approach, the plan has attracted controversy. Some charge it advances the idea that poor people are poor because of the things they do – or do not do. Others question whether poor people deserve a reward for doing things they should do anyway, such as take their children to the doctor.
The family-focused pilot program will give money to families in three areas: early education, family health and adults’ workforce skills and job training. To test the idea, it will give money to 2,550 families with incomes below 130 percent of the federal poverty level -- around $22,000 for a family of three -- who have at least one child in public school in either fourth, seventh or ninth grade. The selected neighborhoods include Central and East Harlem in Manhattan, Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn, and Morris Heights/Mount Hope and East Tremont/Belmont in the Bronx, among the city’s poorest communities
The design was largely based on Mexico’s Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program, which Bloomberg visited in late April. In explaining the idea at the time, Bloomberg said, “For all of us the stress of our daily lives can cause us to make decisions that aren’t always in our best interests. Living in poverty makes it even more difficult and can lead to missing a doctor's visit, for example.…The Opportunity NYC programgives New Yorkers in poverty a financial incentive to look ahead and to make decisions that will improve their prospects for the future.”
Jillynn Stevens, director of policy, advocacy and research for the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, sees merit in at least trying this new approach. “It’s obviously directed at rewarding behavior that helps people improve their life situations,” she said. “And we think this is more productive than a punitive approach, like withholding or sanctions or any other numbers of things.”
The plan has attracted criticism as well. Heather MacDonald of the conservative Manhattan Institute says such payments deprive people of the normal inducements to properly care for their families. “It could destroy the ordinary incentive system that usually motivates people to engage in good" behavior, she has said. "You are going to create in people the expectation that they should do such proper things as take their children to school or study only if they are bribed by the government. I think the potential for unintentional consequences for this program are absolutely enormous."
Others see the payment plan as blaming the poor for being poor. “It just reinforces the impression that if everybody would just work hard enough and change their personal behavior we could solve poverty in this country, and that's not reflected in the facts," said Margy Waller, a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration and co-founder of Inclusion, a research and policy group in Washington.
Most of the criticism has focused on the education part of the program –giving students money for attending school, getting good grades and passing their state Regents exams.
The educational component was designed by Roland Fryer, a Harvard assistant professor of economics, who has taken a leave of absence to serve as the “chief equality officer” for the New York City Department of Education. He will also administer and assess the program.
Critics argue that kids should not be lured into learning by money. Tim Johnson, chairman of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, has said that the program will foster “ill will.” Other critics, such as Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, expressconcern that instant money undermines the idea of learning for its own sake and that the money should rather be put into college funds.
Others fear cash payments will put even more pressure on already overwrought youngsters. Jane Hirschmann, co-chairwoman of Time Out From Testing, said she met with a group of such fifth graders recently. “I asked them what they thought,” she said, “and they said, â€You can’t believe the pressure on us right now … My father will be on my back all the time because $300 is a lot to my family.’”
Despite the criticism, Fryer said the program deserves a try. “One can argue philosophically about whether incentives are a good thing,” he has said. “But the fact is that the average black 17-year-old reads at the same level as the average white 13-year-old. This problem is beyond philosophy, and we have to do something.”
Whatever the criticism, enrollment for the program has already begun. Families receive different amounts of money for different achievements. For example, elementary and middle school students will get $25 per month for 95 percent school attendance and high schools kids will get $50. Money incentives will also be given for attendance at parent-teacher conferences, having a library card, accumulating credits and graduating. Students can get up to $600 for each Regent exam passed.
Under the health incentive, families will receive from $20 to $200 a month for maintaining health insurance and getting preventative health and dental care. The workforce incentives, ranging from $150 to $600, include payments for keeping full-time employment and attending training while employed.
Once a family is enrolled in the program, members are eligible for all of its components. They will learn about the incentives in orientation sessions.
Seedco, a national community development organization, will manage the implementation and operation of the program. Seedco has partnered with six community-based organizations in each of the targeted communities that are leading the outreach, recruitment and enrollment of families.
In Brooklyn, Seedco is working with Groundwork, which provides educational programs and support services to families living there. During the first week of June, Groundwork enrolled 25 families in the program. By mid August, the number reached 221. Erica Ahdoot, director of the family resource center at Groundwork said that a total of 850 families will receive incentives from the organization
To recruit people, Groundwork hired a team to knock on doors and make telephone calls. “Some people are skeptical that this can’t be true, but we are trying to encourage people that this is a long term benefit,” Ahdoot said. “We contact them numerous times to make sure we exhausted out effort to get them to participate, but once they are past the idea that it’s an actual program, for the most part they are excited.”
Opportunity NYC is privately funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the American International Group, the Broad Foundation, Mayor Bloomberg and other sources. Eventually though the project could be publicly funded.
Before that can happen though, the government must determine whether the effort has been successful. To do that, MDRC, a non-for-profit social policy and research firm, will compare families receiving the incentives with those in a control group.
“The pilot …will run for two to three years depending on funding levels,” said Dawn Walker of the mayor’s press office. As the program proceeds and for as many as four years after it ends, she said, a “long-term evaluation will help identify what long-term impacts the incentives have on participant families.”
The results of that study could determine whether this pilot program eventually changes the way we address poverty in New York City and beyond. Â