Wide-Ranging Settlement Requires ACS to Improve Services for Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities

Five parents with known or suspected intellectual or developmental disabilities in New York City (“Named Plaintiffs”) who have been investigated by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) filed this lawsuit in October 2017, on behalf of themselves and similarly situated parents (the “Plaintiff Class” or “class Members”), against the Defendant, The City of New York. The lawsuit claims that the Defendant has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to offer reasonable accommodations, failing to make its services accessible to parents with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and discriminating against these parents by assuming that they are not capable of parenting. By filing this lawsuit, the Plaintiffs sought a court order that would require the City to tailor its service to the needs of these parents so that they could benefit from ACS’s services in the same manner as non-disabled parents. Plaintiffs do not seek any money from the Defendant for the alleged discriminatory conduct.

Now the Parties have reached a proposed settlement on behalf of “all parents with actual or suspected intellectual or developmental disabilities who have been reported to the New York Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment, and who have been or will be investigated by ACS pursuant to such report.” The proposed settlement would:

• Provide special parenting classes and one-on-one coaching tailored to the needs of parents with intellectual/developmental disabilities, and refer Class Members to those services when appropriate, with limits on the length of time any parent must wait to begin those services;
• Employ a Parent Resource Manager within ACS’s Developmental Disabilities Unit to advise and support ACS staff and foster care / preventive agency case planners;
• Utilize special protocols before taking certain adverse actions in Class Members’ cases;
• Send a communication to child protective specialists and case planners when they indicate that a parent may have an intellectual/developmental disability, or when they are first assigned to such a case, to remind them of the resources available and the obligations of the Settlement;
• Utilize an individual relief process for parents who believe they have been discriminated against;
• Train their staff, and the case planners at foster care and prevention agencies, on how to better handle cases involving parents with intellectual or developmental disabilities;
• Provide monitoring to the Plaintiffs’ attorneys;
• Meet regularly with Plaintiffs’ attorneys to discuss and attempt to resolve any continuing systemic concerns.

The Court has preliminarily approved the settlement and scheduled a Fairness Hearing for January 18, 2023 at 10:30am in Courtroom 443 of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 40 Foley Square, New York, New York.