| Releases
& Statements
For Release: Thursday, December 7, 2006
Contact: Frank Sobrino,
Press Secretary
O: (212) 669-4193
Statement of Public Advocate Betsy
Gotbaum for
City
Council Hearing on
Coordination between the Administration for Children’s Services
and
the Department of Homeless Services
Thank you Chair De Blasio for holding
this important hearing.
I believe that we are making progress
on the critical issue of communication between ACS and other city
agencies that have a hand in ensuring the welfare of the city’s
most vulnerable children.
In particular, the new protocols for
communication and coordination between ACS, the Department of
Education, and the NYPD are a step in the right direction.
But as I said at the previous hearing
on this matter, the DOE and the NYPD are not the only agencies
with which ACS has failed to communicate effectively.
On May 20th, 2004, three-month-old
Colesvinton Florestal was beaten to death by his parents. A maintenance
worker at the shelter where Colesvinton lived with his family
says he expressed concern for the child’s condition to a
social worker on the site. Shelter staff are ‘mandated reporters’
required by law to report suspected abuse or neglect to the State
Central Register of child abuse. No such report was ever filed.
In addition, DHS was never aware that
the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) had investigated
Colesvinton’s mother nine times for abuse or neglect of
her older son and that three of these cases had been founded.
In the wake of this tragedy, I introduced
legislation requiring DHS to create and post signs and other materials
in all homeless shelters indicating the types of behavior that
constitute child abuse and neglect, specify who is obligated to
report such behavior, and provide instructions for doing so.
The legislation also called for signs
stressing the dangers of “co-sleeping” with children
and instructing parents on proper infant sleeping positions.
My bill was signed into law on March
28, 2005. I’m proud to have made this contribution to better
protect children in shelters. I believe, however, that additional
training and procedures may be necessary to ensure that shelter
staff fulfill their role as mandated reporters and convey to clients
the importance of proper infant sleeping position.
These steps, along with the measures
the task force has already announced, will help ensure that ACS
is able to fulfill its mission of protecting our most vulnerable
children.
Thank you.
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