The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients’ rights, reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system. CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams and now has 6 parent advocates working in all three of our family defense locations. CFR’s Community Advocacy Project represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible) and assists parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records.

As an agency committed to securing justice for families, we built the Youth Defense practice (YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens and Manhattan in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to clients in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters, to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability.

Recognized as experts in our fields, we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation, and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents, youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that reduce the harm of family separation, and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families.

CFR has an immediate opening for a Family Advocate in our Manhattan office.

Family Advocates are members of the social work staff.

Tasks and responsibilities include the following:

• Work as part of CFR’s interdisciplinary legal teams (comprised of attorneys, social work staff, paralegals and parent advocates) to provide our clients with high quality legal defense and meet objectives such as keeping children out of foster care, shortening lengths of stay for children in foster care, promoting quality visiting arrangements and insuring that families receive services that are well-tailored to expediting safe and lasting reunification

• Provide direct social work support and advocacy to clients

• Conduct intake and client interviews, assess clients’ needs and goals, and ensure clients are engaged in appropriate and meaningful service plans

• Maintain contact with service providers, and advocating for clients at ACS and foster care agency conferences

• Advocate for clients at ACS and foster care agency conferences

• Participate in team meetings as well as administrative meetings within CFR

Family Advocates receive supervision from Social Work Supervisors and are expected to keep case data and client legal notes, and files up to date. Family Advocates joining CFR can expect intensive, interdisciplinary training on CFR’s Cornerstone Advocacy model, child welfare, family court, client interviewing and other critical skills. CFR is dedicated to providing ongoing professional development in all these areas in a variety of training forums for all staff.

• Applicants must have a Bachelor’s degree, preferably with some prior experience with the NYC child welfare, education, housing or public benefits’ systems or other social justice experience.

• Applicants should be able to demonstrate a strong undergraduate academic record, strong interpersonal and communication skills, a commitment to supporting families, and a desire to share in both the exhilaration and challenges of a growing endeavor.

• Fluency in Spanish is preferred.