GREENSBORO, N.C. — A group of caretakers for children is suing the state's foster care system saying North Carolina is not doing enough to protect kids. The 71-page complaint follows the stories of nine different children through the system. It's tough to read some of their experiences - like a 13-year-old who the lawsuit says has been in at least 22 foster care placements.
Then there's the story of an 8-year-old named Jameson who the suit said was diagnosed with PTSD due to severe sexual, physical and emotional abuse. In two years, he went to five different homes and the suit goes on to say, “In the two years following his removal, Jameson never received mental health treatment or specialized therapy. Indeed, consistent treatment was impossible given the frequency and distance of his placement changes."
The suit says all of this is happening because the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services failed to license, recruit and retain a sufficient number of appropriate foster homes. That's despite evidence the state knew this was a problem back in 2015. The lawsuit goes on to cite news reports showing DSS had "kids sleeping in the conference room" at the DSS building.
A DHHS spokesperson said the department could not comment on pending litigation, but they sent this statement about their care for foster children in general:
“NCDHHS takes seriously its responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of children and families in North Carolina and shares a vision that every child can grow up healthy in a safe, nurturing family and community. We are committed to improving services that are needed for child welfare-involved families. There are fundamental challenges within the North Carolina child welfare system – including its decentralized structure, staffing shortages, and a long history of underfunding from the state – which cause inherent inequities between counties and directly impact outcomes for children and families. The state’s child welfare system ranks last in per-child funding among peer states with decentralized child welfare systems. Within the context of these challenges, NCDHHS has continued to work to improve the system. We’ve worked with the General Assembly to strengthen the department’s authority to support and oversee county decision making; secured funding and positions to hire regional directors; and are moving forward with the Children and Families Specialty Plan, leveraging Medicaid dollars to provide more consistency and access for families involved in the child welfare system across the state. We support SB625 (the original version (4th edition) passed by the Senate unanimously in April 2023) as an important opportunity to further improve the system by granting NCDHHS additional authority in child welfare cases. Legislative action is needed to better serve children and families, alleviate the child welfare staffing crisis, provide aid to counties and increase capacity of courts to expedite permanency. … please see some of the work underway to improve child welfare in North Carolina:
- Implementing the Regional Support model created under Rylan's Law (S.L. 2017-41) for all 100 counties social service agencies. DHHS will deploy continuous quality improvement and technical assistance in safety, permanence, and using the agency data to drive effective services that protect children, promote our value of health and well-being for all North Carolina.
- Our newly developed Regional Director positions are all filled with the exception of one – and our county partners are already benefiting from the wealth of knowledge our regional directors bring to these critical positions.
- $80 million from the NCGA to strengthen specialized behavioral health treatment options in local communities and increase residential and inpatient settings for children to divert them from emergency rooms and local DSS offices.
- These include treatment programs to safely stabilize children who are experiencing a behavioral health crisis with emergency department diversion, mobile outreach response crisis teams, specialty treatment programs for children with complex behavioral health needs, and intensive supports in the community.
- Awarded a new Medicaid Children and Families Specialty Plan that will support children, youth and families served by the child welfare system in receiving seamless, integrated, and coordinated health.
- Implemented a new Emergency Placement Fund to ensure children are not languishing in inappropriate settings like DSS offices.
- Funding for the development and implementation of a trauma-informed, standardized assessment to address the trauma experienced by children and youth served by the child welfare system.
- NC DSS has launched a statewide foster family awareness campaign. The number of licensed foster homes in the state have increased from 5,825 in December 2023 to 6,081 in June
- With support from the NCGA, NCDHHS launched a new Kinship program, providing financial supports to unlicensed kinship providers to increase the number of foster-care involved youth who are placed in kinship care.
- As of June, there were over 1,600 unlicensed kinship families eligible to receive financial support, with nearly $600K going to families in that month alone. Over 2500 children are with their families as a result of this work.
- We’ve improved training for workers: the redesigned Child Welfare Pre-Service Training curriculum will provide new workers opportunities to practice knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors grounded in realistic on-the-job experiences.”
One last important point about this lawsuit - it's not for monetary damages. Instead of money, the class action aims to get a judge to force more changes at the state level.