By Victoria Ratliff
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS— A disability rights group has sued the state’s Department of Child Services to force change at an agency that has high numbers of children in an overburdened foster care system.

Indiana Disability Rights, an Indianapolis organization that advocates on behalf of children, filed the civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Evansville Tuesday on behalf of all children in the DCS system. It identifies nine children who are in the foster care system as representative plaintiffs in the case.

“It is traumatic enough being separated from your parents but to then be further traumatized by a system meant to protect is terrible,” said Melissa Keyes, legal director for IDR.

In addition to the agency, Director Terry Stigdon and Gov. Eric Holcomb are named in the lawsuit.

DCS declined to comment on the pending litigation. Holcomb’s office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Currently, DCS has 22,000 children who are in the legal or physical custody of DCS or an organization with whom DCS has a special relationship. More than 14,300 of these children are in out-of-home care.

IDR worksat the state level to protect individuals with disabilities by advocating on their behalf and regularly looks at facilities who serve those with disabilities.

After examining private secure facilities licensed by DCS, IDR officials noticed they weren’t at the quality level they expected. IDR reported its findings to DCS but eventually realized that nothing was happening. IDR officials said they believe the agency wasn’t doing what it should to make sure the facilities were up to standard.

IDR then connected with A Better Childhood, a national advocacy group for children, and Kirkland & Ellis, a global law firm, to help them with a lawsuit.

During the 2019 legislative session, lawmakers provided additional funding for DCS. Although it was less than requested, DCS’s budget was raised by $243 million for 2020, and $223 million for 2021, bringing the total budget to around $800 million a year.

Two laws were passed during the session to help change DCS policies. Senate Enrolled Act 1, authored by Sen. Erin Houchin, R-Salem, provides additional support for foster families. House Enrolled Act 1006, authored by Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, extends the age foster children can receive services to 21 and updates the DCS caseload standard to comply with national guidelines.

During an event on June 13, Stigdon said that the annual turnover rate for family case managers is down nearly 19%. In 2017, the turnover rate was nearly one in three while the rate dropped to almost one in four in 2018.

Keyes said legislators and policy makers are too focused on statistics, such as case load numbers or number of employees, and not on the root cause of the issues.

“What we’re mainly looking at is more the systemic philosophical policy and practice change,” she said so children like Sara O., who is named in the lawsuit, get the level of care they need.

Sara, 14, was sexually abused by her father and was placed into foster care. After several years she was returned to him and abused again. She re-entered foster care and ended up in 17 different placements, including a state psychiatric hospital where she lived for three years.

Keyes said that the biggest issue that needs to be addressed is DCS’s tendency to put children like Sara in institutions when other community-based services should be used.

“Too often DCS is relying on placing kids in an institution when that is not a necessary level of care that they need,” she said.

The lawsuit also says that previous reports conducted by the Child Welfare Group (CWG) revealed many of the same issues, and “despite the fact that these issues have been called to the attention of officials before, they persist.”

Some of the issues highlighted in the lawsuit are failure to provide safe and appropriate foster care placements, failure to provide appropriate services to the children and their families to allow safe reunification, failure to timely pursue termination of parental rights, and failure to seek and secure safe, permanent homes.

Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, in a written statement, said Democrats in the Senate have repeatedly called for lawmakers to make DCS a priority.

“The conditions and experiences these kids have faced are disheartening, disappointing and just plain wrong,” he said.

Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, said the lawsuit shows that DCS needs oversight to protect Indiana’s most disadvantaged children.

IDR isn’t seeking monetary compensation but wants DCS to be held accountable for what the lawsuit calls failed policies and practices.

“We are looking for a systemic overhaul of how DCS is offering services to children to ensure that their rights are protected,” she said.

FOOTNOTE: Victoria Ratliff is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.