Domestic Violence Victims Reported Abuse. Caseworkers Watched Them Too.

New York parents who report abuse to protect themselves and their families often become the targets of child welfare investigators. A lawsuit is trying to change that.

“You’re not accused of anything,” the judge told the mother of an infant in family court in Brooklyn last summer.

The woman was the victim of domestic violence. She was in family court because she had told her therapist that her ex-boyfriend beat and slapped her and yanked her dreadlocks out in front of their 9-month-old daughter. The judge issued an order of protection barring him from the home.

But despite the mother’s blamelessness, the judge also pronounced a sort of sentence on her: She and her daughter would receive “announced and unannounced visits” from the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services, during which investigators could search their apartment, interrogate the mother and physically examine the child for signs of abuse. Link to story can be found here.