MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellees, individual foster parents
A divided three-judge District Court concluded that "the pre-removal procedures presently employed by the State are constitutionally defective," holding that "before a foster child can be peremptorily transferred from the foster home in which he has been living, be it to another foster home or to the natural parents who initially placed him in foster care, he is entitled to a hearing at which all concerned parties may present any relevant information to the administrative decisionmaker charged with determining the future placement of the child," Organization of Foster Families v. Dumpson, 418 F.Supp. 277, 282 (1976). Four appeals to this Court were taken from the ensuing judgment declaring the challenged statutes unconstitutional and permanently enjoining their
I
A detailed outline of the New York statutory system regulating foster care is a necessary preface to a discussion of the constitutional questions presented.
A
The expressed central policy of the New York system is that "it is generally desirable for the child to remain with or be returned to the natural parent because the child's need for a normal family life will usually best be met in the natural home, and . . . parents are entitled to bring up their own children unless the best interests of the child would be thereby endangered," Soc. Serv. Law § 384-b (1) (a) (ii) (McKinney Supp. 1976-1977). But the State has opted for foster care as one response to those situations where the natural parents are unable to provide the "positive, nurturing family relationships" and "normal family life in a permanent home" that offer "the best opportunity for children to develop and thrive." §§ 384-b (1) (b), (1) (a) (i).
Foster care has been defined as "[a] child welfare service which provides substitute family care for a planned period for a child when his own family cannot care for him for a temporary or extended period, and when adoption is neither desirable nor possible." Child Welfare League of America, Standards for Foster Family Care Service 5 (1959).
Under the New York scheme children may be placed in foster care either by voluntary placement or by court order. Most foster-care placements are voluntary.
Voluntary placement requires the signing of a written agreement by the natural parent or guardian, transferring the care and custody of the child to an authorized child welfare agency.
The New York system divides parental functions among agency, foster parents, and natural parents, and the definitions of the respective roles are often complex and often unclear.
Children may also enter foster care by court order. The Family Court may order that a child be placed in the custody of an authorized child-care agency after a full adversary judicial hearing under Art. 10 of the New York Family Court Act, if it is found that the child has been abused or neglected by his natural parents. §§ 1052, 1055. In addition, a minor adjudicated a juvenile delinquent, or "person in need of supervision" may be placed by the court with an agency. §§ 753, 754, 756. The consequences of foster-care placement by court order do not differ substantially from those for children voluntarily placed, except that the parent is not entitled to return of the child on demand pursuant to Soc. Serv. Law § 384-a (2) (a); termination of foster care must then be consented to by the court. § 383 (1).
The provisions of the scheme specifically at issue in this litigation come into play when the agency having legal custody determines to remove the foster child from the foster home, either because it has determined that it would be in the child's best interests to transfer him to some other foster home, or to return the child to his natural parents in accordance with the statute or placement agreement. Most children are removed in order to be transferred to another foster home.
Section 383 (2), n. 3, supra, provides that the "authorized agency placing out or boarding [a foster] child . . . may in its discretion remove such child from the home where placed or boarded." Administrative regulations implement this provision. The agency is required, except in emergencies, to notify the foster parents in writing 10 days in advance of any removal. 18 N. Y. C. R. R. § 450.10 (a) (1976).
If the child is removed after the conference, the foster parent may appeal to the Department of Social Services for a "fair hearing," that is, a full adversary administrative hearing, under Soc. Serv. Law § 400,
This statutory and regulatory scheme applies statewide.
One further preremoval procedural safeguard is available. Under Soc. Serv. Law § 392, the Family Court has jurisdiction to review, on petition of the foster parent or the agency, the status of any child who has been in foster care for 18 months or longer.
Foster care of children is a sensitive and emotion-laden subject, and foster-care programs consequently stir strong controversy. The New York regulatory scheme is no exception. New York would have us view the scheme as described in its brief:
Some of the parties and amici argue that this is a misleadingly idealized picture. They contend that a very different perspective is revealed by the empirical criticism of the system presented in the record of this case and confirmed by published studies of foster care.
