The Family Justice Initiative seeks to forge a fair, equitable, and sustainable path forward for Family Court and its system partners to better serve all New Yorkers. In response to documented statewide challenges facing Family Court, the Initiative is a collaborative approach that prioritizes areas for improvement, identifies promising programs, and explores new ideas to strengthen families, reduces unnecessary system involvement, and breaks intergenerational cycles of trauma.
In partnership with the New York State Unified Court System, and the Office of the Governor of the State of New York, the Center for Justice Innovation's role is to develop a broad vision for what makes an effective family-serving system and lead the process to create a comprehensive plan to support that vision. This report lays out the values and goals articulated by Initiative partners to date, and documents the recommendations that emerged from extensive discussions facilitated across New York State in the first phase of the project.