Thursday February 25

2016

Accessing Services in Article 10 Cases through Litigation and Advocacy

About the Faculty

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  Caitlin Becker (Speaker)

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  Caitlin Becker joined The Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice as a Social Worker in 2011, after earning her M.S.W at Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service. She now serves as the Social Work Supervisor in the Family Defense Practice, overseeing our Social Workers and Parent Advocates. Prior to joining The Bronx Defenders, Caitlin worked with undergraduates at Fordham University's Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice, where she connected students with volunteer opportunities in community-based organizations in the Bronx, and collaborated with her colleagues and students to advance the social justice mission of the university.

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  Jessica Marcus (Speaker)

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  Jessica Marcus is a supervising attorney at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project (“BFDP”). She was a founding member of BFDP and has been a supervisor since November, 2007. Prior to the founding of BFDP in July, 2007, Ms. Marcus worked as a staff attorney in the Family Law Unit at South Brooklyn Legal Services, where she represented parents and relatives of children in foster care seeking to reunite their families, and conducted education and outreach regarding the rights of parents with children in the child welfare system. She began in 2001 with a two-year fellowship from Equal Justice Works, focusing on the effects of the Adoption and Safe Families Act on families in the permanency hearing stage of child welfare cases. In addition to her work on individual cases, she developed a joint project with the Legal Aid Society and Lawyers for Children to advocate for the Administration for Children's Services to expand access to housing assistance for families seeking to reunify with children in foster care, or whose children are at risk of foster care placement due to lack of adequate housing. In March, 2006, Ms. Marcus published an article in the N.Y.U. Law School's Review of Law and Social Change on the effects of the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996 on families involved in the child welfare system. Ms. Marcus graduated in 2001 from N.Y.U. Law School, where she was a Sinsheimer Public Service Scholarship recipient and participated in the Family Defense Clinic, which represents parents and relatives of children involved in the child welfare system. Prior to law school, she was employed for two and a half years as a paralegal in the Legal Aid Society's Homeless Rights Project, working on class action litigation and individual advocacy on behalf of homeless families seeking shelter in the New York City shelter system.

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  Kristal Padolina (Speaker)

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  Kristal Padolina joined the Family Defense Practice at BDS in October 2013. Kristal graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2004 with a B.A. in Political Science and from Hofstra University School of Law in 2009. While in law school, she worked at the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence and mediated PINS (persons in need of supervision) cases between youth and their families for Family and Children's Services and for Long Beach Reach Inc. She is licensed to practice law in New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia. Prior to working for BDS, Kristal worked for the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) representing the city as an Agency Attorney in child neglect and abuse proceedings. Her experience at ACS gave her invaluable insight into New York's child welfare system and she is excited to be able to directly work with and advocate for parents who are faced with Family Court intervention in their lives.