From the standpoint of natural parents, such as the appellant intervenors here, foster care has been condemned as a class-based intrusion into the family life of the poor. See, e. g., Jenkins, Child Welfare as a Class System, in Children and Decent People 3 (A. Schorr ed. 1974). And see generally tenBroek, California's Dual System of Family Law: Its Origins, Development and Present Status (pt. I), 16 Stan. L. Rev. 257 (1964); (pt. II), 16 Stan. L. Rev. 900 (1964); (pt. III), 17 Stan. L. Rev. 614 (1965). It is certainly true that the poor resort to foster care more often than other citizens. For example, over 50% of all children in foster care in New York City are from female-headed families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Foundation for Child Development, State of the Child: New York City 61 (1976). Minority families are also more likely to turn to foster
The extent to which supposedly "voluntary" placements are in fact voluntary has been questioned on other grounds as well. For example, it has been said that many "voluntary" placements are in fact coerced by threat of neglect proceedings
Appellee foster parents as well as natural parents question the accuracy of the idealized picture portrayed by New York. They note that children often stay in "temporary" foster care for much longer than contemplated by the theory of the system. See, e. g., Kadushin 411-412; Mnookin I 610-613; Wald 662-663; Rein, Nutt, & Weiss 37-39.
The parties and amici devote much of their discussion to these criticisms of foster care, and we present this summary in the view that some understanding of those criticisms is necessary for a full appreciation of the complex and controversial system with which this lawsuit is concerned.
II
A
Our first inquiry is whether appellees have asserted interests within the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of
The appellees have not renewed in this Court their contention, rejected by the District Court, 418 F. Supp., at 280-281, that the realities of the foster-care system in New York gave them a justified expectation amounting to a "property" interest that their status as foster parents would be continued.
The appellees' basic contention is that when a child has lived in a foster home for a year or more, a psychological tie is created between the child and the foster parents which constitutes the foster family the true "psychological family" of the child. See J. Goldstein, A. Freud, & A. Solnit, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). That family, they argue, has a "liberty interest" in its survival as a family protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Cf. Moore v. East Cleveland, ante, p. 494. Upon this premise they conclude that the foster child cannot be removed without a prior hearing satisfying due process. Appointed counsel for the children, appellants in No. 76-5200, however, disagrees, and has consistently argued that the foster parents have no such liberty interest independent of the interests of the foster children, and that the best interests of the children would not be served by procedural protections beyond those already provided by New York law. The intervening natural parents of children in foster care, appellants in No. 76-5193, also oppose the foster parents, arguing that recognition of the procedural right claimed would undercut both the substantive family law of New York, which favors the return of children to their natural parents as expeditiously as possible, see supra, at 823,
The District Court did not reach appellees' contention "that the foster home is entitled to the same constitutional deference as that long granted to the more traditional biological family." 418 F. Supp., at 281. Rather than "reach[ing] out to decide such novel questions," the court based its holding that "the pre-removal procedures presently employed by the state are constitutionally defective," id., at 282, not on the recognized liberty interest in family privacy, but on an independent right of the foster child "to be heard before being `condemned to suffer grievous loss,' Joint Anti-Fascist Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 168 . . . (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring)." Ibid.
The court apparently reached this conclusion by weighing the "harmful consequences of a precipitous and perhaps improvident decision to remove a child from his foster family," id., at 283, and concluding that this disruption of the stable relationships needed by the child might constitute "grievous loss." But if this was the reasoning applied by the District Court, it must be rejected.
