Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies (HPHB) Project Social Worker

The Bronx Defenders – an innovative, progressive, holistic indigent defense office in the South Bronx – seeks a passionate advocate with a commitment to working alongside parents fighting allegations of child abuse and neglect to fill a position as a Social Worker in the Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies (HPHB) Project.

Founded in 1997, The Bronx Defenders is a public defender nonprofit that has developed a nationally recognized model of representation called holistic defense, which provides people with teams of lawyers, social workers, and advocates to defend them zealously in court as well as to address the underlying drivers and enmeshed penalties of legal system involvement. 

Since opening our doors, we have grown into an organization of more than 400 staff members defending nearly 20,000 New Yorkers each year in criminal, family, civil, and immigration proceedings who face incarceration, family separation, eviction, and deportation, among other devastating consequences. 

Today we are reimagining the role of public defense even further, using community organizing and engagement, legislative advocacy, and impact litigation to partner with the communities we represent to bring about long-lasting systemic change. 

We also share our model and lessons learned with current and future public defenders. We run two legal clinics at NYC law schools and train public defenders from one end of the country to the next on how to move to a holistic model of representation. 

Family Defense Practice

As residents of the most heavily disinvested borough in the city, families in the Bronx experience the highest rates of family policing and parent-child separation. We serve as the primary institutional provider defending parents and caretakers against the painful and unnecessary removals of their children in the Bronx. Together, our attorneys, social workers, and parent advocates provide the legal defense and support necessary to keep families together and interrupt generational cycles of family court involvement. 

Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies

Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies (HPHB) is a project within the Family Defense Practice that works with pregnant parents and parents with newborns to provide them with holistic defense, advocacy, case management and connection to supportive services. Research shows that early disruptions in bonding with a primary attachment figure can have life-long implications for babies. HPHB works with pregnant parents whose older children have been taken from them and put into the foster system and who are now at risk of having their newborns taken away from them as well. HPHB aims to support pregnant and birthing parents so their babies can remain at home, or when that is not possible at birth, to develop plans to preserve the parent-child relationship and minimize the length of stay in the foster system.

Responsibilities

Reporting directly to the HPHB Project Director, the Healthy Parents, Healthy Babies Social Worker will represent HPHB clients and support the successful implementation of the project.

• Represent HPHB parents on holistic defense teams including advocating for them in Bronx Family Court and other courts, meetings with family policing system actors, and with community-based programs
• Collaborate with lawyers, social workers, and advocates on interdisciplinary, holistic defense teams to prioritize and center the needs of our clients
• Provide cross-practice advocacy in legal proceedings where individuals are facing incarceration or are currently incarcerated, including short-term bail application support and ensuring access to appropriate reproductive healthcare while in custody
• Assist parents in identifying their goals, strategizing to meet those goals, and assessing progress
• Interview and assess parents to identify strengths, resources, and needs
• Engage and assess the needs of parents including potential benefits and materials throughout perinatal period
• Connect clients with a wide variety of social services and benefits, and offer case management support and advocacy
• Accompany parents to appointments to support their needs and ensure seamless access to services
• At the request of parents, visit their homes and treatment providers to meet identified needs
• Intervene in moments of crisis for our clients
• Maintain and establish relationships with community partners such as doula organizations, attachment-based programs, in-home services, and treatment providers to facilitate partnerships and offer workshops for parents connected to HPHB
• Collaborate with the HPHB Team to provide internal trainings for staff members on best practices working with pregnant clients and collaborating with social workers and advocates on Family Defense cases
• Collaborate with the Project Director to facilitate external trainings focused on working with pregnant and parenting people facing child protective investigations
• Support the HPHB Project Director with HPHB data collection by maintaining case management obligations for use in funding proposals and reports
• Provide coverage for HPHB Teammates when they are unavailable
• Be available to work flexible hours, including nights and/or weekends and be willing to serve as back up during staff shortages, when available

Qualifications

To be eligible, candidates must have:

• Master’s Degree of Social Work (M.S.W.) from an accredited School of Social Work

Applicants must demonstrate:

• Commitment to directly defending parents charged with abuse and neglect, and fighting for the reunification and stability of families 
• Understanding of how race and poverty affect parents’ experiences in the family regulation system 
• Commitment to reproductive justice and parenting freedom
• Experience working in and with racially, ethnically and socioeconomically marginalized communities
• Ability to communicate effectively and respectfully with people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences
• Ability to work well independently as well as collaboratively with an interdisciplinary team of lawyers and non-lawyers
• Commitment to fierce advocacy, and willingness to strategically challenge authority in defense of the people we represent 
• Effective research, writing and advocacy skills 
• Strong analytical skills and capacity to employ non-legal resources in cases 
• Knowledge of early childhood and attachment theory
• Effective crisis intervention skills
• Ability to multitask, maintain order and meet deadlines in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment
• Meticulous attention to detail
• Ability to think critically and creatively in fast-paced settings, finding innovative solutions to unique obstacles 
• Ability to receive constructive feedback, demonstrate introspection and shift behavior accordingly
• Ability to exercise excellent judgment, discretion, and confidentiality with sensitive matters
• Commitment to raising one’s cultural consciousness and challenging oppressive practices on an interpersonal and institutional level
• Spanish fluency is preferred but not required

This is a hybrid position that will require a baseline of 21 hours/week of in-person work.

Salary is commensurate with experience. For candidates with 1-5 years of directly relevant experience, the salary range for this position would be approximately $82,574$91.800.

Full-time employees are also eligible for a comprehensive benefits package including but not limited to medical, dental and vision coverage; a 403(b) plan with employer contribution; and a generous vacation, sick leave, and parental leave policy.

Approximately 70% of The Bronx Defenders' staff, including attorneys and non-attorneys, are represented by UAW Local 2325 - Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (AFL-CIO). This position is within the bargaining unit. 

This position is exempt. By law, exempt employees are compensated hourly based on their annual rate and therefore are entitled to over-time, whereas exempt employees are not.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

The Bronx Defenders is an equal opportunity employer and is cultivating an anti-oppressive workplace that embraces staff with a diversity of backgrounds, identities and experiences. We acknowledge the ways in which systemic oppression and injustice can undermine access to professional opportunities and are committed to conducting hiring and promotion processes that are equitable and accessible to those commonly excluded from the workforce. We do not discriminate against and in fact specifically encourage applicants from marginalized communities to apply, including those who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of color, queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, disabled, neurodivergent and those directly impacted by criminal, civil, family and immigration legal systems. We value lived as well as professional experience and particularly welcome applications from the Bronx community that we work with.