Removing Children From Abusive Homes

We have to learn from our mistakes:

New York City has enacted a tough new policy that allows the authorities to remove newborns from their parents’ homes in all but an “extraordinary instance” if the parents previously had children taken from their custody and their case is still open.

John B. Mattingly, the city’s commissioner of children’s services, announced the more aggressive approach during a City Council budget hearing on Tuesday at which he faced questions on his agency’s role in the death of Pablo Paez, an 11-week-old boy whose older sibling had been removed from the same home at age 3 months, a year earlier.

The children’s mother, Kiana Paez, a 23-year-old drug addict, was charged on April 25 with beating Pablo to death. Child welfare workers had been in frequent contact with Ms. Paez since the first baby was placed in foster care because of violence in the home, but they did not try to remove Pablo.

Mr. Mattingly said that the new policy was influenced by the Paez case, but that he had been considering the changes — a natural outgrowth of other changes he had made at the agency — for a long time. The policy, which had been toughened in 2006, was officially revised again on April 21, 18 days after the baby’s injuries were discovered.