By SABRA JACKSON

In 2000, I was looking for refuge after a traumatic episode of domestic violence. I joined the Voices of Women Organizing Project (VOW), an advocacy group of domestic violence survivors.

When I told my story to the other women at VOW, I felt safe, and through our efforts to improve how women and their children are treated by the family court and child welfare system, I feel vindicated.

I spoke with VOW Founder and Director Susan Lob about why she started VOW and how our organization effects change in the child welfare system. Here’s what she said:

In the late 1990s it became clear that the New York City foster care system (now called ACS) was removing children from battered mothers simply because there was domestic violence in the home, even when the children were not present and when the mother was a good mother. It was such an outrageous development.

Passionate About Reform

We started VOW in 2000. Our members felt passionate about reforming domestic violence policies at ACS, in particular. A lot of families come to the attention of the system because of domestic violence, and about half of men who abuse their wives also abuse their children.

Over the years, ACS has worked closely with advocates and survivors to develop better policies. The present commissioner, John Mattingly, was the first to sit in the room with domestic violence survivors and hear directly about their experiences with the agency. VOW members sit on the Domestic Violence Advisory Committee and the Parent Advisory Workgroup.

On paper, the policies are really great. Now we’re working on actually making those policies happen on the front lines. We have a 16-point list of recommendations of policy and practice improvements, and we keep track of the progress made on each.

A Positive Direction

One concern of ours has been that batterers, in particular, often make false and malicious reports to the child abuse hotline. There’s been a reluctance to address this because no one wants to discourage legitimate reports. But we recently worked on a case where ACS was called about 30 times to a home because of a false allegation. That’s traumatic to the family and a waste of the city’s time and resources.

Now ACS has a protocol for workers to follow when they suspect false reports. (They’re supposed to contact the liaison between child protection and the DA’s office.) In their latest media campaign, ACS included a line warning that false and malicious reports are a crime, and they now have it on their website and in brochures.

We’ve also made recommendations around training. ACS provides good training now on domestic violence, but good casework is about sensitivity and requires ongoing support.

Changing the system is often compared to turning the Queen Mary around in a small channel, but I feel positive about the direction that ACS is going in. It’s a good sign that survivors are, for the first time, involved in giving feedback to the commissioner and staff and that the domestic violence staff are responsive.