Experienced Family Court Defense | NJ Superior Court Juvenile Part
DCPP showed up at your door. Maybe they took your child. Maybe they're threatening to. Everything you thought you understood about your rights as a parent - about how the system is supposed to work - is about to be tested. And the system does not work the way you think it does.
The emergency removal triggers a machine. Within 48 hours, there's a hearing. Within 60 days, an investigation concludes. And a clock starts ticking that most parents don't even know exists. By the time you realize what's happening, you've already lost weeks. Sometimes months. The window to fight back effectively gets smaller every day.
Welcome to Spodek Law Group. We handle NJ Superior Court Family Part cases - DCPP investigations, abuse and neglect allegations, termination of parental rights proceedings. We've seen how this system operates from the inside. And what we're about to explain is information most parents never receive until it's too late to matter.
The system isn't designed around reunification. It's designed around the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act timeline. That clock favors termination.
The Clock Nobody Tells You About
Federal law requires states to file for termination of parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months. This isn't a suggestion or a guideline. It's a mandate. The Adoption and Safe Families Act created this timeline in 1997, and every state - including New Jersey - must follow it.
Heres how the timeline actually works:
- Month 0: Your child is removed. The clock starts.
- Month 3: First quarterly assessment. DCPP evaluates your "progress."
- Months 9-12: If DCPP determines you're showing unsatisfactory improvement, they begin exploring adoption options. Before the permanency hearing. Before you even realize whats happening.
- Month 12: Permanency hearing. DCPP presents their long-term plan.
- Month 15: Federal law requires DCPP to file for termination of parental rights.
Between months 9 and 12 is where most parents lose there cases without knowing it. DCPP isn't waiting for the permanency hearing to decide your fate. Their already exploring adoption - looking at potential adoptive families, documenting why reunification "isn't working." By the time you walk into that 12-month hearing, the decision may already be made.
Every three months from placement, DCPP completes an assessment in a system called NJ SPIRIT. These assessments determine whether your "making progress" toward reunification. The definition of progress is whatever DCPP says it is. Miss a few counseling sessions? Thats a lack of progress. Show up late to visitation? Documented. Have a disagreement with your caseworker? They write it down.
By the time most parents understand these timelines, theyve already lost critical months. The clock was running before they knew it existed.
How "Cooperation" Becomes Evidence Against You
You have rights. Under New Jersey law, you dont have to let DCPP investigators into your home. You dont have to speak with them. You dont have to consent to interviews with your children. These rights exist on paper. Exercising them can destroy your case.
Heres what practitioner sources actualy say about this: "Lack of cooperation can be held against you. The Division can proceed to court to try to compel your participation and can also interpret your silence as an admission of guilt."
Your in an impossible position. Talk and give them ammunition. Stay silent and they call it an admission. Theres a way through this - but not without experienced counsel guiding every step.
The service plan looks like help. Counseling. Drug testing. Parenting classes. Anger management. DCPP presents it as a roadmap to getting your child back. It becomes a checklist they use against you.
Miss a counseling session - documented. Late to a drug test - documented. Cant afford the transportation to get to a parenting class forty minutes away - documented as "failure to comply." The plan designed to reunify your family becomes the evidence justifying termination.
DCPP must prove that "parent has not cooperated with services offered or has not completed services within a year of child removal." Every service you agreed to. Every appointment you missed. Every test you were late for. All of it goes in the file. All of it gets presented at the permanency hearing as proof that reunification isnt possible.
What a Substantiated Finding Really Means
New Jersey uses a four-tier findings system for DCPP investigations: Substantiated, Established, Not Established, and Unfounded. Most people think its guilty or not guilty. Its not that simple.
- Substantiated: Preponderance of evidence proves abuse or neglect occurred. Permanent registry placement. Potential criminal charges.
- Established: Some credible evidence supports the finding. Still affects employment, adoption rights, future DCPP proceedings.
- Not Established: Insufficient evidence either way. Investigation closed.
- Unfounded: Evidence shows allegation is false. Investigation closed.
In criminal court, the government needs proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In Family Court, DCPP only needs "preponderance of the evidence" - 51%. More likely then not. That means accusations that would never survive criminal court can destroy families in Family Part. Criminal-level consequences on a civil-level standard of proof.
A substantiated finding puts your name on New Jersey's Child Abuse Registry - permanently. Once your on this registry, your name can never be removed. And it dosent just affect jobs working with children.
Drug treatment facilities. Mental health programs. Healthcare for elderly and developmentally disabled adults. Fields with no children involved at all. The registry blocks you from employment in all of them. A 2023 lawsuit challenged this as unconstitutional - arguing that lifelong registration is a civil rights violation even when someone poses no ongoing risk. The registry remains in effect.
Todd Spodek has seen what happens when families face these proceedings without proper representation. The consequences dont just last for years. They last forever. And by the time most people understand what there facing, critical deadlines have already passed.
When Your Ready
If DCPP has removed your child, you have 48 hours before the emergency hearing. What happens in that hearing shapes everything that follows. The decisions made in those first two days - who represents you, what arguments are made, what evidence is preserved - can determine whether reunification remains possible.
We understand how terrifying this is. We understand the system feels stacked against you. It is - unless you have experienced counsel fighting back from day one.
Spodek Law Group handles NJ Superior Court Family Part cases throughout New Jersey. Call 212-300-5196. The clock is already running. Dont lose another day.
Were here when you need us.