B
It is, of course, true that "freedom of personal choice in matters of . . . family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur, 414 U.S. 632, 639-640 (1974). There does exist a "private realm of family life which the state cannot enter," Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944), that has been afforded both substantive
First, the usual understanding of "family" implies biological relationships, and most decisions treating the relation between parent and child have stressed this element. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651 (1972), for example, spoke of "[t]he rights to conceive and to raise one's children" as essential rights, citing Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942). And Prince v. Massachusetts, stated:
A biological relationship is not present in the case of the usual foster family. But biological relationships are not exclusive determination of the existence of a family.
See also Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967).
Thus the importance of the familial relationship, to the individuals involved and to the society, stems from the emotional attachments that derive from the intimacy of daily association, and from the role it plays in "promot[ing] a way of life" through the instruction of children, Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 231-233 (1972), as well as from the fact of blood relationship. No one would seriously dispute that a deeply loving and interdependent relationship between an adult and a child in his or her care may exist even in the absence of blood relationship.
But there are also important distinctions between the foster family and the natural family. First, unlike the earlier cases recognizing a right to family privacy, the State here seeks to interfere, not with a relationship having its origins entirely apart from the power of the State, but rather with a foster family which has its source in state law and contractual arrangements. The individual's freedom to marry and reproduce is "older than the Bill of Rights," Griswold v. Connecticut, supra, at 486. Accordingly, unlike the property interests that are also protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, cf. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S., at 577, the liberty interest in family privacy has its source, and its contours are ordinarily to be sought, not in state law,
A second consideration related to this is that ordinarily procedural protection may be afforded to a liberty interest of one person without derogating from the substantive liberty of another. Here, however, such a tension is virtually unavoidable. Under New York law, the natural parent of a foster child in voluntary placement has an absolute right to the return of his child in the absence of a court order obtainable only upon compliance with rigorous substantive and procedural standards, which reflect the constitutional protection accorded the natural family. See nn. 46, 47, supra. Moreover, the natural parent initially gave up his child to the State only on the express understanding that the child would be returned in those circumstances. These rights are difficult to reconcile with the liberty interest in the foster family relationship claimed by appellees. It is one thing to say that individuals may acquire a liberty interest against arbitrary governmental interference in the family-like associations into which they have freely entered, even in the absence of biological connection or state-law recognition of the relationship. It is quite another to say that one may acquire such an interest in the face of another's constitutionally recognized liberty interest that derives from blood relationship. state-law sanction, and basic human right—an interest the foster parent has recognized by contract from the outset.
As this discussion suggests, appellees' claim to a constitutionally protected liberty interest raises complex and novel questions. It is unnecessary for us to resolve those questions definitively in this case, however, for, like the District Court, we conclude that "narrower grounds exist to support" our reversal. We are persuaded that, even on the assumption that appellees have a protected "liberty interest," the District Court erred in holding that the preremoval procedures presently employed by the State are constitutionally defective.
III
Where procedural due process must be afforded because a "liberty" or "property" interest is within the Fourteenth Amendment's protection, there must be determined "what process is due" in the particular context. The District Court did not spell out precisely what sort of preremoval hearing would be necessary to meet the constitutional standard, leaving to "the various defendants—state and local officials—the first opportunity to formulate procedures suitable to their own professional needs and compatible with the principles set forth in this opinion." 418 F. Supp., at 286. The court's opinion, however, would seem to require at a minimum that in all cases in which removal of a child within the certified class is contemplated, including the situation where the removal is for the purpose of returning the child to his natural parents, a hearing be held automatically, regardless of whether or not the foster parents request a hearing;
It is true that "[b]efore a person is deprived of a protected interest, he must be afforded opportunity for some kind of a hearing, `except for extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event.' " Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S., at 570 n. 7, quoting Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 379 (1971). But the hearing required is only one "appropriate to the nature of the case." Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313 (1950). See, e. g., Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 542 (1971); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 263 (1970); Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 895 (1961). "[D]ue process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands." Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481 (1972). Only last Term, the Court held that "identification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional
Turning first to the procedure applicable in New York City, SSC Procedure No. 5, see supra, at 831, and n. 29, provides that before a child is removed from a foster home for transfer to another foster home, the foster parents may request an "independent review." The District Court's description of this review is set out in the margin.
