There are many good people working for CPS (Child Protective Services) and ACS (Administration for Children’s Services) which acts as a CPS agency in the City of New York. However, there have been many reports of abusive, overly aggressive, inappropriate actions being taken by CPS and ACS investigators in recent years. CPS and ACS operate under the theory of “error on the side of the child. It can make determinations that remove children from their parents’ homes without due process, proper investigations or actual probably cause to remove them from their parents’ home.”
Terrible Family Situations
Unfortunately, there are many terrible situations that CPS and ACS workers respond to, and in due to these terrible situations involving child abuse and child neglect sometimes the workers become jaded. Since they have experienced terrible child abuse and child neglect situations they anticipate there will be child abuse or child neglect in virtually every situation they are called to investigate. There are cases where children are abused, molested and even raped. But this is not every case. CPS and ACS investigators whose attitudes are tarnished by the bad cases can do terrible damage to situations that are incidents which do not involve child abuse or child neglect and involve good, caring, loving parents from excellent households.
Parents’ Rights
A parents’ right to raise their children is one of the most basic rights that exists.
Wrongful Termination of Parental Rights
The system involving CPS and ACS removing children from their parents is often based on misinformation, the lack of proper investigation and the overreaction from the CPS and ACS investigators. These actions by CPS and ACS investigators can create incredible injustices which result in children being removed from their parents’ homes. Our law office has been involved in numerous cases where there have been overreactions to incidents without proper investigations or lack of any investigation and improper actions being taken against good loving parents by ACS and CPS.
Elliot S. Schlissel, Esq. is the managing partner of Schlissel DeCorpo LLP. The law firm has been representing parents, grandparents and other individuals involved with allegations of child abuse and child neglect concerning CPS and ACS for more than 3 decades. The firm can be reached either at 800-344-6431 or e-mailed at Elliot@sdnylaw.com.
