Inaugural Child Policy Forum of New York
Held on April 26, 2007, the Brooklyn College Children's Studies Center organized the inaugural child policy forum to focus discussion on pending legislation for an Independent Office of the Child Advocate of New York and on child policies in the city and state of New York. The policy forum is a continuation and expansion of the Children's Studies policy research initiative that began with the Carnegie Corporation–funded policy symposium, Children and the Law in New York, held on March 11, 2004. A central goal of the symposium was to explore the idea of the establishment of an Independent Office of the Child Advocate for New York. As a result of the policy symposium, legislation for such an office was first introduced in the New York State Assembly and subsequently in the New York State Senate. Children's Studies continues to work with legislative offices and children- and youth-related organizations to provide a child-centered and human rights perspective on the major issues as they arise in the systems of education, health and mental health, child welfare, and juvenile justice/criminal justice, in which children and youth from minority and disadvantaged backgrounds are often overrepresented.
Left to right: Honorable Kevin S. Parker, New York State Senate; Bob Herz, legislative director for Senator Martin J. Golden, New York State Senate; Gertrud Lenzer, director of the Children's Studies Center; Honorable Michael A. Corriero, presiding judge of Manhattan Youth Part, New York State Supreme Court; Honorable Barbara M. Clark, New York State Assembly; Honorable William Scarborough, chair of the Standing Committee on Children and Families, New York State Assembly; Honorable Betsy Gotbaum, public advocate for the City of New York; Honorable Rhoda Jacobs, New York State Assembly.