Second, the District Court faulted the city procedure on the ground that participation is limited to the foster parents and the agency, and the natural parent and the child are not made parties to the hearing. This is not fatal in light of the nature of the alleged constitutional interests at stake. When the child's transfer from one foster home to another is pending, the interest arguably requiring protection is that of the foster family, not that of the natural parents. Moreover, the natural parent can generally add little to the accuracy of factfinding concerning the wisdom of such a transfer, since the foster parents and the agency, through its caseworkers, will usually be most knowledgeable about conditions in the foster home. Of course, in those cases where the natural parent does have a special interest in the proposed transfer
Much the same can be said in response to the District Court's statement:
But nothing in the New York City procedure prevents consultation of the child's wishes, directly or through an adult intermediary. We assume, moreover, that some such consultation would be among the first steps that a rational factfinder, inquiring into the child's best interests, would pursue. Such consultation, however, does not require that the child or an appointed representative must be a party with full adversary powers in all preremoval hearings.
Outside New York City, where only the statewide procedures apply, foster parents are provided not only with the procedures of a preremoval conference and postremoval hearing provided by 18 N. Y. C. R. R. § 450.10 (1976) and Soc. Serv. Law § 400 (McKinney 1976), see supra, at 829-830, but also with the preremoval judicial hearing available on request to foster parents who have in their care children who have been in foster care for 18 months or more, Soc. Serv. Law § 392. As observed supra, at 832, and n. 32, a foster parent in such case may obtain an order that the child remain in his care.
The District Court found three defects in this full judicial process. First, a § 392 proceeding is available only to those foster children who have been in foster care for 18 months or more. The class certified by the court was broader, including
The District Court's other two findings of infirmity in the § 392 procedure have already been considered and held to be without merit. The District Court disputed defendants' reading of § 392 as permitting an order requiring the leaving of the foster child in the same foster home. The plain words of the statute and the weight of New York judicial interpretation do not support the court. See supra, at 832, and n. 32. The District Court also faulted § 392, as it did the New York City procedure, in not providing an automatic hearing in every case even in cases where foster parents chose not to seek one. Our holding sustaining the adequacy of the city procedure, supra, at 850-851, applies in this context as well.
Finally, the § 392 hearing is available to foster parents, both in and outside New York City, even where the removal sought is for the purpose of returning the child to his natural parents. Since this remedy provides a sufficient constitutional pre-removal hearing to protect whatever liberty interest might exist in the continued existence of the foster family when the State seeks to transfer the child to another foster home, a fortiori the procedure is adequate to protect the lesser interest of the foster family in remaining together at the expense of the disruption of the natural family.
We deal here with issues of unusual delicacy, in an area where professional judgments regarding desirable procedures are constantly and rapidly changing. In such a context, restraint is appropriate on the part of courts called upon to
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST join, concurring in the judgment.
The foster parent-foster child relationship involved in this litigation is, of course, wholly a creation of the State. New York law defines the circumstances under which a child may be placed in foster care, prescribes the obligations of the foster parents, and provides for the removal of the child from the foster home "in [the] discretion" of the agency with custody of the child. N. Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 383 (2) (McKinney 1976). The agency compensates the foster parents, and reserves in its contracts the authority to decide as it sees fit whether and when a child shall be returned to his natural family or placed elsewhere. See Part I-A of the Court's opinion, ante, at 823-828. Were it not for the system of foster care that the State maintains, the relationship for which constitutional protection is asserted would not even exist.
The New York Legislature and the New York courts have made it unmistakably clear that foster care is intended only as a temporary way station until a child can be returned to his natural parents or placed for adoption. Thus, Soc. Serv. Law § 384-b (1) (b) (McKinney Supp. 1976-1977) states a legislative finding that "many children who have been placed in foster care experience unnecessarily protracted stays in such care without being adopted or returned to their parents or other custodians. Such unnecessary stays may deprive these children of positive, nurturing family relationships and have deleterious effects on their development into responsible, productive
In these circumstances, I cannot understand why the Court thinks itself obliged to decide these cases on the assumption that either foster parents or foster children in New York have some sort of "liberty" interest in the continuation of their relationship.
