Emma Educates Us

New York, I Love You But You've Changed

The vast majority of cases brought to the attention of New York City's child protection system are cases of neglect, not abuse. Neglect is a subjective term that is applied quite differently in the city's poor neighborhoods than in its rich ones. Letting your child wander independently down the sidewalk in Park Slope is a funny anecdote. In the South Bronx, where more than 30% of our city's foster children hail from, this is often considered posing imminent risk to a child's life- and can result in that child being forcefully removed from their parent. In this episode, our guest Emma Ketteringham explains why our city's child protection system deserves to be subject to the same critique as our country's system of mass incarceration, why it hasn't been and its effect on families in NYC's poorest neighborhoods. Emma is the managing director of the Family Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders, a public defender organization determined to give their clients the high quality, multi-disciplinary representation that residents of more privileged neighborhoods have come to expect from private attorneys. Emma manages 50 lawyers, advocates, and social workers who represent over 85% of parents involved in child protection cases in the South Bronx. Drawing from her impressive professional experience as a public interest lawyer, historical and political knowledge and personal reference library of straight up facts, Emma paints us a clear picture of how the system fails to serve the parents and children it was built to protect. We also learn more about the incredible progress the Defenders have made and how we can help address one of the most important social and feminist issues our city faces. Oh, Alexis and Emma also throw you some book recommendations and some commentary on what makes Cardi B so great. As always, you can find links to everything referenced in this episode on our website.