Marcia Lowry

A federal judge has denied the latest attempt by a pioneering legal advocate for foster children to proceed with a class-action lawsuit against New York City.

On June 1, a federal judge issued final approval for a settlement in a decades-old case to improve the experience of foster children in the nation's capital.

One of the nation’s leading legal advocacy groups for children recently embraced a new agenda, pledging to disrupt “institutional racism and its effects on the child welfare system.”

We’re counting down 10 of the biggest stories The Imprint published in 2019. Each day, we’ll connect readers with a few links to our coverage on a big story from this past year.

A nonprofit law firm representing a group of New York City foster youth has resumed long-running litigation against the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and the state agency that oversees it.

Indiana has one of the highest foster care removal rates in the country. Its child welfare system has been stressed more than most by the effects of the opioid epidemic. Its former child welfare director resigned in protest, warning that children would die without new spending and priorities.

Marcia Lowry, the crusading child welfare attorney, works out of an office on Hardscrabble Road. She didn’t name this leafy suburban New York lane, but it suits her reputation: The slew of big-ticket settlements she’s secured against large foster care systems made her one of the nation’s most respected, winning and – in some quarters – loathed attorneys for vulnerable youth.

Under David Hansell, New York City’s ACS Banks on Role of Data in Child Safety This March, former Obama administration official David Hansell took the helm of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), an agency that had found itself again in turmoil after two high-profile child deaths last year.

Today, a New York judge threw out a controversial consent decree that would have ratcheted up state oversight of New York City’s foster care system. In her straightforward opinion, New York District Judge Laura Swain denied a proposed settlement to a July 2015 class action lawsuit that had accused both New York State and City of allowing foster youth to languish in care.