At the outset, I would reject, as does the Court, the apparent holding of the District Court that "the trauma of separation from a familiar environment" or the "harmful consequences of a precipitous and perhaps improvident decision to remove a child from his foster family," Organization of Foster Families v. Dumpson, 418 F.Supp. 277, 283, constitutes a "grievous loss" which therefore is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Not every loss, however "grievous," invokes the protection of the Due Process Clause. Its protections extend only to a deprivation by a State of "life, liberty, or property." And when a state law does operate to deprive a person of his liberty or property, the Due Process Clause is applicable even though the deprivation may not be "grievous." Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 576. "[T]o determine whether due process requirements apply in the first place, we look not to the `weight' but to the nature of the interest at stake." Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 570-571. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 672; Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224; Goss v. Lopez, supra, at 575-576.
At issue in Meachum was a claim by Massachusetts state prisoners that they could not constitutionally be transferred to another institution with less favorable living conditions without a prior hearing that would fully probe the reasons for their transfer. In accord with previous cases, see, e. g., Goss v. Lopez, supra; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539; Board of Regents v. Roth, supra; Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593; Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, the Court recognized that where state law confers a liberty or property interest, the Due Process Clause requires certain minimum procedures " `to ensure that the state-created right is not arbitrarily abrogated.' " 427 U. S., at 226, quoting Wolff, supra, at 557. But the predicate for invoking the Due Process Clause— the existence of state-created liberty or property—was missing in Meachum just as it is missing here. New York confers no right on foster families to remain intact, defeasible only upon proof of specific acts or circumstances. As was true of prison transfers in Meachum, transfers in and out of foster families "are made for a variety of reasons and often involve no more than informed predictions as to what would best serve . . . the safety and welfare of the [child]." 427 U. S., at 225.
This is not to say that under the law of New York foster children are the pawns of the State, who may be whisked from family to family at the whim of state officials. The Court discusses in Part III of its opinion the various state and local procedures intended to assure that agency discretion is exercised in a manner consistent with the child's best interests. Unlike the prison transfer situation in Meachum v. Fano, it does not appear that child custody decisions can be made "for whatever reason or for no reason at all." 427 U. S., at 228. But the protection that foster children have is simply the requirement of state law that decisions about their placement be determined in the light of their best interests. See, e. g., Bennett v. Jeffreys, 40 N.Y.2d 543, 356 N.E.2d 277; In re Jewish Child Care Assn. (Sanders), 5 N.Y.2d 222, 156 N.E.2d 700; State ex rel. Wallace v. Lhotan,
What remains of the appellees' argument is the theory that the relation of the foster parent to the foster child may generate emotional attachments similar to those found in natural families. The Court surmises that foster families who share these attachments might enjoy the same constitutional interest in "family privacy" as natural families. See, e. g., Moore v. East Cleveland, ante, at 504-505 (plurality opinion of POWELL, J.); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152-153; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390.
On this score, the Court hypothesizes the case of "a child [who] has been placed in foster care as an infant, has never known his natural parents, and has remained continuously for several years in the care of the same foster parents . . . ." Ante, at 844. The foster family might then "hold the same place in the emotional life of the foster child, and fulfill the same socializing functions, as a natural family." Ibid.
But under New York's foster-care laws, any case where the foster parents had assumed the emotional role of the child's natural parents would represent not a triumph of the system, to be constitutionally safeguarded from state intrusion, but a failure. The goal of foster care, at least in New York, is not to provide a permanent substitute for the natural or adoptive home, but to prepare the child for his return to his real parents or placement in a permanent adoptive home
One of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause, the Court has held, is the freedom to "establish a home and bring up children." Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, at 399. If a State were to attempt to force the breakup of a natural family,
For these reasons I concur in the judgment of the Court.
