The Legal Aid Society and Lawyers For Children condemned a proposed policy from the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) that fails to conserve the Social Security Disability Benefits of disabled children in foster care – most of whom are Black and Latinx children from impoverished communities.

Advocates also called on ACS to amend current practice to ensure that foster youth whose Survivors Benefits ACS previously diverted and collected are retroactively made whole. These benefits are a federal insurance program intended to stabilize a child’s future if a parent dies. While the City reformed its practices around the benefit in 2022, there is currently no way for children in care before 2022 to recoup their own funds from ACS.

“This proposed policy deprives New York City’s most vulnerable children of critical benefits that would help them succeed before and after leaving foster care, instead perpetuating their continued marginalization,” said Dawne Mitchell, Chief Attorney of the Juvenile Rights Practice at The Legal Aid Society.

“It also does nothing to make children whole who were in foster care and eligible for Survivor Benefits prior to the 2022 shift in practice,” she continued. “We call on ACS to revise this proposed policy to allow children in foster care to access and utilize desperately needed federal benefits.”