Abused Children Benefit from Powerful Ruling

New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, threw a lifeline to abused and neglected children with a powerful ruling that streamlines the adoption process and makes it easier to terminate parental rights in the most severe cases. In an opinion by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, the court said the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) applies retroactively, and therefore officials do not have to make a diligent effort to reunite families before permanently removing children. Also, and perhaps most significantly, the court said that Family Court can rely on derivative findings of abuse – where, for instance, a child witnesses the abuse of a sibling but is not himself or herself attacked – even though such proof is not explicitly recognized in the ASFA.