FootNotes
Joseph Goldstein, Sonja Goldstein, Robert A. Burt, Paul D. Gewirtz, and Stephen Wizner filed a brief for A Group of Concerned Persons for Children as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed by William B. Haley for the Community Service Society of New York; by Michael J. Dale, Gene B. Mechanic, and Carol Sherman for the Legal Aid Society of New York City, Juvenile Rights Division; and by Herbert Teitelbaum for the Puerto Rican Family Institute, Inc., et al.
Appellees Ralph and Christiane Goldberg were the foster parents of Rafael Serrano, now 14. His parents placed him in foster care voluntarily in 1969 after an abuse complaint was filed against them. It is alleged that the agency supervising the placement had informally indicated to Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg that it intended to transfer Rafael to the home of his aunt in contemplation of permanent placement. This effort has apparently failed. A petition for foster-care review under Soc. Serv. Law § 392 filed by the agency alleges that the Goldbergs are now separated, Mrs. Goldberg having moved out of the house, taking her own child but leaving Rafael. The child is now in a residential treatment center, where Mr. Goldberg continues to visit him. App. to Reply Brief for Appellants in No. 76-180.
Appellees Walter and Dorothy Lhotan were foster parents of the four Wallace sisters, who were voluntarily placed in foster care by their mother in 1970. The two older girls were placed with the Lhotans in that year, their two younger sisters in 1972. In June 1974, the Lhotans were informed that the agency had decided to return the two younger girls to their mother and transfer the two older girls to another foster home. The agency apparently felt that the Lhotans were too emotionally involved with the girls and were damaging the agency's efforts to prepare them to return to their mother. The state courts have ordered that all the Wallace children be returned to their mother, State ex rel. Wallace v. Lhotan, 51 App. Div. 2d 252, 380 N.Y.S.2d 250, appeal dismissed and leave to appeal denied, 39 N.Y.2d 705 (1976). We are told that the children have been returned and are adjusting successfully. Reply Brief for Appellants in No. 76-5200, pp. 1a-10a.
"The custody of a child placed out or boarded out and not legally adopted or for whom legal guardianship has not been granted shall be vested during his minority, or until discharged by such authorized agency from its care and supervision, in the authorized agency placing out or boarding out such child and any such authorized agency may in its discretion remove such child from the home where placed or boarded."
New York Soc. Serv. Law § 400 (McKinney 1976) provides:
"Removal of children
"1. When any child shall have been placed in an institution or in a family home by a commissioner of public welfare or a city public welfare officer, the commissioner or city public welfare officer may remove such child from such institution or family home and make such disposition of such child as is provided by law.
"2. Any person aggrieved by such decision of the commissioner of public welfare or city welfare officer may appeal to the department, which upon receipt of the appeal shall review the case, shall give the person making the appeal an opportunity for a fair hearing thereon and within thirty days render its decision. The department may also, on its own motions, review any such decision made by the public welfare official. The department may make such additional investigation as it may deem necessary. All decisions of the department shall be binding upon the public welfare district involved and shall be complied with by the public welfare officials thereof."
Title 18 N. Y. C. R. R. § 450.14, which was renumbered § 450.10 as of September 18, 1974, provides:
"Removal from foster family care. (a) Whenever a social services official of another authorized agency acting on his behalf proposes to remove a child in foster family care from the foster family home, he or such other authorized agency, as may be appropriate, shall notify the foster family parents, in writing of the intention to remove such child at least 10 days prior to the proposed effective date of such removal, except where the health or safety of the child requires that he be removed immediately from the foster family home. Such notification shall further advise the foster family parents that they may request a conference with the social services official or a designated employee of his social services department at which time they may appear, with or without a representative to have the proposed action reviewed, be advised of the reasons therefor and be afforded an opportunity to submit reasons why the child should not be removed. Each social services official shall instruct and require any authorized agency acting on his behalf to furnish notice in accordance with the provisions of this section. Foster parents who do not object to the removal of the child from their home may waive in writing their right to the 10 day notice, provided, however, that such waiver shall not be executed prior to the social services official's determination to remove the child from the foster home and notifying the foster parents thereof.
