CENTER FOR FAMILY REPRESENTATION
Every Family Matters
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
In NYC alone, thousands of families are separated each year by systems of foster care and youth incarceration. 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 the foster system entirely or keep their time in care to a minimum. By minimizing time in the system, CFR helps to eliminate the detrimental long-term effects of the foster system 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

Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of training workshops
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of people received immigration service
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of clients assisted with housing and public benefits
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of clients served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
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?
CFR defends the rights of parents and youth in the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.
Through our free, holistic interdisciplinary legal and social work representation, we aim to preserve the integrity of families, primarily low-income Black and brown parents and youth targeted by systems of family regulation and incarceration.
Our goals are to help parents raise their children with self-determination, to reduce reliance on the foster system and youth incarceration, and to address the underlying causes of family instability.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our unique holistic model (consisting of an interdisciplinary family defense team with an attorney, a social worker, and a parent advocate) is being replicated nationally and has been proven to improve child safety and save the government millions in reduced foster care costs.
Our attorneys represent parents in family court to ensure that the city meets its legal obligations to families. Social work staff connects parents with needed services, such as substance use treatment, counseling, or day care. Parent advocates use their unique position as peers who overcame similar challenges to mentor our clients and provide emotional support.
If parents need assistance in venues beyond family court, as a result of challenges with immigration, housing, public benefits, or a criminal prosecution, the family defense team refers clients to attorneys and social workers in our Home for Good practice areas.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
CFR's model has benefited over 12,000 families over the past two decades. More than 55% of CFR families avoid the foster system altogether. In 2022, almost 85% of our youth clients avoided pre-sentencing incarceration.
In 2022, CFR provided dozens of training sessions to nearly 3,000 professionals around the city, state and country. In 2022, we expanded the scope of our work by launching our Bronx practice, marking the third borough that CFR serves. We were also proud to hire our first father as a parent advocate.
Since 2007, we’ve reduced the cost of the foster system by more than $50 million for the city.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
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With whom is the organization sharing feedback?
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
CENTER FOR FAMILY REPRESENTATION
Board of directorsas of 01/27/2023
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? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data