How can I get my kids?

Q:  My kids are in foster care and their mom is back and forth in jail because of outstanding warrants. Its coming up on 1 year since my children have been in foster care and I want to know how I can get my kids. I hired an attorney thinking that this would get resolved quickly but ACS sure has a way of dragging things along. No one lets me know how my kids are doing, it seems that ACS and the foster care agency is on the mother's side. I have ran out of money to pay my attorney and I still don't know whats going to happen to my kids. There were neglect charges against me and the mother because we got into a fight in front of the kids. I dont know what to do anymore. I can't get unsupervised visits because I do not live in NY and I dont have anywhere to bring them for the visit.

Additional information
I travel from Florida to New York to visit with my kids for 2 hours every Friday. I just recently started getting Saturday visits for 2 hours. I cannot take my kids outside to the park or even for a walk and I've never hurt them before. When the mother was released the 1st time she was around the kids even though there is an order of protection against her and the kids and no one does anything about it. If she gets the kids I will never see them again and I dont have any money for another attorney. What are my options considering that I do not live in New York anymore

A:  David's Answer:  In short, if you want custody of your children you would need to file a custody petition & have ACS & the mother served with the petition (along with the Attorney for the Children). Without knowing the reasons why your visitation was supervised in the first place, it's hard to say what the Judge wants you to do to get them to the point of being unsupervised. If you may under about $35,000 per & do not have any property or major assets, you may qualify for free court-assigned counsel. Otherwise, you'd have a tough battle to win a custody case without being represented by an attorney. It seems worth it for you to schedule a free phone consultation with a NYC Child Custody attorney, particularly one with experience in ACS matters.   -- David Bliven, Bronx Child Custody attorney (www.blivenlaw.net)