"(b) Upon the receipt of a request for such conference, the social services official shall set a time and place for such conference to be held within 10 days of receipt of such request and shall send written notice of such conference to the foster family parents and their representative, if any, and to the authorized agency, if any, at least five days prior to the date of such conference.
"(c) The social services official shall render and issue his decision as expeditiously as possible but not later than five days after the conference and shall send a written notice of his decision to the foster family parents and their representative, if any, and to the authorized agency, if any. Such decision shall advise the foster family parents of their right to appeal to the department and request a fair hearing in accordance with section 400 of the Social Services Law.
"(d) In the event there is a request for a conference, the child shall not be removed from the foster family home until at least three days after the notice of decision is sent, or prior to the proposed effective date of removal, whichever occurs later.
"(e) In any agreement for foster care between a social services official or another authorized agency acting on his behalf and foster parents, there shall be contained therein a statement of a foster parent's rights provided under this section."
An amicus curiae brief states that in New York City, 85% of the children in foster care are placed with voluntary child-care agencies licensed by the State, while most children in foster care outside New York City are placed directly with the local Department of Social Services. Brief for Legal Aid Society of City of New York, Juvenile Rights Division, as Amicus Curiae 14 n. 22.
Nevertheless, nothing in either the statute or the regulations limits the availability of these procedures to transfers within the foster-care system. Each refers to the decision to remove a child from the foster family home, and thus on its face each would seem to cover removal for the purpose of returning the child to its parents. Furthermore, it is undisputed on this record that the actual administrative practice in New York is to provide the conference and hearing in all cases where they are requested, regardless of the destination of the child. In the absence of authoritative state-court interpretation to the contrary, we therefore assume that these procedures are available whenever a child is removed from a foster family home.
Recent legislative reforms in New York that decrease agencies' discretion to retain a child in foster care are apparently designed to meet these objections. For example, Soc. Serv. Law § 384-a (2) (a) gives parents of children in voluntary foster placement greater rights to the return of their children. Since the statute permits placement agreements of varied terms, however, and since many children in foster care are not voluntarily placed, there may still be situations in which the agency has considerable discretion in deciding whether or not to return the child to the natural parent. The periodic court review provided by § 392 is also intended in part to meet these objections, but critics of foster care have argued that given the heavy caseloads, such review may often be perfunctory. Mnookin, Child-Custody Adjudication: Judicial Functions in the Face of Indeterminacy, 39 (3) Law & Contemp. Probs. 226, 274-275 (1975) (hereafter Mnookin II). Moreover, judges too may find it difficult, in utilizing vague standards like "the best interests of the child," to avoid decisions resting on subjective values.
"The legislature further finds that many children who have been placed in foster care experience unnecessarily protracted stays in such care without being adopted or returned to their parents or other custodians. Such unnecessary stays may deprive these children of positive, nurturing family relationships and have deleterious effects on their development into responsible, productive citizens."
On the other hand, too warm a relation between foster parent and foster child is not the only possible problem in foster care. Qualified foster parents are hard to find, Kadushin 367-372, 415-417, and very little training is provided to equip them to handle the often complicated demands of their role, Rein, Nutt, & Weiss 44-45; it is thus sometimes possible that foster homes may provide inadequate care. Indeed, situations in which foster children were mistreated or abused have been reported. Wald 645. And the social work services that are supposed to be delivered to both the natural and foster families are often limited, due to the heavy caseloads of the agencies. Kadushin 413; Mnookin II 274. Given these problems, and given that the very fact of removal from even an inadequate natural family is often traumatic for the child, Wald 644-645, it is not surprising that one commentator has found "rather persuasive, if still incomplete, evidence that throughout the United States, children in foster care are experiencing high rates of psychiatric disturbance." Eisenberg, The Sins of the Fathers: Urban Decay and Social Pathology, 32 Am. J. of Orthopsychiatry 5, 14 (1962).
