Your Family, Your Rights

Are You Being Investigated By the New York City's Administration for Children's Services (ACS)? Know Your Rights. Protect Your Family. Help Change the System.

A mother and her two children holding a handmade sign that reads: I love my family.
A mother looking lovingly at her toddler.
Get Informed

Know Your Rights

"Your Family, Your Rights" is for parents or caretakers who are being investigated by New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Here you will find information about your rights, how to navigate an investigation and how to advocate for your family.
A father and his daughter smiling next to his advocate.
Get Help

You're Not Alone

There are organizations helping parents like you through this process, and "Your Family, Your Rights" will tell you where to find an advocate who can help you.
Advocates holding a Parent Legislative Action Network banner as they march across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Get Involved

Make Change

Here you will find information about how to get involved with other parents who have been impacted by the family regulation system and want to change it. Change is needed. Together, we can help make this a more humane and less punitive system.

Testimonial

“I have worked with [a parent defender office in my borough] for quite some time now. Recently I began working with the Early Defense team during an open investigation I had with ACS. I am a single mother of 2 and I have children that require a lot of services due to their needs. When [my early defense team social worker] started working with me on my case, I felt so confident and secure...I think that if I hadn’t had the support of [an Early Defense team], I wouldn’t have been able to fight off ACS from trying to remove my kids. I think that every parent should have an advocate.”

Ms. W, Parent

Recent Updates

Acspolice
What to Do When Children’s Services Comes to the Door

Every year, the Administration for Children’s Services visits families in New York City tens of thousands of times. Typically, those investigations start with a knock on the door as staff members of the child welfare agency try to assess reports of abuse or neglect by a parent or other family member. That first moment is often stressful and traumatic, say advocates and attorneys for families, and always crucial in shaping the future of the investigation.

The City10/5/2023
New York Pandemic ACS
Pandemic Shows New York Is Too Quick to Split Families, Advocates Say

Some critics of the Administration for Children’s Services said this unintended experiment proved that the agency was overpolicing families and that it should permanently ramp down surveillance.

New York Times3/15/2023
A new law co drafted by Christine Gottlieb 97 protects custody rights for unmarried fathers
A new law co-drafted by Christine Gottlieb ’97 protects custody rights for unmarried fathers

Under New York domestic relations law, unmarried fathers were often considered ineligible for hearings to prove their fitness to parent if their child was put into foster care by the state. But a new law changes that.

NYU Law2/9/2023
NY Law Journal
Hochul Signs Into Law Measure Granting Custody Hearings to Unwed Fathers

The law aims to bring fairness to birth fathers by granting full and fair hearings regarding their fitness to care for children who were moved into foster care by the state.

New York Law Journal1/4/2023
In Child Welfare Cases Most of Your Constitutional Rights Dont Apply
In Child Welfare Cases, Most of Your Constitutional Rights Don’t Apply

The child welfare system rarely offers the same rights as the criminal justice system, leaving many families facing permanent separation without due process protections.

ProPublica12/29/2022
TPR Article
The “Death Penalty” of Child Welfare: In Six Months or Less, Some Parents Lose Their Kids Forever

Twenty-five years ago, Congress passed a law aimed at speeding up adoptions of children languishing in foster care. In the process, it destroyed hundreds of thousands of families through the termination of parental rights.

ProPublica12/20/2022
Stop tearing Americas families apart
Op-Ed: Stop tearing America’s families apart

Our collective experience of representing nearly 40,000 New York City parents over the past 15 years makes clear that the Adoption and Safe Families Act must be repealed.

New York Daily News12/12/2022
Experts Say
Fostering tragedy: Experts say system designed to protect children can break up families

"This system is a $30 billion system. It would be so much more beneficial for children to take those $30+ billion and give it directly to families for meeting their children's needs, to spend it on housing, on clothing, on food, on medical care" says Professor Roberts.

CBS News12/4/2022
ACS NYT Report
Is N.Y.’s Child Welfare System Racist? Some of Its Own Workers Say Yes.

For decades, Black families have seen that the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, is biased against them. It turns out that many of the agency’s own employees agree, according to a racial equity audit the agency commissioned but never publicly released.

New York Times11/22/2022
Violating rights in the name of protecting kids
Op-Ed: Violating rights in the name of protecting kids

As a family defense attorney in ACS cases and a scholar of the Fourth Amendment in child protection (or, more aptly named, family policing) investigations, Tarek Z. Ismail writes about the coercive and invasive nature of ACS investigations.

New York Daily News10/18/2022
PoliceNeedWarrants
Police Need Warrants to Search Homes. Child Welfare Agents Almost Never Get One.

Each year, child protective services agencies inspect the homes of roughly 3.5 million children, opening refrigerators and closets without a warrant. Only about 5% of these kids are ultimately found to have been physically or sexually abused.

ProPublica10/13/2022
Unprotected
Unprotected: An inside look at NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services searches

In an NBC News-ProPublica investigation, Kate Snow takes a deep dive into New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services searches. She spoke with one mother, Shalonda Curtis-Hackett, who explains why she felt she “couldn’t say no” when a caseworker came to search her house.

NBC News10/13/2022
Joyce Mc Millan Ad Campaign
A parent-empowering ad campaign runs through the Bronx

Joyce McMillan, a parents' rights activist, started an ad campaign in the Bronx that aims to empower those whose lives are entangled with the child welfare system.

Gothamist9/5/2022
NYC child welfare agency still citing marijuana in family separations despite legalization state policy change
NYC child welfare agency still citing marijuana in family separations despite legalization, state policy change

New York City’s child welfare system has been slow to change since changing its policy and since legalization, with marijuana continuing to be used as a cudgel against families.

Gothamist9/2/2022
New York Lawmakers Reject Parents Rights Bills
New York Lawmakers Reject Parents’ Rights Bills

The New York state Legislature has failed to pass three proposed laws that would have expanded the due process rights of parents in the child welfare system.

The Imprint6/6/2022
New York Campaign Aims to Stop Womb to Foster Care Pipeline
New York Campaign Aims to Stop ‘Womb-to-Foster Care Pipeline’

Advocates want women statewide to be informed and agree to maternal and infant drug tests

The Imprint4/13/2022
Rise Magazine
New SCR Legislation Took Effect January 1st: What it Means for Parents

At the start of 2022, legislation went into effect that changes how New York State’s Statewide Central Registry (SCR) operates. The legislation was developed and pushed forward by parent activists and allies to reduce the harm and scope of the SCR, which particularly impacts Black and Latinx families and communities.

Rise Magazine1/18/2022
Screen Shot 2021 08 18 at 4 30 40 PM
How the Pandemic Became an Unplanned Experiment in Abolishing the Child Welfare System

Fears about the spike in abuse were proved wrong. Now mothers with firsthand experience of the system want to transform its approach to family safety, which is rooted in racist surveillance and carceral intervention.

The New Republic8/18/2021
Screen Shot 2021 06 25 at 2 52 17 PM
Why a Child Welfare 'Miranda Rights' Law Is Essential | A Q&A with Advocate and Organizer Joyce McMillan

Urban Matters recently caught up with Center for New York City Affairs visiting fellow Joyce McMillan. McMillan is a thought leader, advocate, activist, community organizer, and educator. Much of her work focuses on reforming the child welfare system by raising awareness of the racial disparities embedded in child welfare practices and policies. McMillian is the founder of JMacForFamilies and the advocacy group Parent Legislative Action Network (PLAN).

The New School, Center for New York Affairs6/2/2021