Foster kids in Tennessee are being denied the basic right to education, healthcare and stable homes and instead kept in unsafe institutions or bounced through multiple foster families for years at time, a lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of 13 children alleges.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by a national team of child welfare attorneys, is seeking court approval for class action status in order to represent all 9000 children in the state’s foster care system.
It alleges that the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) has persistently violated children’s constitutional rights and federal law, including Americans with Disabilities Act protections for kids with disabilities. The suit seeks a sweeping court order forcing the agency to comply.
“Tennessee’s foster care system is failing children it is intended to protect,” said the lawsuit, filed Monday in a Nashville federal court.
DCS “warehouses children in spaces which lack the basic necessities of life, including adequate food, bedding, soap and potable water,” the legal filings said. Kids fortunate enough to get a spot in a foster home, instead of an institution, are “moved from place to place without the opportunity for a stable childhood,” it said.
A DCS spokesperson referred a request for comment about the suit to the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, which declined to comment.
It is the second class action lawsuit filed in recent months against DCS alleging gross mistreatment of children the agency is mandated to protect.
DCS operates with more than $1.2 billion in state and federal funding annually to oversee two main areas of responsibility.
The first focuses on child abuse and neglect. The agency investigates allegations of abuse, oversees the state’s foster care system and provides services that help keep struggling families together.
The second is juvenile justice programs. The agency houses youth who have gotten tangled up with the state’s juvenile justice system for offenses that range from missing school to committing crimes.
While Monday’s lawsuit focuses on the actions or inactions by DCS in caring for children who have been abused or neglected, a class action lawsuit filed last year alleges a series of failures that have harmed kids with disabilities tangled up in DCS’s juvenile justice system. That suit remains ongoing.
Both lawsuits seek court-ordered changes to the way DCS operates.
Monday’s 74-page lawsuit details the unstable lives of multiple children who have been in DCS custody for years. Among them is 15-year-old “Darnell,” a pseudonym used in court filings to protect the teen’s privacy.
At eight years old, Darnell made his way to a fire station for help after being struck in the face then abandoned on the side of a road by his mother. DCS took custody.
In the eight years since that day, Darnell has been placed in at least 14 different settings. Darnell has spent half of his childhood in institutions that his DCS caseworkers acknowledge were unsuitable for his needs. Those institutions fail to provide even basic necessities to children living under their roofs.
“His (appointed legal advocate) offered to buy him a Christmas present and asked what he wanted. The only thing Darnell wanted was his ‘own deodorant stick,’” the lawsuit noted.
Darnell struggled academically, but DCS failed to get him educational testing or advocate for individualized education plans to provide him extra in-school help.
Instead, during one four-month stint outside of an institution, DCS falsely promised foster parents hoping to adopt Darnell that he was a “straight A student.” When Darnell instead struggled in school and acted out at home, the family cited a lack of information and support from DCS in ending the foster care arrangement.
Darnell’s former legal guardian continues to supply him with clothing and hygiene products inside the institution where he currently lives. The guardian has undergone all required training to become his foster parent. Despite her persistence in advocating Darnell come home with her, he remains in an institution where, he told juvenile court officials earlier this year, he feels unsafe.
The lives of other children in DCS custody detailed in the lawsuit include prolonged separation from siblings, sexual abuse, the use of inappropriate restraints and lengthy stays in temporary settings intended to house children for no more than 30 days.
Children in DCS care are “deteriorating physically, psychologically, emotionally and educationally,” the lawsuit said.
The agency has come under public scrutiny in recent years as reports emerged of children sleeping on state office floors due to a lack of a suitable foster home beds, allegations of sexual abuse in privately run institutions, caseworkers struggling with impossible caseloads and rampant turnover among disillusioned employees.
In response, Gov. Bill Lee and state lawmakers appropriated significant additional funding for the agency in 2023 to hire and train caseworkers, contract with private companies to provide institutional and foster care and create new temporary “assessment centers” and other facilities to house children.
The lawsuit alleges that, despite new funding, little has improved in the lives of children still in state custody.
Assessment centers are intended for a maximum of a 30-day stay in order to determine the best type of treatment and housing for children who have suffered abuse or neglect.
Instead, most children are there for far longer, living in “draconian conditions more commonly found in adult prisons,” the suit claims.
The centers are frequently staffed by sheriff department personnel, not child welfare workers; DCS has authorized the use of shackles on children taken off site for doctors appointments and pepper spray to subdue them. Young victims of abuse are housed at the centers alongside teens accused of crimes, the suit noted.
“Children charged with violent criminal offenses are placed together with children removed from their homes due to the trauma of inflicted violence,” the suit said. “Boys with rape and assault charges are placed together with girls.”
The suit echoes similar claims made against the agency more than two decades ago, when a 2000 class action lawsuit alleged children in DCS custody were deprived of education, healthcare and other rights, and subjected to egregious living environments
That lawsuit, known as “Brian A.,” led to 17 years of federal court oversight requiring the agency to meet basic benchmarks in their treatment of children. The oversight formally ended in 2017.
“The system quickly declined to a point even worse than it was in 2000, and now subjects children to a wide range of harms,” a statement from attorneys filing suit this week said.
The law firms filing suit are Bass Berry & Sims, A Better Childhood, The Barbara McDowell Social Justice Center, Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Wang Hecker. The lawsuit names the Department of Children’s Services as defendant along with Commissioner Margie Quin, Deputy Commissioner Carla Aaron and Deputy Commissioner Karen Jointer Bryant.
This article was originally published by the Tennessee Lookout.
