No one ever accused Kyon of harming her child. But for nine months in 2024, caseworkers from the city Administration for Children’s Services regularly visited her home, inspected her son’s body, looked through every room and searched her refrigerator.
It started after Kyon’s boyfriend at the time beat her in front of their then-14-month-old-son, according to court papers. ACS opened a case against the father, accusing him of neglecting his child by committing domestic violence in front of him.
But even though Kyon wasn’t accused of wrongdoing and never lost custody of her son, she was placed under ACS supervision.
Now, an appellate court has ruled that ACS’ visits with Kyon amounted to illegal surveillance, after she challenged the agency’s practices in court.
“Essentially, the ACS policy at issue in this case permits it to surveil the mother simply because the child’s father committed acts of domestic violence against her,” Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer wrote in the court’s ruling. “We cannot condone a policy based on this faulty and unlawful premise.”
The ruling could spare thousands of other kids and domestic violence survivors from intrusive and unlawful surveillance. Attorneys for parents and children say the practice unnecessarily traumatizes parents and children. They also say supervising domestic violence victims who aren’t accused of abusing or neglecting their kids can reinforce the controlling dynamics they experienced when they were being abused.
“There is always this sword of Damocles, which is hanging above them, which is that if they do not comply, if they do not cooperate, if they do not seem like they are doing whatever ACS wants them to do, that their children can be taken from them at any given moment,” said the Family Justice Law Center’s Executive Director David Shalleck-Klein, who represented Kyon in her appeal.
Kyon did not follow up on a request for an interview, and her lawyer asked that her last name not be used to protect her and her family’s privacy. Her full name does not appear in court papers, which is typical in family court cases.
In a statement, ACS spokesperson Marisa Kaufman said the agency agrees with the court that families should not be monitored “beyond what is necessary to protect the child.”
“To that end, we have significantly reduced the number of families monitored by ACS over the past 10 years,” she said.
But Kaufman said the agency is concerned that the appellate ruling “goes too far” and will limit both ACS’ and family court judges’ ability to monitor children’s safety after a violent incident.
“We are reviewing our options with the city’s law department,” she said.
As ACS tried to protect kids, court says it went too far
ACS’ supervision of Kyon and her son started in January 2024, according to court papers. Days earlier, Kyon had told her son’s father that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship, and he had responded with violence, according to the ruling.
The father, referred to in court papers as Mr. R., grabbed Kyon’s face, hit her, stomped on her and strangled her until she lost consciousness, the ruling states. When police responded, Mr. R. took a knife and threatened to kill Kyon if she spoke, according to the decision.
During Kyon’s first appearance in family court days after the assault, an ACS attorney made several requests to the judge, including for a protective order for both Kyon and her son, who already lived separately from the child’s father. The agency did not file a petition against Kyon, but it did ask for permission to supervise her, according to court papers. Kyon was at work during the court appointment and missed the beginning, according to the ruling, which explains that she joined partway through by phone and with no attorney representing her, because none were available. A judge agreed to all of ACS’ requests without asking for Kyon’s consent, the decision states.
In the months that followed, ACS visited Kyon’s home at least 15 times, according to the ruling. In court papers, the mother described the visits as “traumatizing” and “humiliating.” She said they brought her back to a “dark place” and reminded her “of the fear and anxiety of being abused.” Kyon was expected to be at home for both announced and unannounced visits, which she said prevented her from spending time with friends and family or working overtime, court papers state.
ACS has acknowledged that it frequently supervises parents who are not accused of abuse or neglect when the other parent is under investigation. An attorney for the city, Alan Rosinus, said during oral arguments before the Appellate Division earlier this year that visits could be necessary to ensure the child isn’t in danger, particularly if the other parent is accused of domestic violence. In this case, he said, the father could have violated the order of protection and harmed the child.
“The father, if he forces entry into the home, the mother can’t stop him,” Rosinus said.
But appellate judges challenged that theory.
“I’m hearing all these if, if, ifs,” said Judge Tanya R. Kennedy. “What I’d like to know is, what, if anything, did the mother do or not do that warranted such intrusive action?”
Rosinus denied that the supervision is “intrusive.”
The appellate judges ultimately found that ACS’ practice of supervising parents who aren’t under investigation violates the New York’s Family Court Act, which is supposed to prevent the state from unnecessarily intervening in family life. Gesmer wrote in her decision that the agency should not surveil parents who still have custody of their children and have not been accused of wrongdoing, arguing that ACS had failed to explain how doing so “would make that parent or the child any safer.”
For parents who are domestic violence survivors, the judge wrote, supervision could mimic the coercive control they faced when they were abused. Gesmer also noted that ACS supervision disproportionately affects Black and Latino children and parents, who account for the vast majority of people in the child welfare system, according to city data.
The decision, issued in the First Department of the state’s Appellate Division, builds on a similar ruling earlier this year in the Second Department. That means all family courts in New York City, regardless of the borough, are expected to follow the finding that it’s illegal to supervise parents who are not facing charges of abuse and neglect.
Ending the ‘better safe than sorry’ mentality?
Melissa Friedman, attorney in charge of legal strategy at the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice, said the culture within family court often airs on the side of supervising parents “just in case,” with a “better safe than sorry” mindset to prevent harm to children.
“But the truth is, we know that when you act or when a system acts on a better safe than sorry mentality, it’s actually not safer for youth,” she said.
Friedman said if ACS has concerns about a child’s safety and wants to supervise a parent, the agency can file a petition against them in court. But for parents who aren’t accused of wrongdoing, she said, curbing supervision will limit the harm their children face in the welfare system.
“Just the act of somebody coming in and questioning you, questioning your parent, etcetera, is traumatic,” she said.
Liberty Aldrich, executive director of the Children’s Law Center and a former family court judge, said ACS’ job is to protect children, and the agency is sometimes reluctant to trust domestic violence survivors to keep their kids safe. She said she hopes this ruling will lead to more acknowledgment of the steps domestic violence survivors take to protect themselves and their children.
“This is really about ensuring the emotional stability for children who are in homes where they’ve already been subjected to trauma and abuse,” Aldrich said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