This argument misunderstands the peculiar circumstances of this lawsuit. Ordinarily, it is true, a party would not have standing to assert the rights of another, himself a party in the litigation; the third party himself can decide how best to protect his interests. But children usually lack the capacity to make that sort of decision, and thus their interest is ordinarily represented in litigation by parents or guardians. In this case, however, the State, the natural parents, and the foster parents, all of whom share some portion of the responsibility for guardianship of the child, see supra, at 826-828, and nn. 16-18, are parties, and all contend that the position they advocate is most in accord with the rights and interests of the children. In this situation, the District Court properly appointed independent counsel to represent the children, so that the court could have the benefit of an independent advocate for the welfare of the children, unprejudiced by the possibly conflicting interests and desires of the other parties. It does not follow, however, that that independent counsel, who is not a guardian ad litem of the children, is solely authorized to determine the children's best interest.
No party denies, or could deny, that there is an Art. III "case or controversy" between the foster parents and the defendant state officials concerning the validity of the removal procedures. Accordingly, their standing to raise the rights of the children in their attack on those procedures is a prudential question. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 193 (1976). We believe it would be most imprudent to leave entirely to court-appointed counsel the choices that neither the named foster children nor the class they represent are capable of making for themselves, especially in litigation in which all parties have sufficient attributes of guardianship that their views on the rights of the children should at least be heard.
Moreover, the State's interest in avoiding "fiscal and administrative burdens," Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976), is not the only interest that must be weighed against requiring still more elaborate hearing procedures. As the District Court acknowledged, where delicate judgments concerning "the often ambiguous indices of a child's emotional attachments and psychological development" are involved, we must also consider the possibility that making the decisionmaking process increasingly adversary "might well impede the effort to elicit the sensitive and personal information required," 418 F. Supp., at 286, or make the struggle for custody, already often difficult for the child, see, e. g., Kadushin 404, even more traumatic. In such a situation, there is a value in less formalized hearing procedures. See also n. 57, supra.
First, it is by no means obvious that foster parents and foster children have the same interest in a continuation of their relationship. When the child leaves the foster family, it is because the agency with custody of him has determined that his interests will be better served by a new home, either with his natural parents, adoptive parents, or a different foster family. Any assessment of the child's alleged deprivation must take into account not only what he has lost, but what he has received in return. Foster parents, on the other hand, do not automatically receive a new child with whom they will presumably have a more profitable relationship.
Second, unlike the situation in Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 195-196, this is not a case where the failure to grant the parents their requested relief will inevitably tend to "[dilute] or adversely [affect]" the alleged constitutional rights of the children. Denying the parents a hearing simply has no effect whatever on the children's separate claim to a hearing, and does not impair their alleged constitutional rights. There is therefore no standing in the parents to assert the children's claims. See Note, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 423, 432 (1974), cited in Craig, supra, at 195.
I would nevertheless consider both the parents' and the children's claims in these cases, but only because the suit was originally brought on behalf of both the parents and the children, all of whom were parties plaintiff. While it is true that their interests may conflict, there was no reason not to allow counsel for the parents to continue to represent the children to the extent that their interests may be compatible. The conflict was avoided by the District Court's appointment of independent counsel, who took a position opposite to that of the foster parents as to where the children's welfare lay. The appointment of independent counsel, however, should not have left the children without advocacy for the position, right or wrong, that they are entitled to due process hearings. That position should have been left to be asserted by the counsel who originally brought the suit for the children. My view, therefore, is that the parents and the children are properly before the Court and entitled to assert their own separate claims, but that neither group has standing to assert the claims of the other.
Comment
User Comments