Jessica Marcus, a staff attorney in the Family Law Unit at South Brooklyn Legal Services, explains the rights and responsibilities of parents seeking drug treatment.
Q: Will my kids be put in foster care if I tell someone I need treatment for a problem with drugs or alcohol?
A: If you go to a treatment program, they shouldn’t open a case. If you go to a preventive services program for help with a drug addiction (or any … Read More
One morning I woke up dope sick. I needed a bag of heroin. I said to myself, “I’m not just going to lie here sick.” So I got up and went to a dope dealer I knew and told him to help me out with a bag. He said to me, “Here, do this bag and sell these.”
I went in the bathroom and got my fix. That day the dope was very strong so I … Read More
In the months before I got my sons home from foster care, I built a bond with my boys. I picked them up every other weekend and always had some- thing planned for us to do as a family. We went out to the movies, the beach, the pool, a museum or the library. Sometimes we would just stay home and play family games. I would also make them their favorite foods. But the one … Read More
My mother and I used to fight so much that she put me in a group home. My mom would come and visit once every two weeks. During the visits, sometimes we would fight. We’d fuss about my behavior at home and about when I could come home again.
I would get extremely mad and start yelling and she would yell at me, too.
Eventually they moved me farther away from my mom because we were fighting … Read More
• Your visits should be unsupervised unless the agency has a reason to supervise the visits. Visits should only be supervised if necessary to protect your child, to prevent your child’s court testimony
from being influenced, or if a court orders the supervision. The agency can supervise some visits to assess your fam- ily interactions, but it does not have to supervise them all.
• If visits are supervised, the least amount of supervision necessary should be … Read More
