CENTER FOR FAMILY REPRESENTATION
Every Family Matters
Mission
Our mission is to keep families together. We provide families in crisis with free legal assistance and social work services to enable children to stay with their parents safely. CFR works to keep children out of foster care entirely or keep their time in care to a minimum. By minimizing time in care, CFR helps to eliminate the detrimental long-term effects of foster care on thousands of children and their families.
Ruling year
2003
Executive Director
Ms. Michele Cortese Esq.
Main address
40 Worth Street Suite 605
New York, NY 10013 USA
EIN
51-0419496
NTEE code
Family Services (P40)
Civil Rights, Advocacy for Specific Groups (R20)
IRS filing requirement
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Communication
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The problem we aim to address is families being separated through foster care. We address the problem by providing families in crisis with free legal assistance and social work services to enable children to stay with their parents safely. CFR works to keep children out of foster care entirely or keep their time in care to a minimum. By minimizing time in care, CFR helps to eliminate the detrimental long-term effects of foster care on thousands of children and their families.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Interdisciplinary Family Defense Teams
CFR's Interdisciplinary Family Defense Teams successfully combines the model of an attorney, a social worker, and a parent advocate to represent parents charged with neglect or abuse in Manhattan and Queens Family Courts. CFR was the first organization in the country to employ parent advocates who have direct past experience with losing their children to foster care and successfully re-unifying their families and who serve as mentors to clients. By combining legal and social work advocacy, we consistently keep half our clients' children out of care and significantly reduce foster care stays for children who must enter care. We save millions in tax dollars and more importantly permit children to grow up in their own families.
Training, Technical Assistance, and Policy
Annually, CFR provides training and technical assistance to more than 500 professionals across the country, including judges, on our approach to advocacy for poor families facing foster care and related legal challenges. To date, we have worked with practitioners in 14 states, who hope to replicate some or all of our Interdisciplinary Cornerstone Advocacy model. CFR senior staff regularly present at national conferences and sit on advisory boards and work groups directed toward legislative and policy reform to benefit indigent families.
Interdisciplinary Civil Legal Services Teams
Families at risk of foster care often face several challenges in addition to a family court case, especially in areas of public benefits and housing. An interruption in public benefits, like Medicaid, can mean a family can no longer access needed services; a job loss may mean a parent cannot pay rent; either can lead to children entering foster care. Our Housing Specialist and Housing Attorney intervene quickly to help parents obtain and sustain important public benefits and housing.
Where we work
External reviews
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
In 2017, CFR served nearly 3,000 families (including over 1,000 new clients), 419 children safely left foster care and reunified with their families. For children in foster care, CFR obtained improved visitation arrangements in 1,512 instances, 1,100 parents received assistance with culturally competent and individually tailored services plans (like domestic violence or mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment, and parenting skills). Attorney and social work staff advocated at 3,338 in-court and out-of-court conferences. CFR conducted 28 external trainings for 620 practitioners across the country. Over 50% of CFR's clients children never entered foster care and for those that did, their length of stay was significantly shorter than City and State medians. The minimum cost of keeping one child in foster care in New York State is $30,000 per year. CFR's services, however, cost just $6,500 per family, regardless of the number of children.
Since 2007, CFR's services have reduced the cost of foster care by more than $37 million.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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CENTER FOR FAMILY REPRESENTATION
Board of directorsas of 3/21/2022
S. Penny Windle
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
Jane Spinak
Columbia University School of Law
Shiva Farouki
Non-Practicing Attorney
Margaret Dale
Proskauer Rose LLP
John Newman
Retired, Sidley Austin LLP
Philip Segal
Segal & Greenberg LLP
Martin Guggenheim
New York University School of Law
Genevieve Christy
Center for Family Representation
Claire James
Kirkland and Ellis LLP
Christopher Karagheuzoff
Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Martha Lorini
Burson-Marsteller
Riche McKnight
Endeavor
Howard Seife
Norton, Rose Fulbright LLP
Brian Steinwurtzel
GFP Real Estate, LLC
Laura Warner
Philanthropist
Jeffrey Kessler
Winston & Strawn LLP
Patrick Toussaint
Marcus by Goldman Sachs
S. Penny Windle
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? No -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? No -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? No -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? No -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
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